Escambia County is alleging in legal filings that more than 60,000 of Commissioner Jeff Bergosh's text messages were illegally taken from his personal cell phone by his former political opponent Jonathan Owens.

It’s the latest development in the Emergency Medical Service training scandal that upended the Escambia County government in 2019 and resulted in the arrest of four senior-level EMS personnel in 2020 for falsifying training records.

Two of the four arrested entered a pre-trial diversion program and avoided criminal penalties, the former EMS chief pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor charges, and the training director was adjudicated guilty of seven felony charges of falsifying an official document.

Escambia County's former medical director, Dr. Rayme Edler, who publicly blew the whistle on the training issues and was forced out of county government, filed suit against the county in federal court in 2020 under the False Claims Act.

The suit has quietly been moving through the early stages of litigation for the last three years.

What is the lawsuit about?

The False Claims Act allows individuals to sue on behalf of the government over fraud, and a person who successfully wins a lawsuit is eligible for a portion of the money they recovered for the government.

Edler's suit alleges the county committed fraud against the U.S. government by providing ambulance services without certified personnel as required by Medicare, submitting claims to Medicare for nonemergency...

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