PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – Months after being charged, controversial Pembroke Park Commissioner Geoffrey Jacobs is no longer facing a criminal case for calling the police on his rival on the dais.
Jacobs, 49, had been charged with misuse of 911, a charge that was later amended to filing a false police report, after he called police during a Nov. 8, 2023 meeting and claimed that Mayor Ashira Mohammed has threatened him and is always armed.
“The mayor has consistently has threatening behavior towards me on the dais, aggressively whacking her gavel, yelling at me,” he’s heard saying in a recording. “She has boasted about carrying weapons.”
Former Pembroke Park police Chief Ra Shana Dabney-Donovan stopped the meeting and Mohammed allowed the chief to publicly search her. No gun was ever found.
That led to the Broward State Attorney’s Office charging Jacobs. They dropped the case on Friday.
In a brief closeout memo, prosecutors said their ability to prove the elements of the crime would have “fallen short.”
Read the closeout memo:
“First, Commissioner Jacobs’ call to BSO’s dispatch services indicated that he could not confirm whether, in fact, Mayor Mohammed actually possessed a firearm,” the memo states.
Prosecutors said while an investigation revealed “no evidence existed that could reasonably explain Commissioner Jacobs’ fear that Mayor Mohammed possessed a firearm and that, if she did, she was going to harm Commissioner Jacobs with it,” they “did not have sufficient evidence to conclusively, demonstrate that Commissioner Jacobs knew that his reporting was false.”
The memo states that Acting Town Attorney Jacob Horowitz testified that after Jacobs advised he was concerned for his personal safety, Horowitz told him to “call law enforcement.”
“At trial, Commissioner Jacobs would have reasonably argued that he was merely following the advice of legal counsel when he called BSO dispatch services,” the memo states.
Jacobs’ attorney, Michael Pizzi, during a news conference on Friday, said Mohammed and Dabney-Donovan “put on a show for the media and fabricated and manipulated the suggestion he said the mayor had a firearm at (town) hall.”
But Jacobs was the one who called police and made the allegations and the state attorney’s office, not Dabney-Donovan, decided to charge the commissioner.
But Pizzi argued, “I think that it will be very clear in a court of law that (town) officials and the police put pressure on the state to charge Commissioner Jacobs falsely.”
Pizzi said Jacobs now plans to sue the town “for malicious prosecution, for slander, for orchestrating this false arrest and false criminal allegations.”
Jacobs, whose own alleged conduct has been the subject of litigation, said he is the victim in all of this.
“Is any of this your fault?” Local 10 News reporter Jeff Weinsier asked.
“No, it’s not,” Jacobs replied.
“None of it?” Weinsier asked.
“None of it is,” the commissioner said.
Mohammed, in a statement, said, Jacobs has been “a plague on Pembroke Park since the moment he took office” with a “well-documented” string of “abuses of power.”
“He falsely accused me of having a gun at a commission meeting and is now planning to sue me for I don’t even know what. I didn’t charge him with a crime, the state attorney did,” she said. “His abusive behavior and outlandish accusations continue to cost the taxpayers of Pembroke Park both financially and operationally as he drives good people away from working for our town.”
She said Jacobs is attacking rather than taking responsibility.
“It’s long past time for him to resign or be removed from office,” Mohammed said.
Jacobs says that’s not going to happen.