Former Florida Police Chief Facing More Charges

March 23, 2011
New charges were filed against former Windermere police chief Daniel Saylor, the State Attorney's Office announced Tuesday.

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. --

Prosecutors filed six new felony charges against the arrested former police chief behind a scandal in Windermere. Daniel Saylor, 44, is accused of covering up the child sex abuse case involving his buddy.

Meanwhile, Windermere's mayor says more than one gun is missing from the police department's evidence locker, as well as numerous other pieces of evidence in criminal cases. He found out Tuesday when he got an FDLE report that's very critical of former chief Daniel Saylor's handling of evidence.

Saylor is accused of destroying evidence in a child sexual battery case involving his good friend, Scott Bush. So the new Windermere chief, Mike McCoy, asked FDLE to evaluate the storage and security procedures of the department's evidence locker.

Tuesday, Mayor Gary Bruhn found out the loose procedures that are in place weren't being followed and that, among other things, guns are missing.

"There is more than one gun missing. What's your reaction to that?" WFTV reporter Kathi Belich asked.

"I'm disturbed," he said.

Bruhn is so disturbed he plans to take on Saylor's former boss, who made him chief despite his troubled police track record. He says town manager Cecelia Bernier has stonewalled her own yearly performance review.

"I want to make sure that the council members have an opportunity tonight, along with me, to provide input on the town manager's performance," he told WFTV.

The six new felony charges just filed against Saylor are for tampering with evidence, bribing one of his officers to destroy evidence with promotions and paid time off, and for falsifying the officer's time sheets. The officer secretly recorded Saylor telling him to build a bonfire to destroy investigative notes in the sex case involving Bush and a girl who was younger than 12.

The Mayor says he does not know whether the missing evidence is from ongoing criminal cases, and he says he's not sure whether council member Richard Irwin also helped stonewall the town manager's yearly review, but he plans to find out at Tuesday's meeting.

Meanwhile, Daniel Saylor now wants to be armed. He just asked a judge to return his guns to him.

The court took away more than a dozen of Saylor's guns after he bonded out of jail in January, but Saylor says he wants them back so he can work as a private security officer.

Copyright 2011 by wftv.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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