Florida data scientist-turned-whistleblower Rebekah Jones says she’ll turn herself in after police issue arrest warrant
Rebekah Jones, the former data analyst who claims she was fired after refusing to alter Florida’s COVID-19 numbers, said Saturday that police have issued a warrant for her arrest.
Jones, who was fired in May from the Florida Department of Health, said she plans to turn herself in Sunday night “to protect my family from continued police violence, and to show that I’m ready to fight whatever they throw at me,” but did not reveal what charges police have allegedly leveled against her.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement confirmed there is an active arrest warrant for Jones.
“FDLE agents have been working with her attorney to have her turn herself in,” spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger told Florida Today. “Our case remains active. Once she turns herself in, we’ll be able to provide additional information.”
State officials said Jones was fired for insubordination. Jones said the allegations and December raid, during which agents confiscated her computer hardware and phone, was “a lie” after the FDLE found no evidence that she had attempted to send a message to remaining employees, urging them to “speak out.”
“However, police did find documents I received/downloaded from sources in the state, or something of that nature... it isn’t clear at this point what exactly they’re saying I had that I shouldn’t have had,” she tweeted.
“The state has issued a warrant for my arrest — even though the ‘crime’ is not related to the warrant, the scope of the warrant, and they didn’t wait for a third party to review confidential information on my computers.”
Jones claimed state officials “invented” new charges against her a day after a Tallahassee judge ordered they return her technology if they were not investigating a specific crime.
She sued the state after the December raid, alleging they had violated her civil rights, and again Saturday accused officials of trying to “silence a critic of a governor who failed to do his job and got thousands killed as a result.”
“The governor will not win his war on science and free speech. He will not silence those who speak out,” she tweeted.
“A potential condition of my release may be no access to computers, internet or electronic devices. Bogus charges designed to silence and now jail me for being a scientist critical of the government. That’s the textbook definition of censorship.”
More than 1.5 million Florida residents have tested positive for COVID-19 so far and more than 24,000 have died.
