Andrew Stanfill
Huntley Johnson, the go-to criminal-defense lawyer for U. of Florida athletes in a town obsessed with college sports, has represented almost 30 Gator football players since 1984.
The warning came in December.
Huntley Johnson, a local attorney known for representing University of Florida athletes who get into trouble, wasn't happy. His client, a star wide receiver, had been accused of sexual assault, and even though the athlete had been cleared by the university, Mr. Johnson criticized the process.
So he sent the university some demands. In a letter, he requested changes in how sexual-assault cases are handled, including how accused students are treated during an investigation. He also wanted the university to pay nearly $400,000 of the legal fees of the football player, Antonio Callaway.
If those conditions weren't met, Mr. Johnson wrote, there would be consequences.
"It saddens us to think of the publicity that will be generated," he told the university, "and the incredible amount of money that will be lost in the pursuit of remedies that should be reached quietly, quickly between the parties."
A month later, when the university hadn't complied, Mr. Johnson showed he was a man of his word. He essentially declared war against his own alma mater and launched a barrage of public-records requests. He has filed more than 75 such requests since January.
The thousands of pages of records he obtained reveal numerous unflattering details about the University of Florida, including pornography purchases by a top administrator and improper spending on a new presidential house.
The continuing battle provides a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of one of the nation's top public-research universities. It's also a lesson in the disruption and damage that can occur when someone deeply connected to a university goes rogue.
Month after month, the university has been pummeled by negative headlines in The Gainesville Sun, just as Mr. Johnson promised. Is his crusade a form of accountability? Is it vengeance? Maybe it's both.
A Formidable Opponent
Other colleges, too, have battled similar types of agitators. At the University of Oregon, an economics professor, William T. Harbaugh, files more records requests than any news-media outlet, according to the university's public-records office. Mr. Harbaugh operates a blog, UOMatters, dedicated to bringing administrators' misdeeds to light.
In Texas, Wallace L. Hall used his time on the University of Texas system's Board of Regents to relentlessly investigate the flagship campus in Austin. Mr. Hall, whose term on the board ended this year, helped bring significant problems to light, including an admissions scandal in which students with connections to legislators, regents, or donors were being accepted with questionable academic qualifications.
But Mr. Hall was also accused of being a conservative ideologue focused on removing the flagship's president, and he was censured by state lawmakers for "behavior unbefitting a nominee for and holder of a state office."
Mr. Johnson, who earned his law degree from the University of Florida, acknowledges that he would still like to collect on his six-figure legal bill, but he says his larger goal is to reform the university. He plucks a line from A Midsummer Night's Dream to argue that Florida is attacking the messenger rather than focusing on the serious problems he's brought to light.
"Why do they run away?" he says, quoting Shakespeare. "This is knavery of them to make me afeard."
Mr. Johnson has spent decades as the go-to criminal-defense lawyer for University of Florida athletes in a town obsessed with college sports. He has sources. He knows where secrets are hidden.
He has been so successful at defending students accused of rape, assault, and other serious crimes that he's been called a "fixer" for Gators — the guy who makes embarrassing problems go away.
When athletics programs are criticized for enabling athletes' bad behavior, Florida is one of the places that gets mentioned. A 2015 investigation by ESPN found that 80 athletes at the university had been named as suspects over a five-year period, accounting for more than 100 crimes. More than half the time, the athletes never faced charges, had charges against them dropped, or were not prosecuted. College-aged males in Gainesville, meanwhile, enjoyed those same outcomes only about 28 percent of the time.
Mr. Johnson disputes that the system is rigged to favor athletes, and he complains that the University of Florida was deeply unfair to Mr. Callaway, his client. During the sexual-assault investigation, Mr. Callaway was placed on interim suspension — an action that the lawyer says was unjustified. The suspension meant that the student could take classes only online and had to move out of his dorm apartment.
"It saddens us to think of the publicity that will be generated and the incredible amount of money that will be lost in the pursuit of remedies that should be reached quietly, quickly between the parties."
But the university still was accused of favoring Mr. Callaway in its handling of the case — particularly after it named Jake Schickel as the hearing officer who would rule on the sexual-assault allegation. Mr. Schickel is a Florida law graduate, former student-athlete, and donor to the Florida Football Boosters.
The accuser boycotted the hearing in protest. Mr. Schickel ruled in the Mr. Callaway's favor, after which the accuser filed a Title IX complaint with the U.S. Department of Education. In January the department opened an investigation.
"Our client wants to make sure that nobody else gets treated like this by a university," said John Clune, the accuser's lawyer. "You fundamentally can't have a trial about a football player and have a financial booster of the football team be the judge. That's crazy."
Taking on the General Counsel
Huntley Johnson's records requests are often laser-focused. A frequent target has been Jamie L. Keith, who resigned in May as general counsel and vice president.
Mr. Johnson began by asking for emails between Ms. Keith and the university's current and former presidents. Then he asked for records related to a management coach who had been hired to counsel Ms. Keith after employees complained she was incompetent. Then Mr. Johnson started asking for Ms. Keith's phone records and for text messages she exchanged with other university leaders.
Mr. Johnson says in an interview that his interest in the general counsel was sparked by the sexual-assault allegations against Mr. Callaway. He says that he discussed his request for Mr. Callaway's attorney's fees with Ms. Keith, and that the conversations didn't go well.
"We were lied to by Ms. Keith on more than one occasion, and it was her lying to us that caused us to take a greater interest in her role at the University of Florida," Mr. Johnson says. "We realized that she was, in our opinion, not an asset to the university."
In a statement to The Chronicle, Ms. Keith responded, "In 32 years of practice I have never before been accused of lying to opposing counsel or had my ethics called into question."
Employee surveys from the general counsel's office, obtained by Mr. Johnson, show that employees said Ms. Keith "covertly schemes and manipulates situations, facts and people" and was focused on "how to puppeteer the trustees and the president" to advance her agenda.
A university investigation is examining allegations that Ms. Keith edited some of those employee responses to make them less critical. For example, the original version of one survey response included this criticism of Ms. Keith: "You are not competent to practice law. In fact, every time you become involved in an actual legal matter, the situation worsens."
A slightly softer assessment is found in the version the university released as a public record: "When you become involved in an actual legal matter, the situations worsens. This an issue of competency."
Other sections of the original employee responses are absent from the university's official version. They include charges that the general counsel scripted the minutes of the Board of Trustees meetings, and that she plotted to keep some trustees from gaining power so she herself could "retain the power and control."
It is a crime in the state of Florida to alter public records.
Ms. Keith denied making alterations. "I can tell you unequivocally that I did not change any survey responses, period," she said.
The former general counsel also defended her overall job performance and minimized the importance of the anonymous employee survey. "I was accountable to the President and Board, who consistently praised the office's and my high standards, quality, and performance during my 10 1/2 years at UF," she wrote. "Due to anonymity throughout and informality of the survey, it is impossible to tell whether criticism is the opinion of one person or several and, in any event, it is not a majority of the office and reflects differences in opinion on how best to continuously raise the bar in legal services."
The internal auditor's investigation is expected to be completed in the coming weeks.
In March, a few weeks after the investigation began, Ms. Keith took a leave of absence. She told The Gainesville Sun that the decision was made to allow her office to function "as normally as possible" while making sure that "there is no appearance of my influencing the investigation."
In his office, Mr. Johnson displays a blown-up copy of the Sun article that announced Ms. Keith's leave.
Two months later, when Ms. Keith officially resigned, Mr. Johnson added a poster board of that article, too.
Resurrecting the Past
The Nov. 17, 2015, internal audit is labeled "CONFIDENTIAL" in red letters.
It shows that the University of Florida's internal auditors found a variety of spending irregularities in the construction of the $3.4-million presidential house, which was completed earlier that year. At times, the university selected construction firms that weren't the lowest bidders, and in other cases it didn't put the work out to bid at all. To help reduce costs, the university asked interested construction firms if they wanted to donate building materials or labor — a practice that raised conflict-of-interest concerns. Two companies that lost their bids suddenly became winners after they agreed to donate.
A year and a half after the audit was released, Mr. Johnson and his law partner, Amy Osteryoung, became aware of its existence. Once they obtained the audit through a public-records request, the Sun followed suit, leading to an article that belatedly forced university administrators to publicly acknowledge the problems.
It's a textbook example of how Mr. Johnson's battle against the university has at times veered into unexpected terrain, bringing fresh scrutiny to issues that administrators might rather keep quiet.
Another example: An email exchange between Ms. Keith and J. Bernard Machen, a longtime University of Florida president who stepped down in 2014.
Mr. Johnson's battle against the university has at times veered into unexpected terrain, bringing fresh scrutiny to issues that administrators might rather keep quiet.
Mr. Machen emailed the general counsel while he was negotiating the terms of his final payout from the university. He was upset. "The latest draft from your attorney had totally screwed up what I was asking for," he wrote. He pointed out that when Ms. Keith's contract had been up for renewal, "I asked you what you wanted and then gave it to you. No quibbles, no negotiating."
"You and the board are a disgrace and I will never forget it," he wrote. "Are you so callous that you forget how I treated you in a humane, respectful manner? I deserve the same consideration."
The board agreed to a contract revision that added $390,000 to the value of Mr. Machen's post-presidency compensation, for a total of $3.9 million over five years. He had earned about $500,000 in base salary, but most of his $3.9-million payout was classified under "annual noncompete payments" of $450,000. That payment prohibits Mr. Machen — who reportedly puts in four hours a week as a part-time consultant for the university — from doing work for any member institution of the Association of American Universities that's ranked higher than Florida.
The last-minute contract revision meant that the university gave Mr. Machen a more generous deal just as he was walking out the door — a time when the university arguably had greater negotiating leverage.
In an interview, Mr. Machen said Ms. Keith had been only tangentially involved in negotiating his contract, and that his updated contract provided value for the university.
"There are people who didn't want me to leave," he said. "It keeps me here, it keeps me from helping other universities."
James H. Finkelstein, a professor emeritus of public policy at George Mason University, says the noncompete provision in Mr. Machen's contract was unusual. Mr. Finkelstein, who has reviewed about 250 presidential contracts, says Mr. Machen's was the only one to have such a clause.
"I don't know what purpose is served here," he says, "except as a way to provide a former president who was successful and well-liked by their board with an additional gift on the way out the door."
It's clear that at least some University of Florida leaders have grown tired of Mr. Johnson's digging. Last month he attended a Board of Trustees meeting to scold everyone for the $300,000, custom-designed swimming pool that was being planned for the university president's home.
"A pool project worthy of the Taj Mahal," proclaimed Mr. Johnson, souring the mood of a meeting that, until then, had focused on feel-good items like the university's athletics successes and its rise in national rankings.
The trustees weren't amused, and they cut off Mr. Johnson the moment his allotted speaking time of five minutes had expired.
"I have one more sentence …," he protested.
"No, sir, your five minutes is over," responded Mori Hosseini, a trustee.
Since then the pool project has been scrapped. Janine Sikes, a university spokeswoman, told The Chronicle that the project had been abandoned because of "extreme soil conditions."
'Very Unseemly'
Chris Loschiavo left the University of Florida behind. But Huntley Johnson followed him.
In May, Mr. Johnson obtained the employee file for Mr. Loschiavo — who had been the campus Title IX coordinator — at his new job, a similar position at Florida Polytechnic University.
Mr. Loschiavo was fired from the University of Florida last year, after he'd clashed with Mr. Johnson over the Antonio Callaway sexual-assault case.
During that case, Mr. Johnson complained to the university that Mr. Loschiavo had a conflict of interest because of his outside consulting job for the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, which advises colleges on how to handle Title IX cases.
But why would Mr. Johnson care about his old foe's landing a job elsewhere?
In a May 18 letter sent to the University of Florida's president, general counsel's office, and a trustee, Mr. Johnson laid out his concerns. The university's internal investigation of Mr. Loschiavo, the letter stated, had uncovered issues beyond the conflict-of-interest allegation — issues related to "very unseemly, totally inappropriate" purchases that had been made using Mr. Loschiavo's university email account.
Email records show that Loschiavo had used his university email address to receive receipts for X-rated DVDs such as Wild Wet T.Com 13 Dream Girls Gone Wild 18+ and Deep Sleep Threesome Sleeping Sex.
Yet the university had recommended Mr. Loschiavo for the job at Florida Polytechnic, Mr. Johnson wrote: "What is the university going to do about this?"
Two weeks later, the answer came. Florida officials, for the first time, announced that Mr. Loschiavo's termination had resulted from the DVD purchases.
The university's admission that it had fired a top administrator because of pornography was accompanied by another stunner: Mr. Loschiavo's boss, Jen Day Shaw, dean of students, was being forced to step down because she was the one who had provided the glowing reference. "Fantastic. Incredibly knowledgeable. Amazing work ethic," she'd written to Florida Polytechnic officials in March. "Superb supervisor. Strategic. Great collaboration. My very highest endorsement!!!"
Mr. Loschiavo was fired by Florida Polytechnic because of his nondisclosure of information related to his previous employer.
The sudden unemployment of both Mr. Loschiavo and Ms. Shaw was a victory for Mr. Johnson, but not everyone agreed it was the right outcome.
Mr. Loschiavo, in an interview, said the movies he purchased on eBay were bought at home, on his personal computer, outside of working hours. He admitted forgetting that he had set up his eBay receipts to automatically go to his university email account.
Ms. Shaw was highly respected. After she was forced out, a dozen former and current student leaders — including the student-body president, W. Smith Meyers — wrote a letter to the university president and the chair of the Board of Trustees, asking that Ms. Shaw be allowed to keep her job. They praised her as a "fierce ally and staunch supporter" of students and asked that administrators "stand up to external and internal pressure."
Ms. Shaw declined to comment. A couple of days after her departure, her husband, Andrew, sent an email to W. Kent Fuchs, the University of Florida's president, complaining that her years of exemplary service were being overlooked. His wife, Mr. Shaw wrote, had mentored troubled students and started important programs such as a food pantry for needy students and a "Gator Career Closet" that lends business suits to students who have job interviews.
"So all of that and 7 years of nothing but working long hours and being on call 24/7 for pretty much every day of that 7 years," he wrote, "and she is forced to resign for such a petty reason."
In an interview, Mr. Fuchs said the position of Title IX coordinator requires a high standard of conduct. And for Ms. Shaw who is the supervisor in Title IX cases, the same standard applies, he said.
A public institution has to respond to public perception, he said.
The public pressure on Mr. Fuchs is likely to continue. After all, Mr. Johnson is still peppering the university with records requests.
Are more shoes about to drop?
"Unfortunately," Mr. Johnson says, "this is not a two-legged animal. The answer to your question is yes."
Michael Vasquez is a senior investigative reporter. Follow him on Twitter @MrMikeVasquez,or email him at michael.vasquez@chronicle.com.
