by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
At the side of the nameplate on Rick Beseler’s desk is a holdover from 30 years in law enforcement.
It’s a small square sticker with a red line drawn through a steer.
“That’s just the way I am,” Beseler said. “I tell it like it is. I don’t sugarcoat it.
“I don’t want people coming in to give me a bunch of bull, either. Let’s take care of business.”
Beseler wears an impish smile when he tells the uninitiated that his business is tree farming. He’s genuinely happy driving over to his farm in Madison, plowing up the rich 65 acres planted mostly in loblolly pine and some corn.
But his business for the past 10 years had been as chief investigator for State Attorney Harry Shorstein in the Fourth Judicial Circuit.
Beseler, 49, retired from the state attorney’s office Dec. 31 to run for sheriff of Clay County. He and three other candidates are trying to oust incumbent Scott Lancaster in the winner-take-all election Aug. 31.
Three months ago, he started Rick Beseler Investigations. It’s a one-man operation he runs out of his Green Cove Springs home, taking on personal injury, wrongful death and civil rights cases.
“I’ve got more than enough business to say grace over,” said Beseler. “I couldn’t work on criminal cases, anyway, and do a good job for my client. I want to put people in jail, not get them out of jail.”
During his career, he worked undercover posing as a fence for stolen property and as a drug buyer.
He organized and led a six-month undercover operation in Clay County that resulted in 45 arrests and the recovery of $310,000 in stolen property, investigated corruption in the Florida Department of Natural Resources and organized a multi-agency sting operation targeting cellular phone cloning and the thefts of cell phones.
During his tenure, “We brought a lot of national notoriety to Jacksonville — ‘20/20’ and ‘Primetime Live’ and others — featuring the sting operations we did,” he said. “We were considered to be the national leaders in using innovative undercover operations to combat nontraditional law enforcement problems.”
“Operation Road Raiders” was an undercover investigation into an auto repair scam that duped elderly motorists out of thousands in phony repairs.
Cross-designated a special deputy U.S. marshal, he led the state and federal investigation that jailed former City Councilman and State Rep. Donald Gaffney and two co-defendants on bribery charges.
He investigated Lee County State Attorney Joe D’Allesandro and Sheriff Frank Wanicka, who were accused of murdering a young man during a hunting trip.
He investigated an allegation that a circuit court judge in Palm Beach County and his wife were involved in the death of their infant son.
“I don’t know if I’ve become more cynical,” Beseler said. “Maybe ‘realistic’ is a better word.
“Sometimes public officials lose sight of what they need to be doing.
Beseler has been in law enforcement since he went to work as a dispatcher with the Green Cove Springs Police Department in 1973. He was a patrolman riding the Green Cove streets for $2 an hour. His salary was bumped a dollar an hour in 1974 after he completed the police academy course in St. Augustine.
He went to work as an investigator for then-State Attorney Ed Austin in 1978. He and a partner began pulling unserved worthless check warrants and arrested those who had at least 50 warrants pending.
“Nobody was doing anything,” Beseler said. “It’s amazing. When you put them in jail, they cough up the money.”
The program was so successful that state attorneys all over Florida set up their own check divisions.
The notoriety helped Beseler move to the Special Prosecution Division. He worked high-profile cases that included organized crime, unsolved homicides, drug operations and welfare fraud.
He also was sent around the state to investigate cases given to Austin’s office by the governor. Sheriffs were removed from office; several judges were indicted.
But not all those investigations led to indictments and convictions. And rightly so, he said:
“It’s just as satisfying to find that someone has been wrongly accused. My best case was one that proved someone hadn’t done something wrong.”
The Palm Beach County judge and his wife were found to have no involvement in the death of their child. The rumors, Beseler said, had been started by the judge’s political detractors.
D’Allesandro and Wanicka in Lee County, who were accused of murdering a young man during a hunting trip, likewise were innocent. The investigation established that the young man had shot himself.
“I’ve always been proud of what we did,” Beseler said. “From Ed Austin’s time to Harry Shorstein, we’ve probably had one of the most aggressive prosecutor’s offices on a number of fronts.