Pembroke Pines Commissioner Jay. D Schwartz will not face any criminal charge, the State Attorney’s Office decided this week, months after a high school student accused him of impersonating an officer during a conversation on campus.
Schwartz, 54, was the subject of a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation that began in May after a Charles W. Flanagan High student reported to a School Resource Officer that he had just had an interaction with a teacher that he felt “was out of line,” according to a heavily redacted incident report previously obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
The commissioner was accused of approaching and questioning multiple students for several minutes while at one point flashing a badge that resembled a police officer’s, according to a State Attorney’s Office close-out memo signed Tuesday.
One of the students told administrators that the teacher had accused him of having marijuana, writing in a signed statement that the teacher “kept asking me over and over where’s the weed” and “presented himself as if he were an officer.”
At the time, Schwartz was teaching aviation classes at the school and was an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University adjunct instructor for dual enrollment courses.
A Broward County Public Schools spokesperson said in an email Friday that a different instructor is teaching the program at Flanagan High this school year.
Schwartz told the principal that he “smelled something and questioned the students,” the close-out memo said. Teachers are not allowed to search students.
A campus monitor told an FDLE investigator that he overheard the teacher say to one of the students during the interaction: “This is your welcome to America,” as he pulled out his wallet, according to the memo. Schwartz allegedly made that comment after one of the students said he was from Haiti.
A second student alleged Schwartz at some point told them they were “not free to leave” and asked for their ages and where they work, the memo said. The third student said Schwartz used the word “agency” while showing the badge and identifying himself, and after that believed the person was an officer.
Schwartz told the FDLE investigator in his statement in July that he heard the students swearing and stopped to talk to them about it, according to the memo. He said the campus often smells of marijuana and asked who had it on them.
Schwartz said he told the students he was a teacher and showed his school badge on a lanyard around his neck and also a city commissioner and showed his commissioner badge.
Schwartz told the FDLE investigator that he said to the students during their conversation: “I have two jobs. Right? I’m a teacher here (then showed him his teacher identification) and then I said I also represent you in City Hall. I’m a City Commissioner, uh, I’m an elected official and I showed them my identification (City Commissioner badge). That was, that was the extent of it.”
He said the accusation that he said, “Welcome to America,” was “inherently false,” according to the memo, and that there was “absolutely no way” he made the comment.
Eric Schwartzreich, the commissioner’s attorney, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Friday afternoon that Schwartz fully cooperated with FDLE and the State Attorney’s Office’s review, which “came to the correct conclusion.”
“And that day his intention — he was a teacher, he was in his role as a teacher that day … What he was trying to do that day was be a positive role model for the students,” Schwartzreich said.
Schwartz “never specifically announced” that he was a law enforcement officer, and his badge identified him as a commissioner, the prosecutor wrote in the close-out memo.
“While the conduct of Schwartz was both inappropriate and improper, it is not clear from the
available evidence that Schwartz acted with the specific intent required for criminal culpability,” the prosecutor wrote in the memo.