‘Contract that never existed’ adds twist to scientists’ fight over Everglades project | Florida

An environmental scientist briefly jailed in what he called “political lawsuits” brought by allies of Florida’s right-wing Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis now says new evidence shows his prison sentence stemmed from fraudulent claims.

Tom Van Lent’s claim represents the latest twist in a three-year legal saga sparked by a disagreement over a proposed restoration project that aimed to combat recurring red tides and toxic algae blooms in Florida by helping restore the environment of the Everglades’ vast wetlands.

Van Lent, widely considered one of the top Everglades scientists in the United States, is a former employee of the Everglades Foundation who posted a tweet considered critical of the foundation. He and his lawyer say the foundation — a large nonprofit with friendly ties to the state’s Republican leaders — then built a case against him by claiming Van Lent had violated an employment contract.

Van Lent had publicly criticized the DeSantis-backed project when he left the foundation in 2022, saying his new employer would “put facts over politics.” Shortly afterward, the foundation filed a lawsuit, alleging Van Lent violated the employment contract by keeping nonprofit “trade secrets.” The case led to Van Lent being jailed for 10 days and facing $177,000 in court costs in June when a judge found him in contempt of court for failing to return certain electronic materials and documents.

But Van Lent’s lawyer, Michael Rayboun, now claims the employment contract does not exist and accuses the foundation of “fraud” because it claims under oath that a contract was signed. Van Lent and Rayboun want the lawsuit to be reopened and the Everglades Foundation held accountable.

“The foundation committed fraud by alleging the existence of a contract that does not exist,” Rayboun said.

The foundation denies the allegation and opposes a motion to reopen the lawsuit, according to court documents. “They want to chill his speech and dissuade others from saying the foundation is holding hands with Florida’s version of a dictator,” Rayboun said.

The foundation, in a statement to the Guardian, said an employee handbook that stipulated the terms constituted a legally binding contract. In a response filed with the court, the foundation called the motion to reopen the case “frivolous.”

“The foundation categorically opposes the motion because there is no basis in fact or law to reopen this case,” it said. The foundation noted that the lawsuit was settled in 2022 and that Van Lent agreed to the terms.

The roots of the case date back to the early 2000s, when initial plans called for a roughly $4 billion project to combat algae blooms that for decades threatened the state’s drinking water and infested its beaches with a deadly odor. The blooms have caused billions of dollars in damage to the region’s vast tourism economy, officials estimate.

The proposed solution called for a 60,000-acre water storage reservoir and marshes to purify the water to be built south of the vast Lake Okeechobee in the Florida interior. But the plan required the state to buy or use eminent domain to seize land owned by the nation’s largest sugar companies, which are politically connected and opposed to any land sales.

In 2017, Florida Republican leaders presented a “compromise” that reduced the project to 10,000 acres, which Van Lent and other scientists said would not be effective and would not meet federal rules.

Facing pressure from both sides, state leaders pushed the Everglades Foundation to accept the compromise plan, which DeSantis called the “crown jewel” of Everglades restorations.

Van Lent said his departure tweet angered the Everglades Foundation and its political allies.

Everglades Foundation CEO Eric Eikenberg worked with DeSantis on the project while DeSantis was in the Florida Legislature and then served on DeSantis’ transition team in 2018. He also served as chief of staff to then-Governor Charlie Crist. Meanwhile, Everglades Foundation founder Paul Tudor Jones donated $250,000 to a DeSantis political action committee in 2018.

In 2022 alone, the nonprofit spent $722,000 on legal fees, according to IRS records.

“Their big legal effort was to shut me down,” Van Lent said, adding that the level of spending revealed the nonprofit’s priorities.

When the foundation filed a lawsuit in state court, alleging Van Lent waged “a covert campaign of theft and destruction” that involved destroying scientific documents and stealing “trade secrets” that were on his laptop.

In its 2022 complaint, the foundation said Van Lent signed an employment contract and a judge ultimately ordered him to hand over his electronic devices and email accounts. Van Lent said his work laptop also contained personal documents, such as tax information, and some items protected by attorney-client privilege. He destroyed or deleted them, and the only files the foundation claimed were missing were old, Van Lent claimed.

Yet the Everglades Foundation claimed Van Lent kept certain “trade secrets” and was misleading about information he copied onto a hard drive. The judge agreed, found Van Lent guilty of contempt and sentenced him to 10 days in jail.

The prison sentence was not intended to remedy the trial, but was a result of the contempt allegation that arose from the trial.

Rayboun said he requested evidence of the employment contract before the contempt hearing, but it was never provided. He said he confirmed the contract did not exist since Van Lent was released from prison.

The Everglades Foundation said in a statement to the Guardian that a policy manual signed by Van Lent that prohibits employees from retaining the nonprofit’s records was a binding contractual agreement. Van Lent had previously argued in court that the manual was not a contract, but a judge rejected that assertion.

Van Lent told the Guardian that a judge had not ruled on whether the manual constituted a binding contract.

Meanwhile, the reservoir and marsh project is moving forward and Van Lent said it does not meet water quality standards.

“We were well on our way,” Van Lent said.