Trinidad at centre of US probe

Last Friday, federal agents seized records from a Fort Lauderdale company that used connections with Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne to try to drum up business in Trinidad.

Agents from the US Secret Service served a search warrant on Friday at Tweraser Enterprises Incorporated at 800 East Cypress Creek Road. Workers in neighbouring offices said agents with badges spent hours loading boxes of files on to a Department of Homeland Security truck.

The company, which has done about US $110,000 worth of business with the Sheriff’s Office over the last two years, used Jenne’s name and bio on its website. It also gave him a fictional work-title in what a spokesman for the company called an unsuccessful attempt to land business in Trinidad.

Jenne’s private attorney, Mike Dutko, said the Sheriff introduced Tweraser’s owner, Wolfgang Tweraser, to some business associates but said Jenne never agreed to have his information used on the website and never did any work for the company.

Jenne told the company to take his information off the website about 15 months ago after a South Florida Sun-Sentinel reporter asked why the website listed Jenne as "director of international affairs," Dutko said. The information about Jenne was removed last year, said Dutko and a spokesman for Tweraser Enterprises.

The web page on Jenne said he controlled overseas operations for Tweraser, acted as an intermediary between government agencies, and negotiated imports and exports. It also claimed he provided legal counsel, which is against the law because of his elected office. The rest of Tweraser’s website was taken off-line on Friday.

The Sheriff did not do any of those jobs and earned no money from Tweraser, Dutko said. No other Sheriff’s Office employee or member of Jenne’s family received any compensation either, Dutko said.

Since April, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement has been investigating Jenne’s private work for some other local companies. State agents are investigating what Jenne did and whether he reported his income correctly. He disclosed on forms filed with the state that he earned US$64,000 in 2003 and 2004 for private consultancy work.

Jenne has no reason to believe that he is under federal investigation and does not think the Tweraser warrant is connected to any investigation of him, Dutko said.

"As far as he knows, these are two separate incidents, one of which he took care of 16 months ago and the other which, to the best of our knowledge, has nothing to do with the Sheriff’s Office," Dutko said.

In the last two years, Tweraser sold to the Sheriff’s Office long-life oil filters for vehicles and the backboards used by emergency workers to transport patients to hospitals.