After striking out Florida court, Governor Rick Scott has hired the service of a law firm in California to fight the summon that orders Google to release his Gmail account details believing that it has been used by Scott and is staff to run a public business. Tallahassee lawyer Steven Andrews have filed a legal action against Scott accusing him of using his email account not only for conducting public business but also for doing ‘legal tactics’ in a Medicare fraud in the hospital corporation that used to be led by the governor a few years back.
Scott’s lawyers are requesting a California judge to delay the court’s decision about whether or not to release his Gmail account details until the November 4 elections.
Gmail have already stated that it would not discharge any documents that relate to Scott’s email account unless it is followed by a court act. Scott meanwhile requested for a hearing on November 7 so that Google would not act on the subpoena yet.
Steven Andrews then served a notice to appear to Scott for a hearing set in November 7 in Santa Clara Country. Andrews also called on Scott to show up in a videotape deposition to happen on October 28 in Tallahassee with regards to the email account gov.rls@gmail.com.
The firm of the governor was charged with a $1.7 billion penalty following the statement of whistleblowers that he used two different books with one of them for concealing bogus billings.
A month ago, a Florida judge served an order to Scott to not fight the subpoena anymore but the government brought the fight outside of the state and the governor went ahead and hired a California lawyer.
It does seem like the Scott-Andrews case over Gmail will continue over the course of the next few weeks. Scott’s lawyer stated in an interview that Andrews doesn’t have any right to get access to the IP addresses of the Gmail accounts of the governor and that of his staff regardless of the owner of the computers used.
On the other hand, Andrews is saying that it seems like Scott’s side is hiding something considering that the governor is willing to spend a lot of money for a California lawyer just to avoid from having him presented in court.
According to Governor Scott, the Gmail account he used after he sat down as a governor was never used for public business.