A Clearwater police narcotics detective is charged with helping suspected drug traffickers evade a criminal investigation, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office announced Tuesday.
Fredrick Lise, who has served as president of the Clearwater police union for three years, faces eight felony charges for allegedly helping a multimillion-dollar drug trafficking organization. Deputies say he kept tabs on narcotics investigations into Matthew Turner and Henry Smith and alerted them to law enforcement surveillance.
Lise, 32, is charged with misuse of public office for unlawful disclosure of criminal investigative information and unlawful use of two-way communications devices. He was booked into the Pinellas County Jail on Tuesday and was being held on a $200,000 bond.
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said Turner, 39, ran a drug trafficking operation alongside Smith, 42, that distributed about 220 kilograms of cocaine, 660 pounds of methamphetamines, 25 kilograms of fentanyl, 5.5 kilograms of heroin and 14 kilograms of MDMA in less than a year — more than $5 million in drugs.
As part of an investigation into the alleged Tampa Bay drug ring, the sheriff’s office worked alongside several local police departments, including Clearwater’s. After Lise was told of the investigation, Gualtieri said, he set up an alert in the police database to receive any information about additional inquiries into the two men.
Gualtieri said Lise contacted a sheriff’s office narcotics detective to obtain additional information about the case, after which he told Turner and Smith they were being investigated.
“See what you can find out if you can,” Smith wrote to Lise in a text message, according to Gualtieri. “You got me worried.”
Lise replied that either someone in the operation was talking to law enforcement or they “slipped up with an unknown,” citing his conversation with the Pinellas County detective, according to Gualtieri.
Gualtieri said this disclosure endangered the life of an undercover sheriff’s office detective who made nine separate purchases from the organization over the course of the investigation.
“Lise, especially as a union president, is supposed to be looking out for cops, not putting them in harm’s way,” Gualtieri said.
After this, Lise allegedly set up a plan with Turner and Smith where the two men would buy drugs from someone else while acting as police informants — setting up someone else for arrest while avoiding charges themselves for cooperating.
According to Gualtieri, Lise also informed Turner during the investigation that police were electronically monitoring his phone, causing him to switch devices. Lise’s warning also led the two men to discover a law enforcement surveillance team that had been physically monitoring them.
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Explore all your optionsPart of the delay in identifying Lise, Gualtieri said, was that the suspects referred to him as “Will” in their communications, a nickname he uses. He added that the investigation had uncovered hundreds of pages of text messages between Lise and the two men.
Gualtieri said deputies are not aware of any bribes or kickbacks Lise received for his assistance. Instead, he said, Lise is believed to have helped the men evade law enforcement because they were close friends.
Lise has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation into his actions. The union has selected an interim president to replace him, according to Clearwater police Chief Eric Gandy.
Gualtieri said Lise’s actions “impeded” law enforcement, though the sheriff’s office was still able to complete its investigation into Turner and Smith.
Other cases Lise was involved in may be set back even further. Prosecutors have already dropped “six or so” drug trafficking cases in which Lise had a substantial role in the investigation, Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bruce Bartlett told the Tampa Bay Times on Tuesday.
Starting last week, Bartlett’s office began evaluating all cases in which Lise took part. At last count, there were 35 to 40 of those, Bartlett said.
“In many instances, he was just on the periphery and not really handling anything material to the impact of the case,” such as writing warrants and buying or seizing drugs, Bartlett said.
But in others, Lise had a substantial role, and those are no longer prosecutable, Bartlett said.
“His credibility is in question, so I can’t vouch for that, and I’m not going to go forward with any of his work,” Bartlett said. “I can’t trust anything he’s saying.”
Bartlett said the first group of cases he went through “were what I would consider to be significant cases. And those cases are closed now.”
Bartlett’s office is sending notices to defense attorneys informing them that Lise has been added to what’s known as the Brady list. The list was born out of a 1960s U.S. Supreme Court case, which determined that state attorneys must disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense, including incidents that could lead to an officer’s credibility being called into question.
Gualtieri said Lise’s actions were not representative of the Clearwater Police Department.
“People should have confidence in the Clearwater Police Department and in all law enforcement in Pinellas County,” Gualtieri said. “This is simply an anomaly situation.”
Lise was hired by the Police Department in October 2014. He was suspended for 10 days in September 2018 after an internal investigation found he led an unauthorized car chase that caused a crash that hurt an officer and two civilians.
He is the third Clearwater police officer to be arrested this year.
In January, Officer Brian Tejera was arrested in Pasco County and charged with aggravated stalking of his girlfriend and her family. The charges were dropped when Tejera died in February, according to court records.
In June, Officer Scott Penna was charged with pension fraud related to exaggerating the effects of an injury to collect nearly $12,000 in benefits from the city. Penna has pleaded not guilty.
Last year, Officer Nicolas Paloma was fired after he was accused of engaging in sex acts with a woman in his patrol car while in uniform. He was charged with sexual battery, but he argued the encounter was consensual, and a jury in June found him not guilty.
“It leaves me really angry beyond belief,” Gandy said of Lise’s case. “It appears he put the interests of drug traffickers over those interests of his own officers.”
Times staff writers Tony Marrero and Tracey McManus contributed to this story.
