HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – WFLA News Channel 8 has uncovered text messages between the former head of the Public Transportation Commission and one of his employees.
The texts between Kyle Cockream and PTC employee Brett Saunders are rude, disrespectful, and often profane.
State Senator Dana Young is mentioned in one text message exchange. The reference to her is not polite and contains profanity.
“This whole agency and the way that they’ve behaved over the past year is just incredibly disappointing. It’s time for them to go,” said Young, after seeing the message about her.
Young says the local legislative delegation is now in favor of eliminating the PTC.
“I believe the PTC is a dead man walking, a dead agency walking. We passed the bill through the delegation, it passed unanimously. I see no obstacles to passing that bill through the legislature,” said Young.
She is also concerned that the former head of the PTC deleted phone records after she requested the FDLE look into the relationship between the PTC and local cab companies.
“Initially they [the FDLE] found that there was no crime committed, and then they got more evidence of emails being wiped, phones being wiped, texts being deleted and they re-opened their investigation” said Young.
Attorney Andrea Flynn Mogensen with the Sunshine Group believes the text messages recovered so far are only a small number of the public records that were deleted by Cockream.
“That’s a fraction of the records that are missing,” said Mogensen.
She believes the texts recovered so far are very revealing.
“For one, it shows there is dissension among the ranks. Clearly the leadership of the PTC was not in accord with the board and what their mission was,” said Mogensen.
She also believes the texts recovered so far may show conspiracy to commit a crime.
“Certainly destroying public records intentionally, if that’s what was done, is a very serious matter, and it really does raise the question, what is the bigger matter that was of greater concern than being caught destroying records?” said Mogensen.
Here are some of the text messages have been recovered:
- A text message between Brett Saunders and Kyle Cockream sent at 11:03 a.m. on November 9 said: “That ****head Patterson is here. I recommend you go out the back.”
- A text message between Brett Saunders and Kyle Cockream sent at 10:30 a.m. on October 16 said: “Tell victor to kiss your ass. You work for the board. Not him. We only used them on those few occasions and it fell apart with their cards. Candidly. Louie’s people were scared.
- A text message between Brett Saunders and Kyle Cockream sent at 10:34 a.m. on October 16 said: “And. Don’t resign. Make them fire you. Then you get unemployment. And before they fire you. Fire me so I can get it too. Oh with a 90 day severance package.”
- A text message between Brett Saunders and Kyle Cockream sent at 10:39 a.m. on October 16 said: “I hear you. But on my way out I’ve decided to burn the house down.”
Check back throughout the day to learn other messages Cockream tried to delete. Full coverage on News Channel 8’s early evening news. WHAT OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON RIGHT NOW:
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