WASHINGTON — A new watchdog report has uncovered potential conflicts of interest in dozens of sheriffs’ offices nationwide, including in Pinellas County. The research shows Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri has received campaign donations from a group connected to private security firm G4S Secure Solutions while renewing county contracts with the company.

Researchers from Washington nonprofits Common Cause and Communities for Sheriff Accountability assessed campaign finance records from nearly 50 sheriffs’ offices nationwide.

Roughly 40 percent of all examined donations, totaling upward of $6 million, create possible conflicts of interests, the groups’ January report said. These contributions come from incarceration-specific businesses in construction, technology, health and others, according to the report.

“It doesn’t take a whole lot of money to influence sheriff elections, and mass incarceration industries are donating to sheriff campaigns at an alarming rate,” said Keshia Morris Desir, census and mass incarceration project manager at Common Cause.

The campaign records revealed Wackenhut PAC, a G4S-associated group, donated $1,000 directly to Gualtieri’s campaign in October 2020. The PAC donated an additional $5,000 to a committee known to support Gualtieri, Citizens for a Safer Pinellas.

Gualtieri won reelection as the Pinellas sheriff weeks later. He received more than $232,000 in contributions during his campaign.

What appear to be small donations could still lead to “dishonest contracting practices,” Morris Desir said.

“It really doesn’t matter how much contractors are donating to sheriff campaigns — it should be zero dollars,” Morris Desir said. “This is $6,000 more than we think should be allowable. Even relatively small contributions still open the door to pay-to-play.”

Vanessa Showalter, a spokesperson from G4S’ parent company, Allied Universal, provided a statement via email.

“The Wackenhut PAC is employee-funded with the goal of endorsing specific candidates that employees believe support principles that are aligned with the business,” the statement read.

The statement further said the company is “committed to providing best-in-class security services our clients can trust and rely upon.”

Gualtieri’s public information office confirmed the Sheriff’s Office continues to contract with G4S but said Gualtieri was “unavailable” after multiple requests for comment.

The Wackenhut name traces back to 1954, when the company was founded as the Wackenhut Corporation. Later renamed G4S, the London-based firm is one of the largest private security corporations in the world. Bought by Allied Universal in April 2021, the company projected its growth to $245 billion by this year.

G4S’ U.S. president, Drew Levine, is chairperson of the Wackenhut PAC.

“Accessing campaign finance reports in Florida is not the easiest, which is the reason why a report like this is important,” Morris Desir said. “People have to do a whole lot just to even see what’s going on.”

The contributions, both to Gualtieri’s campaign and the supporting committee, are legal, but the report called them “ethically conflicted.”

Aubrey Jewett, associate professor and assistant director at the University of Central Florida’s School of Politics, Security and International Affairs, said Florida law does not prohibit corporations, or their PACs, from contributing to an official’s campaign and then seeking contracts with them.

However, when companies bid for those government contracts, Jewett said the process should remain “open and fair.”

“They give donations because presumably, they want to support a particular candidate who they think is supportive of the issues they care about,” Jewett said. “But also, especially for bigger groups, they want to try to have access to the decision-makers.”

Though legal, these kinds of agreements can still raise questions for community members, said Michael D’Angelo, a private security consultant and former police captain for the South Miami Police Department.

“I certainly want to know the ins and outs of that approval process, what the selection criteria was,” D’Angelo said. “I would certainly want to know if I was a taxpayer.”

A cost-saving initiative — with a price

In addition to Gualtieri, the report revealed G4S has contributed to sheriffs statewide, including Polk County’s Grady Judd. The company has offices in cities across Florida, with its U.S. headquarters located in Jupiter.

G4S’ role with the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office has involved transporting detained people. Researchers found that sheriffs across the nation received more than $286,000 in donations from transportation businesses alone.

According to Naples-based private and proprietary security consultant William Gaut, it’s not uncommon for sheriffs to hire private security guards for jobs that don’t require a police officer — including transportation. This can help sheriffs’ offices cut costs or fill jobs when there aren’t enough officers.

D’Angelo said it wouldn’t be surprising to see this trend increase among Florida law enforcement agencies.

“They keep being asked to do more and more with less and less resources, so when you start to explore things like having a private sector security company take over some of your non-law enforcement functions, it could be a money saving option,” D’Angelo said.

Outsourcing public safety jobs doesn’t go without risk. Numerous controversies have surrounded G4S, including employing the 2016 Orlando Pulse nightclub gunman. Florida regulators fined G4S $151,000 for errors in its screening process.

In Pinellas County, G4S has been connected to two fatal incidents.

In 2013, Thomas Morrow, 59, died in a Pinellas jail transport van driven by a G4S employee, Andrey Izrailov. Morrow, who was only in protective custody and did not commit a crime, was severely beaten by another person being picked up on a charge of disorderly conduct, leading to his death.

The man who beat Morrow was found guilty of second-degree murder two years later and sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Following the incident, Gualtieri defended Izrailov but later changed the Sheriff’s Office’s transport policy so that someone in protective custody will not be transported with someone accused of a crime.

Morrow’s widow, Sharon, told USA Today amid a 2019 investigation of G4S that she blamed Gualtieri for her husband’s death. She said the sheriff chose to “save a buck” by hiring “incompetent people who should never be involved in law enforcement.”

USA Today reported G4S “didn’t have time” to fully train new hires and instead gave Izrailov a “condensed version” of the training. Izrailov had previously worked at the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, where he faced 39 counts of misconduct and had been fired.

In a 2018 case, Luis Bonilla Nieves, 57, died of positional asphyxia in a transport van driven by G4S employee Steven Roman.

Nieves’ death was ruled an accident, but Gualtieri pledged to investigate why Roman did not check on Nieves when he stopped moving.

“There’s room for discussion on that and room for scrutiny on that,” Gualtieri told the Tampa Bay Times.

In an emailed statement, Allied Universal said the Morrow and Nieves cases were “resolved mutually and amicably” and G4S did not “admit any liability.”

“They are being awarded contracts, and they’re not doing their job well,” Morris Desir said. “They had two people die in their care and their simple job is to take incarcerated people from one place to another and safely.”

With sheriff campaigns receiving support from multibillion-dollar industries, Morris Desir said it’s important they have the “same level of accountability” as other offices.

“Sheriffs are really politicians with a badge, so they should be paying attention and listening to the needs and wants of their constituents and making decisions based on that, not from what benefits their campaign first,” Morris Desir said.

For Jewett, the final say comes from voters.

“The final check on these kinds of things is the voter, ultimately, right?” Jewett said. “If they think they see shenanigans and they don’t like it, then the next election, they vote the person out. That’s why it’s important to at least have the openness and know who’s giving the money, who’s taking the money.”