Florida police raided the home of a former state coronavirus data scientist on Monday, escalating a feud between the state government and a data expert who has accused officials of trying to cover up the extent of the pandemic.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement executed a search warrant Monday morning at the home of data scientist Rebekah Jones,
who was fired by the state Department of Health in May. The agency is investigating whether Jones accessed a state government messaging system without authorization to urge employees to speak out about coronavirus deaths, according to an affidavit by an agent working on the case.
Jones told CNN that she hadn't improperly accessed any state messaging system and that she lost access to her government computer accounts after she was removed from her position.
About 10 officers with guns drawn showed up to her Tallahassee home around 8:30 a.m., Jones said. A video taken from a camera in her house, which she
posted on social media, showed an officer pointing a gun up a stairwell as Jones told him her two children were upstairs. Jones said that the officer was pointing his gun at her 2-year-old daughter, 11-year-old son and her husband, who she said were in the stairwell, although the video doesn't make that clear.
Officers also "pointed a gun six inches from my face" and took all of her computers, her phone and several hard drives and thumb drives, Jones said.
Gretl Plessinger, a spokesperson for the law enforcement department, said that agents knocked on Jones' door and called her "in an attempt to minimize disruption to the family." Jones refused to come to the door for 20 minutes and hung up on the agents, and Jones' family was upstairs when agents did enter the house, Plessinger said. She didn't respond to questions about why the officers drew guns.
"At no time were weapons pointed at anyone in the home," Rick Swearingen, the department's commissioner, added in another statement.
According to the affidavit by an investigator with the department, an unauthorized individual illegally accessed a state government emergency management system to send a group text message to government officials last month urging them to speak out about the coronavirus crisis.
"It's time to speak up before another 17,000 people are dead," the message said, according to the affidavit. "You know this is wrong. You don't have to be part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it's too late."
Officials traced the message, which was sent on the afternoon of November 10 to about 1,750 recipients, to an IP address connected to Jones' house, the investigator wrote in the affidavit.
Jones told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Monday night that she didn't send the message.
"I'm not a hacker," Jones said. She added that the language in the message that authorities said was sent was "not the way I talk," and contained errors she would not make.
"The number of deaths that the person used wasn't even right," Jones said. "They were actually under by about 430 deaths. I would never round down 430 deaths."
www.cnn.com
