CRESTVIEW — More than a year after he was indicted for racketeering, former Crestview Police Maj. Joseph Floyd will go to trial Monday.
The Crestview Police Department run by Floyd and then-Chief Brian Mitchell from 2007 until 2012 will, literally and figuratively, be tried with him.
Police Chief Tony Taylor, who was hired after Mitchell was fired in April 2012, estimated 90 percent of his officers have been subpoenaed to testify.
“It seems like anyone in my department the state didn’t subpoena the defense did,” Taylor said.
Some officers were subpoenaed by both the prosecution and the defense, he said.
A grand jury indicted Floyd on March 5, 2012. The indictment stated he committed five crimes as head of the Police Department’s Street Crimes Unit. They included falsifying records, harassment, battery, solicitation of sex and obstruction of justice.
Mitchell was arrested July 25, for official misconduct based on allegations that he falsified documents to help his friend Floyd get hired in Crestview.
Taylor was hired to succeed Mitchell the following September 2012 after 33 years with the Fort Walton Beach Police Department.
At the time, Taylor and Crestview Mayor David Cadle spoke of the need to restore community trust in an agency whose reputation had been badly tarnished by the Mitchell/Floyd regime.
Taylor has said since then that the department needed to put the Floyd trial behind it in order to begin truly to move forward.
“The trial was kind of a benchmark for making some rapid forward movement,” he said Friday. “It’s a line of demarcation, going from one era to another.”
After 17 months and three postponements, Taylor said he and his officers knew the trial was imminent when subpoenas started to arrive.
“There was a lot of apprehension about whether the trial was going to go this time. We got a little closure when the subpoenas started rolling in,” he said. “Some of the tension is gone. There’s been a collective sigh of relief.”
Taylor said divisions within the Police Department evident when he arrived mostly have diminished.
Assistant State Attorney Russ Edgar, who will prosecute the case, said he has subpoenaed about 90 witnesses for the trial expected to run two weeks. Of those, “dozens” are or were Crestview police officers, including Mitchell.
“We look forward to presenting the case and following up on the grand jury’s decision to charge him,” Edgar said of Floyd.
Okaloosa County Circuit Judge Michael Flowers will preside.
Floyd’s indictment alleged he participated in a criminal enterprise, the cornerstone of a racketeering charge.
In their statement of findings, grand jurors said Floyd falsified documents concerning his education, background and employment history when he applied to work for the Police Department.
The indictment also stated that Floyd falsified or had underlings falsify records or documents, and altered official police reports.
It also said he used his status as a police officer to solicit sex.
It stated he used intimidation or lies to manipulate other officers to withhold testimony, records or documents from an official investigation or official proceeding.
The indictment also accused him of battery.
Barry Beroset, Floyd’s defense attorney, was out of his office Friday and did not return a phone call.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Joseph Floyd trial to begin Monday