Jerry Bowmer, a southern-talking former Baptist lay-preacher and former special deputy for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, ran for a seat on the Hillsborough County Commission in 1976, against incumbent Bob Lester. He charged Lester with “dereliction of official responsibility” during the campaign. The first vote led to a runoff. Days before the run-off election, a scandal broke out when county employees claimed their supervisors had asked them to make campaign contributions to Lester, so a cocktail party could be held to solicit more donors to win against Bowmer. It did not play well in the media for Lester, and four days before people went to the polls, the Hillsborough County State Attorney launched an investigation. The day before the election, Lester took out a full-page ad charging Bowmer with lying. The 31-year-old former Brewster High School football standout defeated Lester by 5,000 votes out of a total of 36,000. By 1979, Bowmer was named Chairman of the County Commission, a powerful position when it came to getting big business done in the county, after the current chair, Bob Curry, was charged with driving while intoxicated and stepped down. Bowmer was elected to a second 4-year term in 1980 with strong backing from a developer coalition that donated thousands of dollars to his campaign.

In early February 1983, three commissioners, including Bowmer, made headlines after being arrested for taking bribes. Along with Commissioners Joe Kotvas and Fred Anderson, he was charged with extorting $75,000 in exchange for votes to rezone a 600-acre development known as Galleria. All three commissioners were splashed across the front page, wearing suits and handcuffs, as they were escorted to the courthouse by federal agents. It turns out that Bowmer had already flipped and was an informant for the FBI. He wore a wire when he gave Kotvas and Anderson a share of $15,000 the day before their arrest. He also informed agents about other occasions when the trio split bribes to secure favorable votes. Anderson was a former Tampa fire chief, and Kotvas was a retired Tampa Police officer and City Councilman. It crippled the county commission, with three of the five members facing federal charges. Gov. Bob Graham soon appointed three new commissioners.

Kotvas and Anderson were found guilty and sentenced to two consecutive 8-year prison terms. Both appealed. Bowmer entered a plea of guilty and was the state's chief witness against his former co-commissioners. He was sentenced to three years. After his arrest, he provided the government with a list of 69 illicit transactions that had occurred, leading a federal grand jury to investigate public corruption. Ultimately, 16 individuals and three corporations were charged with various federal offenses from seven years of corrupt operations in the commission, culminating in a mass trial in 1986. It eventually resulted in the convictions of four men and the acquittals of 14 other defendants after a 5 1/2-month trial.

In 1992, Bowmer, along with his two sons, was again arrested and charged in a cattle-rustling scheme at his pig farm in Lake City. He ultimately pleaded guilty to grand theft, receiving stolen property, and racketeering. In exchange, he accepted a sentence of 12 years in state prison, followed by 15 years of probation, along with a requirement to pay $20,000 in restitution.

Kotvas served five years of a 12-year federal sentence after his appeal. He ran for office three times after his release, including the Hillsborough County Board of Commissioners in November 2018, but lost each time. In 2016, he wrote a book about his experience, titled “Found Guilty, But…”, blaming overzealous prosecutors for his conviction and stating that the only thing he was guilty of was not testifying on his own behalf.

These photos from the Gandy Collection are likely from Bowmer’s 1980 re-election campaign..

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