A Broward Sheriff’s Office sergeant who was criminally investigated and fired for allegedly spending union funds on himself has returned to work following an agreement between the union and the Sheriff’s Office during arbitration.
Sgt. Jason Zehler was reinstated in late October after his termination in May, according to the “last chance” settlement agreement, which allows him to remain employed for the next year if he meets strict requirements. He is now stationed in the Deerfield Beach district, where he worked before his termination.
Zehler had served as vice president of the deputies’ union, the International Union of Police Associations 6020, alongside former deputies Jeffrey Bell, the union president, and Frank Voudy III, the treasurer, until 2022. The Broward State Attorney’s Office Public Corruption Unit began investigating the three men in 2023 over allegations that they had spent tens of thousands of dollars in union funds on bonuses to themselves and other items including a home security system, an iPhone, and a Disney Plus subscription, according to a closeout memo and an internal affairs report.
Prosecutors ultimately decided that they could not charge the three men, even if they found them culpable, because the conduct was not clearly forbidden under the union’s constitution.
“There is no question that Bell, Voudy, and Zehler engaged in conduct that offends the concepts of basic morality and criminality,” prosecutors wrote in the 2024 memo. “The flagrant misconduct and misappropriation of funds is a shameful example of blatant abuse of position and breach of trust by Bell, Voudy, and Zehler.”
A separate Broward Sheriff’s Office internal affairs investigation culminated in Zehler’s firing this year. Both Voudy and Bell had already left the Sheriff’s Office.
Earlier this week, Voudy and the union were ordered to collectively pay $4 million to a former employee who accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting her during a business trip to Las Vegas. Her allegations led to Voudy’s dismissal from the Broward Sheriff’s Office for “conduct unbecoming.”
The alleged misuse of funds was first uncovered after Bell, Voudy and Zehler left the union’s executive board in 2022. The new executive board began looking into the previous board’s finances and discovered “a pattern of suspicious and undocumented financial transactions using union funds,” according to the closeout memo.
Among the most suspicious transactions, prosecutors wrote, were the chunks of money the union board members had paid to themselves. In 2019, they awarded themselves “reelected bonuses” totaling $15,000 in union funds, with $7,500 going to Bell, $5,000 to Voudy and $2,500 to Zehler, according to the memo. In 2021, they spent $6,000 in union funds to cover taxes they owed on their own, union-funded monthly stipends. Bell received $1,500, Voudy received $1,000, and Zehler received between $500 and $800.
The men also used union funds to pay for Zehler’s $1,500 iPhone, according to the internal affairs report. Zehler said the phone was for union business, though he did not return the phone after leaving the union.
Other expenditures included over $2,500 for a security system for Bell’s Palm Beach County home, according to the report.
There were no meeting minutes or voting records to justify the expenditures, prosecutors wrote.
Zehler told BSO internal affairs investigators that he was not responsible for how union funds got distributed and that Bell and Voudy made most of the decisions. He said that he didn’t know he should have returned the cellphone, and that he thought the money that the three of them had received was coming from the union’s national headquarters.
BSO sustained the following internal affairs charges against Zehler: engaging in an organized scheme to defraud, grand theft, breach of confidence, and corrupt practices.
Under the recent agreement reached between Zehler and BSO’s attorneys, he will return to his position as sergeant and receive a little over five days of back pay. His disciplinary charges of organized scheme to defraud and grand theft will drop to one violation of “discretion,” which generally refers to a misuse of authority, and his charge of corrupt practices will drop to conduct unbecoming.
Zehler returns under a one-year “last-chance” period that will allow BSO to terminate him for any disciplinary infraction of a certain severity. He will have to submit a letter of resignation that goes into effect in April 2027, but can ask Sheriff Gregory Tony to revoke the letter once his last-chance period is over.
The Sheriff’s Office and Zehler settled the case “prior to the conclusion of arbitration, avoiding the uncertainties, expense, and inconvenience of any further proceedings,” the agreement states.
“Jason Zehler is happy that he and the Sheriff’s Office were able to resolve their issue,” his attorney, Robert Buschel, told the Sun Sentinel in a statement. “He is thankful for the opportunity to continue to serve his community as a sergeant deputy.”
A spokesperson for the Broward Sheriff’s Office declined to comment in response to questions about the decision to reinstate Zehler.
Zehler had worked at the Broward Sheriff’s Office for 24 years prior to his firing. He was promoted to sergeant in 2016.