Gunzburger Versus Lamberti: It’s Personal
BY BUDDY NEVINS
When County Commissioner Sue Gunzburger earlier this year suggested the jail operation be taken from Sheriff Al Lamberti, she never revealed her very personal reason for striking out at the sheriff:
At the time her daughter Judith Gunzburger was embroiled in a lawsuit against Lamberti after being fired by the sheriff’s department.
Judith Gunzburger phoned in sick. Then instead of showing up for work, Sue’s daughter spent two weeks sightseeing with a friend, according to federal court documents.
Lamberti won the suit. He won some court costs, too.
The case is being appealed, said G. Ware Cornell Jr., Gunzburger’s attorney.
A spokesman for the Gunzburger family declined to be quoted, stating it was a personal matter involving medical issues and had nothing to do with the county commission.
Here is the story from the federal court documents:
- On July 25, 2005, Judith Gunzburger, who lives in Hollywood, was hired by Sheriff Ken Jenne’s Broward Sheriff’s Office as a Detention Program Specialist. Cronyism? You judge.
- On March 3, 2007, Gunzburger was promoted to Child Investigation Specialist, which had a probationary period of one year.
- On October 23, Gunzburger received a six-month review with a over-all score of 2.8 out of 5.
- On November 12-14, Gunzburger was in Memorial Regional Hospital South because of chest pain and numbness in her upper left body. She was diagnosed with cytomegalovirus with a low grade fever. Gunzburger later described her condition in a deposition: “Basically I didn’t feel up to doing anything since I was so tired. I didn’t feel—with the fever I was miserable, plain and simple. It is just like staying home you need to rest. This is the only way to work it out is rest and sleep and take Tylenol.”
- From Nov. 12, 2007 to Jan 31, 2008, Gunzburger was absent from work at BSO. But during that period, from Dec. 19 through Jan. 2, Gunzburger’s friend Angela Wagoner came into town from Louisiana. “During this time period, the Plaintiff (Gunzburger) and Wagoner went sightseeing around the Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale areas. Wagoner and Plaintiff went to restaurants, the ‘broadwalk,’ a few art events, and traveled to Miami to look at the shops and restaurants there,” Federal Judge Kenneth Marra wrote in his decision. Wagoner testified in her deposition that Gunzburger was able to sightsee for “short periods” before having to go back home and lay down.
- On Jan. 22, 2008, Dr. Morton Weinstein, who had been treating Gunzburger for more than two months, certified on a BSO medical Family Medical Leave Form that she “did not have a ‘serious health condition’ that qualified her under the Family Medical Leave Act,” according to Marra’s decision.
- On Jan. 31, Gunzburger was fired.
- On May 14, 2008, Gunzburger filed suit against Lamberti for violating the federal Family and Medical Leave Act.
- On May 22, 2009, Sue Gunzburger announced plans to “study” whether Lamberti should continue to operate the Broward jail system.
- On June 23, 2009, county commissioners voted to “study” whether Lamberti should continue to operate the jails. At the time, commissioners were pressuring Lamberti to cut his budget.” Commissioner Sue Gunzburger explained her reason for suggesting the “study:” “I want to see if we can find a way to run the jail better.”
- On July 27, 2009, Judge Marra granted Lamberti’s motion for summary judgement, dismissing Gunzburger’s suit. The The ruling was based on the statement of Dr. Weinstein and fact that Gunzburger never told BSO how much time she would need off and when she would return to work. In his ruling, Marr wrote that “the court concludes that plaintiff (Gunzburger) has failed to present evidence that she exercized a protected right under FMLA, thus defeating her FMLA interference claim.”
- On Sept. 24, 2009, Marra signed a motion granting BSO $1,021.90 in costs, but turned down the motion to force Gunzburger to pay attorney’s costs, stating her case was “brought and pursued in good faith and was not frivolous.”
Gunzburger’s lawyer Cornell believes she will prevail in the end.
“The reality of this situation is that Judith Gunzburger was entitled
to FMLA leave for a medical condition and her physician apparently
failed to fill in the certification form in accordance with its rather
complicated instructions,” he e-mailed me. ”Under the law Judy Gunzburger was suffering from a “serious health condition” as that term is defined by statute and by federal regulations.”
October 29th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Yet another reason why we need to elect Steve Geller. The people of Broward are tired of the public corruption and are especially tired of the Gonesburger dictatorship!
Can’t wait to see what lies little Ronnie comes up with or how he plans to attack Geller to avoid this issue.
October 29th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Charge her with honest services fraud.
October 29th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Can someone explain why we have a County Commission? All of them seem to go where they don’t belong, and do things that either work to their own personal advantage or against someone they want to punish. Either way there must be a better answer to them.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:50 am
The County Commission has a function that is important. Years ago, a large percentage of Broward residents lived in the unicorporated areas of the county and the Commission served as their local government. Today that is no longer the case as the vast majority of those areas have been annexed into cities.
However the County still has an important role in providing regional services that cannot properly be provided by any of our 32 cities.
The county has oversight over the port and the airport. Over environmental protection, cultural and consumer affairs. Over regional land use and traffic engineering functions and serve as coordinator of social services. They run the library system and regional parks. There are numerous other regional functions, including funding for certain constitutional offices like SOE, BSO, and BPA.
All of those are services that must be run regionally, no city can do that work because it would take them way out of their jurisdictional boundaries. There is clear a need for county government. As to what those commissioners do individually, that’s a different story.
October 29th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Gunzburger’s daughter and son work for Broward government! Ron Gunzburger works for Lori Parrish, although I hear he has a very loose schedule. Now you tell me Judith Gunzburger works for BSO.
They took the chance to get a job away from others because of who their mother is and that is a crime. Gunzburger uses her office to promote her family.
October 29th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
The County Commission also “oversees” the Department of Health. What a joke! Has anyone every tried to talk with someone about it? No one down there even knows they are the overseer, much less being able to direct you to someone who does know anything. The Broward Health Department for years has sucked up money and given very little in return. If the County Commission does this well with everything else, I have to agree — why do we even have them? There must be a better way.
October 29th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
I do not know why they call it the Broward County Department of Health because it is not. That is a state agency through and through. The Secretary of Health is appointed by the Governor, the agency is state funded, the Broward Health Director is appointed by the state. It really has no connection to the county except for the name.
October 29th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
One flaw in the whole theory behind this story: how does Gunzberger feuding with Lamberti over the jail HELP get her daughter her job back as BSO? It would seem if she wanted to help her daughter she would have worked a deal to become Lamberti’s best friend on the commission. This seems to be another example showing Gunzberger has real integrity.
October 29th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Gunzburger probably was so mad that the sheriff dared to challenge her daughter’s job that she lashed out.
Taxpayers (voters) should question how Gunzburger’s daughter got the job & why both Gunzburger children work for governments that depend on the county commission for money.We elected Sue Gunzburger and gave her a job. That doesn’t entitle her to put both her children on the payroll.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Not wishing to get off on a different subject because I fully agree Gunzburger needs to go, but the County Commission does have to approve the budget monies used by the Broward Health Department. Yes, it is a state agency, but it’s a confusing arrangement. Knowing how bad the other elected boards operate in Broward County, maybe it doesn’t matter that the Health Department doesn’t even have an elected board to answer to.
But back to Gunzburger, it appears she takes advantage of her position just as much as the others, if not more.
October 30th, 2009 at 4:52 am
This proves what I’ve been writing here. I agree with Please Explain Is Wrong.
Gunzburger is wrong for re-election. She uses her office for personal reasons, starting with her husband selling benches to the county and now with her children both getting government jobs. I’ll bet that was a fair application process for those jobs!
October 30th, 2009 at 4:53 am
One more thought is that how dare Judith Gunzburger ask for family leave when she is sightseeing around town!
November 1st, 2009 at 8:43 am
I’m a naive Broward resident. Didn’t know Gunzberger was corrupt like Eggletion, Ritter, etc
Thanks Buddy.
November 1st, 2009 at 9:03 pm
To “Please Explain”:
No offense, but I think you’re being naive. When elected officials become drunk with power (like GONEzburger), they don’t want to cooperate with the people that challenge them, they want to CRUSH them. My guess is that Sue was furious that anyone would dare expect a Gunzburger to “play by the rules”, so she struck out at Lamberti with the clear implication that she would make his life miserable until he learned how to play ball by her rules.
She did the same thing when son Ronnie wanted to be a judge. She assumed that anyone that supported her had to AUTOMATICALLY support Ron, even though he’s the LAST person in Broward to have the temperament, maturity, or objectivity to be a judge. She was furious and turned her back on people that wouldn’t support him just because she wanted them to.
Bottom line is that it’s time to get ALL the Gunzburgers out of Broward government. I’d rather pull a random name out of the phone book than have Sue serve another term.
June 30th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
[...] Browardbeat.com broke the story on the daughter here. [...]
July 1st, 2010 at 11:35 am
So the daughter’s case is forcing Broward taxpayers to pay legal fees, since the BSO fired her with cause? Comm. Gunzburger should have let it go. She has Lamberti fired up and for good reason.