Ex-Florida data scientist jailed, accused of illegally accessing emergency message system

Florida Department of Health whistleblower Rebekah Jones is now in jail, accused of breaking into a state email system and sending an unauthorized message to employees.

The Nov. 10 message, obtained by the Tampa Bay Times, urged state employees dealing with the coronavirus pandemic to “speak up before another 17,000 people are dead. You know this is wrong. You don’t have to be a part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it’s too late.”

Jones announced Saturday on Twitter that she had learned there was a warrant for her arrest. She turned herself in to the Leon County Detention Center on Sunday night, according to news reports.

The former state employee faces one count of offenses against users of computers, computer systems, computer networks and electronic devices, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Jones is reportedly set to appear before a judge at 11 a.m. Monday.

“Censored by the state of Florida until further notice,” she tweeted Sunday afternoon.

Jones had said on Twitter that the charge was unrelated to the search warrant state police used to raid her Tallahassee home on Dec. 7. That warrant cited the “unauthorized” message sent to a Department of Health emergency system.

Jones has denied having anything to do with the message. She sued the state last month to retrieve her computers and other electronic equipment seized by officers and said state police violated her constitutional rights of free speech and due process.

However, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement says the message was sent from Jones’ Tallahassee home, and that evidence seized during the Dec. 7 raid shows “Jones illegally accessed the system(,) sending a message to approximately 1,750 people and downloaded confidential (Department of Health) data and saved it to her devices.”

The Tampa Bay Times reached out to one of her attorneys, Rick Johnson, for comment Monday.

Jones was once one of the bright spots of the Gov. Ron DeSantis administration, after she built the state’s online dashboard of COVID-19 cases while working as an analyst for the Florida Department of Health.

The dashboard was applauded by federal officials for its thoroughness and transparency in the early weeks of the pandemic, praise that DeSantis used as a defense against criticism over the secrecy and confusion that dogged his coronavirus response.

But in May, Jones was fired from the department for what a DeSantis spokesperson called “a repeated course of insubordination.”

Jones filed a whistleblower complaint and said she was reassigned, then fired, after objecting to an order to remove key data from the dashboard. She accused the DeSantis administration of trying to downplay the outbreak in rural areas ahead of his plans to reopen the state. Emails the Tampa Bay Times obtained confirmed some of the details. Department of Health officials have denied the accusations.

Since then, Jones has become one of the most prominent DeSantis administration critics, gaining more than 300,000 followers on Twitter and raising more than $500,000 through two GoFundMe accounts.

Meanwhile, DeSantis has continued to be criticized for his insular management style and failure to explain his administration’s COVID-19 response. His administration has been sued by media outlets multiple times for not releasing public information, and elected officials and health care industry groups continue to plead for more transparency about his decisions around COVID-19 and vaccine distribution.