Manorhaven is considering a local law barring convicted felons from running in village elections after discovering that a recent candidate for office might have been convicted of such a crime, according to Mayor Jim Avena.
In a statement on Friday, Avena said that the proposal came after the discovery of public records stating that a man named Walter Peters had been convicted of child abuse in Florida in 2003 and served three years in prison. The statement said that a Manorhaven resident named Walter Peters ran unsuccessfully for trustee under the Manorhaven Liberty Party banner in the village’s election on Sept. 15.
“The Florida Corrections report includes a photograph and date of birth that in my opinion appears to be the same Walter Peters that recently ran for Trustee,” Avena said. “Mr. Peters is welcome to prove to me that it is not the same person if he disagrees.”
Efforts to reach Peters for comment were unavailing.
Avena added that the village’s Board of Trustees would speak with its ethics counsel, Steven Leventhal “to develop certain changes to the Village’s ethics law and code of conduct.”
“We need more stringent disclosure requirements in order to increase transparency in village government,” Avena said. “We should have a disclosure requirement that applies to village elected officials and candidates to make certain that convicted felons are not holding or running for village office without the public being aware of their records. Similarly, we should amend our code and our policy to make sure that criminal background checks are conducted on any person before they are appointed to any public board in the village.”
The mayor concluded his statement by saying that the board would soon “craft these changes to our code and hold a public hearing on the proposed local law.”
A further search in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Criminal History Information database says that a man named Walter Peters and sharing the birth date and address of the man listed in the report cited by the mayor from the Florida Department of Corrections’ offender network was arrested seven times between April 7, 2000, and Sept. 17, 2003, for charges including aggravated battery, adult domestic violence, sexual battery of a victim under 12 years of age and child abuse, all of which never made it to trial or were dropped.
The database says that the man violated an injunction of protection against domestic violence, entered a plea of nolo contendre and served 22 days in a county jail.
