PBSO sex scandal brewing; one deputy suspended
Tags: florida, Lt. Paula Kronsperger, Palm Beach Sheriff, Ric Bradshaw, sex scandal
| Thursday 16 April 2009 3:05 pm
A sex scandal at the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office nearly cost a deputy his job and put an unwanted spotlight on his former lieutenant, a woman often considered a rising law enforcement star.
Deputy Timothy Keith, 38, is at the tail end of a month-long suspension after his wife caught him allegedly having sex with a neighbor – a fellow deputy’s wife.
Keith was supposed to be on-duty at the anti-gang unit, working on one of Sheriff Ric Bradshaw’s big gang initiatives, when he was caught at his home with his pants literally down.
Now, it gets interesting.
When Keith’s wife, Maguis Lopez, a barber, was interviewed by Internal Affairs honchos, she alleged something else.
She claimed that, not only was Keith having sex with other women, but also that she intercepted after-hours text-messages to Keith from his then-supervisor, Lt. Paula Kronsperger. And Lopez showed investigators, but didn’t file a complaint.
Sheriff Ric Bradshaw
“The big fish (Kronsperger) eats the small one (Keith),” Lopez told Page2Live. “I told them my husband was having several affairs, and one with his lieutenant, but they didn’t seem interested.
“I found messages to him from her cell phone that said ‘Do you want a kiss?’” Lopez said. “Or ‘Good night, baby!’ He’d received those things right in front of me. I showed the internal affairs people. All they wanted to talk about was me catching my husband doing things at home while he was supposed to be at work.
“I would have made a formal complaint against the lieutenant,” Lopez said, “but the deputies (I.A.) kept telling me my private life would become public. So I didn’t.”
Bitter jilted wife, you say?
Well, Lopez did file for divorce after the incident but recently had the case dismissed and tried to patch things up.
Meanwhile, PBSO records show that I.A. Sgt. Chris Soares requested Kronsperger’s cell phone records. Kronsperger, one of the agency’s highest ranking females, officially wasn’t questioned.
“We narrowly focused the wife’s allegations,” Soares told Page2Live. “We looked into on-duty behavior. We don’t regulate off-duty behavior.”
Even if that off-duty relationship involves a supervisor, possibly making it illegal?
“I saw text messages, and they didn’t say Kronsperger on them,” Soares said. He then stopped taking questions.
The scandal’s fuse was lit Oct. 17, when Lopez called 911 during a dispute with Keith at their Wellington home. She reported catching her husband in a bedroom at home while an undressed woman – identified as the wife of Keith’s partner on West Palm area patrol – hid in a bedroom closet.
By the way, Lopez told the operator, Keith is supposed to be on-duty.
I. A. got involved, and in time decided that Keith violated three agency policies: standard of conduct; procedures; and failure to report for duty.
Last month, Bradshaw suspended Keith with no pay for a month. He signed a “last chance” contract that could get him fired instantly for any future violation. Word is Keith is getting reassigned to the Belle Glade district.
Paula Kronsperger was reassigned shortly after the Keith incident: to a posh job that every lieutenant usually puts in for. She’s now the executive officer at the warrants unit.
Neither Bradshaw, nor Paula Kronsperger or Timothy Keith returned calls for this story.
Said Bradshaw’s spokeswoman, Teri Barbera: “We do not investigate rumors! Besides, there hasn’t been a complaint against the lieutenant.”
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First off the wife needs to get a divorce and move on. Shes with a scumbag and shes a typical chick, trying to make the mans life a living hell now. I.E. ratting him out to the police, which is pretty ironic if you think about it. it makes me smile!
2nd. The officer should be fired if he was in fact supposed to be on duty.
3rd. The cops are soo full of Sh*t that i cant stand it. They dont investigate rumors??? isnt that all that police work is? You hear a rumor that someones selling dope and then you harrass them until you catch them or they die. whichever comes first.
Either way I think all parties involved are complete morons.
I’m not the biggest POLICE fan but what they do in thier homes should not be OUR business. Do we need to know what the Burger King cook is doing ? What about the doughnut girl? The only thing they need to do is show up while on duty and take out the bad guys when we need them . The end people.
Ditto JoeC! I couldn’t agree with you more!
i conquer
I am a veteran and work armed security. I agree with alphonza 1000%…! That is not why I went off to defend my country. People should stop worrying who is having sex with who and mind their own business!
personally, keith is a good cop and made a bad mistake but has never had problems in the past. He is still a good guy and has learned a hard lesson.we have all messed up at some time. as far as the kronsperger goes well she liked him and should have keep him closer maybe this woild have never happened.
my 2 cents,dep. keith got spanked hard for something that didn’t result in any “act” occuring between him and the depty’s wife but it sure as heck didn’t sound good. if my life has taught me anything there is always 2 sides to each story and as the saying goes….it takes 2 to tango. now lets get back to the real issues
Wow, to say he got spanked sounds like he was doing the spanking. This guy is not a good guy, he is a predator. He goes around and sleeps with other employee’s wives…there is nothing good about that. The Sheriff’s Office now has no credibility now that they did not investigate the lieutenant when it is obvious to the whole world what is going on. The public should be looking into the reason they did not investigate this lieutenant sleeping with a subordinate. Could it be that while she was Organized Crime she was sleeping with that Captain? Hmmm, something to think about.
Thats not the way I see it.I know of no other accusation ever against this guy with fellow employees or for anything else. always a stand up guy prior to this crap.
You are all idiots. bosses cant have sex with their employees. its called sexual harassment and its illegal. guess its ok at pbso….for some….
The old “screw up and move up” scenario for Kronsberger. Almost like making a predator sex abuser priest the Pope. Ya gotta love this country!
I’d be out for blood if my partner was railing my wife.
But as far as this whole sex scandal… this isn’t news.
this is the same agency that has murdered five people so far this year.
Did you know Kronsberger is also married? Did you know he also works for PBSO? Talk about crapping where you eat. Who initiated this affair you may ask? Turns out it was LT. If this had been a male Lt. and a female deputy you had better believe there would have been an investigation and there would have been hell to pay in the end! How did she become the “golden child”?
Granted Keith is NOT innocent in this whole thing BUT why is he being made an example of when Kronsberger is just as guilty?? Even more so because she IS his superior officer.
I wonder if this affair was only happening after work..hmm?
Text messaging will get you everytime!!!
Unless you work for a strip club having sex while you are supposedly at work and getting paid is grounds for instant termination, and loss of unemployment benefits. The supervisor should have been investigated, and if found guilty terminated. And his partner at work needs both a new partner at work, and at home.
Having sex while on duty is against the law. Having sex with a subordenate is against the law. Don’t they follow the same rules as we do at work? I guess not. I have a question for those of you who are defending them, if you were having sex with someone that worked for you would you be fired? Yes! so why is it ok for these hypocrits to get away with it? They might just arrest you someday and I hope that they give you the same break.
Cannibal, your an idiot! Next time you need help why don’t you just go to the trailer next door and wake your neighbor. Putting ALL the police into the same group as these scumbags is stupid. You really think all police are the same? It’s like me saying that everyone out there is an unemployed alcoholic felon. Open your mind a bit, try to see that the police and deputies out there are trying to do a job. And for the most part all they get is grief from all sides. The bad guys, the ignorant public, and even from there own departments. Get a grip, don’t be a hater. These officers are putting thier life on the line to protect complete strangers. Would you take a bullet for your neighbor for $40,000.00 a year, I didn’t think so.
Maybe if the wife was more of a willing participant and joined in the fun, then it would have never been a problem. People cheat when they aren’t getting what they are supposed to be getting at home.
They’re all grown adults, people sleep around on their spouses all the time. Just because they are cops should not really matter.
Now a lesson for all the geniuses that think what goes on off duty is none of anyones business. When a cop is nailing another cop’s wife use your imagination as to what may happen when that is found out amongst the troops. When they are in a life threatening situation and you have to TRUST the man beside you to save you or you have to save him. Say nothing about all the revenge scenarios and management nightmares this can produce at work. The second situation where married coworkers are doing it on the sly. When it goes south guess where it plays out? AT WORK! Now you may have disgruntled ex lovers having to back each other or work together with same scenarios as above. Third when the supervisor is nailing the employee and it goes bad, guess what, sexual harassment lawsuit and we all have to pay a fortune for their fun and games. These cops completely violated all the rules as badly as could be done and as far as off duty behavior, cops get in trouble for that all the time as it is known that they are never truly off duty. Keith should have been punished harder and the supervisor should be fired as she is to know better and be held to a higher standard. Do you get it now?
PBSO IS A JOKE & HAVE BEEN FOR A WHILE…THEY’RE ALL CLOWNS!! They don’t give a hoot about protect & servign the public. It’s obvious they’re SERVING EACH OTHER…The protection is something to ask about…Nasty STD Carriers!!!
Yes, the wife is a woman scorned, but put that aside and look at the facts.
Keith should have been working and earning a salary paid by us the public tax payers while using a car & gas also paid by the tax payers, so i think what he does when he should be on duty IS my business.
Okay, he may be a good guy as someone else wrote. I suppose good guys are unfaithful to those that are supposed to be their loved ones. And if the marriage was broken, get divorced and then screw your neighbor’s/coworkers wife. And don’t say he made a “mistake”…. he made a CHOICE.
Paula must be hot because pretty girls always get just a slap on the wrist. Bradshaw, you’re a huge disappointment the residents of Palm Beach County. Get your ability to make good leadership decisions out of your pants. Paula is just another Debbie LaFave (the pretty teacher who had an affair with a students)…. she got a transfer to a posh job and no investigation, no punishment. Wow Bradshaw, you set the standards really low for your lieutenants.
Bob White must be a crooked cop like Keith. Keith should have been fired and so should Bob White, this county does not need bad cops like that on our streets.
Both should be terminated! Problem employees have no place in the work place.
This is HILARIOUS. It’s so funny to me that a person who has made a career out of screwing people, both figuratively and allegedly now literally, is once again walking away from a trainwreck scott free. Kronsperger for quite some time was a detective in the Internal Affairs department, which probably explains why she was untouched in this regard. She has friends in there and they would feel compelled not to give it the old college try in an investigation.
You see, Kronsperger is a VERY ATTRACTIVE woman, physically. She has risen to through the ranks and been in several departments within the Sheriff’s Office. I am sure it’s only coincidence that those whose command she was under during those transitions are notorius for their illicit affairs with subordinates throughout their careers within the Sheriff’s Office.
A major contributer of her promotional success was a Notorius Captain who got into a jam over a scandal with a subordinate, which cost him his career with PBSO. Another was also a Captain who likes women and drink so much he was convicted of felonies over it.
The one Kronsperger reveled in was the IA department. She is a programmed robot of the heirarchal whims of those above her and she tries her hardest to destroy other people’s careers. Even if it involved deceipt and “creative writing”. She is a devil in a blue dress. A snake in the grass. Pandora’s box.
It seems now that the rumors of the golden girl’s misdeeds are being shed light upon with some actual merit. It would only be karma that proved in the end the Kronsperger is not only flawed like the rest of us humans, but is so self righteous and indignant that she is willing to step over the line to get what she wants.
I feel bad for Deputy Keith’s wife, but the fact that someone finally was able to shed a bright light onto Kronsperger’s misdeeds is great. Judge not lest ye be judged. What goes around comes around.
She should know better since her mentor, Former Captain David Carhart, who is now a convicted felon and no longer able to be a police officer, obvously is no stranger to stepping over the line to serve his whims. It makes you wonder why her career skyrocketed under Captain Carhart, who also had a thing for dating subordinates. Enquiring minds wnat to know.
It does sadden me a little that these things come to light under Sheriff Bradshaw’s watch. He is a good Sheriff and to see anything bad going on makes me sad for him. I hope he does the right thing. Like the old aggage goes “Usually where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
[...] county’s biggest police union reacted Friday to a sex scandal currently rocking the Palm Beach Sheriff’s [...]
Ric is condoning this by doing nothing other than giving that loser Keith a month off.
The “Ken and Barbie” Kronsberger’s husband and wife team should take a hard look at themselves in the mirror. They are nothing but phonies who act as though they are the “perfect” family in the community and especially the local elementary school. I feel especially sorry for their daughter. Hopefully she will grow up independent of her parent’s evil ways.I guess having both parents as police officers isn’t cracked up to what everyone thinks. As a matter of fact it’s pretty dam sad. Was it worth the climb Paula?
[...] biggest police union Friday blasted a suspended sheriff’s deputy for his role is the sex scandal rocking the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, and questioned the agency’s decision not [...]
I think everyone needs to quit speculating and trust that the Sheriff is doing the right thing. He has yet to let this County down and has done nothing but good things since being in office. This is all just a chance to have rumors and nonsence going on in the gossip section of the paper. This is not in the Local Section, this is not breaking news. It is he said she said and it was handled properly. Bradshaw is running this department better than it has ever been ran and all of you so quick to judge could not do what that man does in your wildest dreams so I think you should reconsider your snide nasty comments and come to reality. Bradshaw is the best Sheriff this County has ever had. He took care of the problem…..move forward.
Timothy Keith is a bastard scumbag who get off on harrassing innocent people. He is a joke to society and the PBSO. The PBSO is already trash. He thinks because he carries a bagde he has the right to harrass innocent people. I know first hand what a lying scumbag he can be. He should have been fired years ago for what I have seen him do. Falsifying reports, commimitting perjury. He deserves nothing but the worst. Karma’s a bitch ain’t it Tim?
Another scandle , Hey big top cop Bradshaw , you been noticing what is going on there ? female Lt. busted in overtime scam , female Capt. busted in FBI school scandle , now another female Lt. in sex scandle .Maybe you should stop premoting these power hungry females , bad enough you have snot nose arrogant rookie deputies on the street , and a corrupt over paied , over stuffed upper staff . We all know how you like to keep your image squeeky clean , especially at election time , you might have to start dropping the hammer on people who deserve it , instead of just the selected few. With this ecomony , people without jobs , the loss of pentions , no one needs to see your crew driving around vehicles for personal use , and reading about constant scandles in that agency. When I see a green and white taking the family to dinner , or a new unmarked dodge with a young kid in a child seat , like it is the family vehicle , and hearing ranking officers are out on sex affairs , it makes me sick . Remember Ric , you work for us , the tax payers , we don’t work for you .
[...] in April, some knucklehead posted a comment to this item that included the sheriff’s home [...]
Same stuff, different day!
Bradshaw is a flaming idiot draining the tax payers of their hard earned money . Look we now have ANOTHER , a over paid Major who has been placed on admin. leave ? These band of dirty little corrupt jerk-offs need to be exposed for what they really are . Bradshaw and that fat ass messenger boy Gauger need to pack their bags , WAKE UP palm beach tax payers , voice your concerns .Bradshaw you suck , you are a spinless turd that thinks your greater than you are , CLEAN UP this agencey tax payers and make it clean again , enough is enough .
Sick of you,
Sorry that you have made nothing of your life and find it as a stress releiver to down others who make something of their life like bradshaw and gauger. This county will always need some one to wash cars and serve food. Im sure you will be the perfect person for this position. If you take a second to shut your mouth and research a topic before you comment, you will have noticed the tremendously improved stats since bradshaw has been in office. Maybe that is why he has been elected twice. Its ok buddy one day you will get promoted to employee of the week at the gas station. P.S= Enjoy life
wgXebc comment4 ,
[...] The first details of what threatens to be one of the agency’s biggest sex scandals ever were revealed by Page2Live in April. [...]
Bradshaw , crooked politition , he and his side kick gauger need to be investigated , hey Bradshaw , where are you hiding ? face the public once in a while like other Sheriffs do , show some responsability to the voters . You have failed as a leader , and made poor choices in staff , so own up to it .
[...] the wife of another PBSO lieutenant, has been under investigation for allegations that she had sex with subordinates, possibly while on duty, in her previous assignment as a patrol [...]
[...] Keith was already disciplined last year — a one-month suspension and reassignment — for having sex with his patrol partner’s wife while on duty in [...]