Broward County, FLA corruption arrests

A county commissioner, School Board member and former Miramar commissioner have been charged in separate fraud cases. The FBI probe continues, with a focus on alleged corruption in the county's school building.

The payoffs were slipped into a restaurant doggie bag, an envelope and a leather day planner -- more than $40,000 in cash that undercover FBI agents, posing as corrupt businessmen, say they paid three Broward politicians arrested Wednesday in unrelated fraud cases.

With hidden tape recorders rolling, the classic FBI ``sting'' operations entangled County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion Jr., School Board member Beverly Gallagher and former Miramar Commissioner Fitzroy Salesman. The arrests shocked Broward's political community, still recovering from the 2007 corruption conviction of ex-Sheriff Ken Jenne.

More arrests are expected, after agents went public and started questioning dozens of people involved in the county's lucrative school building program, including lobbyists, school district employees and construction contractors.

``We are not done,'' acting U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman pledged.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, who served eight years in the Florida House with Eggelletion, expressed dismay over the arrests.

``It shakes the confidence of the public in their elected leaders,'' she said.