TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Florida State's DeVoe L. Moore Center has obtained all the FBI subpoenaed documents sent by the City of Tallahassee.
On Thursday, FSU's DeVoe Moore Center clarified that it partnered with the Tallahassee Democrat to obtain all the documents the paper received via a public records request to the city.
The DeVoe Moore Center said that it contributed to the Democrat’s portion of the total fees charged by the city for producing those records.
Alison Faris, who is with the City of Tallahassee, said the original estimate of $9,375 was provided to the Democrat, the law firm of Messer Caparello, and one other entity, who requested copies of the subpoenaed documents.
In an effort to be equitable, the City split the cost equally between the three entities. The Democrat’s share of the cost was $3,125.
The City says that the Democrat submitted a check in the amount of $3,000. Faris said the City had no communication with the Moore Center and had no knowledge of the arrangement between the two.
She says the City has only received $6,125 between the Democrat and Messer Caparello, P.A. Attorneys At Law. The third entity did not submit payment and, as a result, did not receive a copy of the records from the City.
The documents include the first federal subpoena (CRA and COT) and the subpoena specifically calling for documents from Scott Maddox and associates, which comes out to over 140,000 documents in total.
While they are in cooperation with the Democrat, Dr. Staley, Director of DeVoe L. Moore Center, says that they have two totally separate agendas.
"It's unfortunate that it took an FBI investigation to sort of release this kind of data at a scale large enough to do this kind of analysis, but we're very much about taking advantage of these opportunities. Again, we have no interest in seeing any individual being negatively affected by this," said Staley. "It's really about understanding the development process as it really works."
The DeVoe Center says they wanted to purchase the documents in hopes that they will give them insight into relationships that help propel city projects forward.
They want to add rigor to urban development strategies that are currently in place, and they hope these documents will offer up solutions that may be used to help make Tallahassee even better in the future.
Both the Democrat and the DeVoe Center received the documents a week ago.
Staley says this research has the potential to be used as a national model. He says students and faculty will work together on the project. The center says the research is separate from DeVoe Moore himself.
He says once his team is able to break down these documents and do some more in-depth research he hopes to have a preliminary report sometime next spring.
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