A 25-page report by the city’s own manager found that every employee interviewed had lost confidence in Chief Jeff Pearson. Nine days after the last interview, he signed a separation agreement worth $73,846.71. Then the city helped him write the announcement, and he approved the wording.

At 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 30, 2025, Satellite Beach City Manager Brittany Retherford sent her interim police chief a note about how to present the retirement of the man he had just replaced.

Brad Hodge had asked a design question: police department letterhead, or a banner with stars, like the program for Friday’s ceremony?

PUBLIC RECORD: “Feel like we are walking on eggshells!” The exchange concerned the announcement’s visual design, but it shows officials understood the sensitivity surrounding the post.

“I know I hear you. Feel like we are walking on eggshells!” Retherford wrote. “I think a banner and stars makes it less formal and more exciting instead of more like an incident. Does that make sense? lol”

Hodge agreed within a minute. “100% – I absolutely agree! We will get it looking more exciting and less formal and post here shortly.”

No journalist had asked the city anything at that point. WKMG’s questions would not arrive until that evening. The decision to make Chief Jeff Pearson’s departure look less like an incident was made before anyone in the press suggested it might be one.

Twenty days earlier, Pearson had signed a separation agreement. Three weeks before that, Retherford had completed an internal investigation into him. She conducted it herself. Her report concluded that every employee interviewed had lost confidence in his leadership, that staff feared retaliation, and that Pearson may have violated at least four provisions of city personnel policy through an outside consulting business the city had no record of ever approving.

None of that appeared in the announcement. The report would stay out of public view for another eleven months.

What the public was told

The notice posted that afternoon read in full:

“The City of Satellite Beach announces the retirement of Chief Jeff M. Pearson, effective October 31, 2025. Chief Pearson is on leave until his retirement date to allow for a smooth transition. Over his 38 years of service, including the last 14 as Chief of Police, he has made lasting contributions to the department and the community. The City extends its sincere gratitude for his many years of service and congratulates him on his retirement!”

Nothing in it was false. Pearson had served 38 years. October 31 was his scheduled DROP retirement date.

This newspaper relayed the city’s account. Our September 30 Facebook post repeated the retirement date, his career history and the line about leave for a smooth transition. WKMG reported the same basic account the next morning.

At the time, none of us had the investigative report. We had the separation agreement. The city had them both.

The letter

It began with two pages on Satellite Beach Police letterhead, printed under Pearson’s own name and title, signed “Concerned Personnel of the Department.” Across the top, in handwriting: Received 8-18-2025 from Lt. Holland.

PUBLIC RECORD: The complaint, written on department letterhead and hand-delivered by Lt. Anthony Holland.

“I am writing to formally express a series of serious and ongoing concerns regarding the current leadership of our agency under the Chief of Police,” it opens. “These concerns reflect a persistent pattern of absenteeism, ethical failures, and mismanagement that have significantly impacted the morale, effectiveness, and professional integrity of this department.”

The letter said Pearson’s absence had created “a substantial leadership void.” It said he attended conferences costing “thousands and thousands of dollars annually” without ever briefing staff, and that he had “bragged about” not fully participating in the sessions.

It said he had handed command authority to his administrative assistant, Michele Heyn, a civilian with no supervisory rank, who had been “permitted to operate as a de facto member of the command staff.” When a formal internal investigation was opened into her conduct, the letter said, Pearson conducted it himself and “manipulated the outcome to protect both himself and the assistant.”

Page two escalated. It alleged Pearson failed to act on officers struggling with alcohol, “resulting in three being arrested for driving under the influence.” It said that when an officer faced a mental health crisis, Pearson told a command staff member to stay out of it: “We do not care what that officer does while off duty.”

And it said he had admitted why he was still in the job.

PUBLIC RECORD: The complaint asked for a forensic audit of the chief’s timekeeping records.

“Adding to these concerns is the Chief’s open admission that he remains in his role only to benefit from the financial incentives available through the Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP). This admission confirms that his continued service is not driven by dedication to the agency, its members, or the community, but purely by personal financial gain.”

The letter requested three audits: a forensic audit of Pearson’s timekeeping, an audit of his Career Development bonus folder, and scrutiny of a practice of letting civilian staff leave early before holidays without charging leave.

Lt. Anthony Holland carried it to City Hall and met with Retherford and Assistant City Manager Suzanne Sherman. He told them he had written it some time earlier and had been sitting on it, deciding whether to come forward. He handed over a list of names, current employees and former ones.

Holland waived his right to confidentiality last month so the city could release his identity in response to our records request. He is still with the department, now overseeing its Criminal Investigations and Communications divisions.

Nearly half the department

Over three weeks, Retherford and Sherman interviewed what the report describes as nearly half the department’s staff, plus former employees. They did not record the interviews. They took handwritten notes, and the report reproduces them at length.

On morale. “Morale is in the toilet.” “Morale is terrible, abysmal.” “Environment is awful, toxic.”

On the chief’s presence. Officer John Housman, 13 years on the job, said he had never seen Pearson on a call at night, and maybe four or five times during the day in his entire career. Victim Advocate Tiffany Petro said he showed as on duty in the CAD system but was not there. Multiple witnesses put him in the building one to three days a week.

On Michele Heyn. Witness after witness called her “Chief Michele” or “Deputy Deputy Chief.” They described an email from Pearson directing that she be copied on everything and that anything from her carried his authority. Investigators’ findings state she had full access to his inbox and often wrote his responses, and that sworn staff were uncomfortable that a civilian outside the chain of command had access to criminal justice information.

On retaliation. Housman and Officer Jason Bergeron were called in after contacting City Hall about acting pay. By several accounts Pearson refused to shake Housman’s hand, pulled him from his squad, and told him he would never make sergeant. Housman later requested his own personnel file and found a write-up he had not known existed.

Sgt. Eric Anderson described the running joke: don’t screw up too much or they will take the Hubble and turn it on you.

On Julie Pollinger. Pollinger, a former department employee now with the fire department, had filed the earlier hostile-workplace complaint that Pearson investigated himself. She told investigators it was “just a show.” She said she was sent home while Heyn was not, that her witness list was not fully interviewed, and that during the process an officer repeatedly drove past her house. The last straw, she said, was a job description for a position she was preparing for being rewritten over a weekend by Heyn, signed by Pearson, and emailed to her, in a form that disqualified her from applying.

The findings section is unusually direct for a document written by a city manager about her own department head.

PUBLIC RECORD: “Every staff member interviewed as part of this investigation expressed a lack of confidence in Chief Pearson’s leadership.”

Lionshield

“Every staff member interviewed as part of this investigation expressed a lack of confidence in Chief Pearson’s leadership of the department and described morale as being very poor, with several describing it as a toxic work environment. … He was described by several as being ‘retired in place.'”

Interviews produce opinions. The documents produced something harder.

Pearson has owned a law enforcement consulting company, Lionshield Training and Consulting LLC, since 2019. The investigation file contains its origin story, assembled almost entirely from his own city email account.

There is a message from his wife Janet, a victim advocate at the State Attorney’s Office, sending a logo concept in May 2019: “This was the lion head and the color. But ultimately honey, you said you loved what he sent you, so use it. It’s your company.”

There is a chain showing the website, lionshieldtraining.com, was built by Shaun Warburton, then a Satellite Beach police dispatcher. “Looks great! Thank you,” Pearson wrote from his city address. “So at this point I guess I can take over control and pay you for your time? Now tell me how to take over control and how much I owe you.”

Warburton is one of the employees multiple witnesses later said was pushed out of the department. One described it as getting “nuked.”

There is a Sunbiz filing receipt sent to his city inbox. A 1099-MISC from Training Force USA for $5,600 in nonemployee compensation. State financial disclosures listing Lionshield with 100 percent ownership alongside teaching income from Eastern Florida State College and McMurry University.

And there is this, from an FDLE training coordinator in August 2022:

PUBLIC RECORD: FDLE noted two vendor entries in the state procurement system, one under Pearson’s name and one under LionShield.

“Can you take a look at your vendor information within the MyFloridaMarketPlace and ensure all is correct (I see 2 entries: 1 under your name; another under LionShield)? … For this delivery, we are looking at an all-inclusive rate of $2150.”

A Daytona State College coordinator wrote to him on August 28, 2025: “Please send your invoice so we can finalize payment.” That was one of the dates investigators flagged as teaching time with no leave recorded.

Investigators concluded he taught for FDLE through the Florida Leadership Academy, for Daytona State College, and through Training Force USA in state and out, and served as an active adjunct professor at two colleges.

“Evidence indicates that all of these are paid engagements for Chief Pearson, and many of these require services to be performed during normal city work hours.”

Then the finding that matters most:

PUBLIC RECORD: City policy requires written notice and approval from the department head and city manager. Pearson was the department head.

“In review of City personnel files, no request or approval from the prior City Manager regarding these outside employment pursuits was found. If prior approval was granted by the prior City Manager, it was not passed along to the current City Manager, who has been in position for over a year now.”

Investigators also documented that Pearson took a personal vacation to Georgia at the end of August 2025 in his city vehicle, entered no leave, and did not tell the city manager he would be out of town. Policy 3.10 restricts city vehicles to city business and expressly bars their use for secondary employment.

Four sick days

Here the story stops being about what people said and becomes arithmetic. Investigators pulled Pearson’s 2025 work calendar and identified 11 events that were either paid teaching engagements or personal travel, each corroborated by an email confirmation. Fairfield Inn Orlando. Fairfield Inn Clermont. Renaissance St. Louis Airport. Courtyard Pensacola. Sheraton Tallahassee.

Estimated time away: 192 hours. Leave recorded in payroll for the entire year: 28 sick hours and 60 vacation hours.

PUBLIC RECORD: The city’s own timekeeping analysis, comparing the chief’s calendar against payroll records.

The investigation stopped there. But the city had already released Pearson’s pay-code report to us a year earlier, in the batch it did produce. Laid beside the investigation’s calendar table, the two documents show something neither reveals alone.

Pearson took exactly four sick days in 2025. Every one falls on a date his own calendar places him out of town at a paid teaching engagement.

Sick leave recorded	Hours	What the calendar shows
January 29	8	FDLE Generational Differences, Tallahassee (Jan. 28-30)
April 9	8	Florida Leadership Academy, Pensacola
April 10	4	Courtyard Pensacola reservation dated April 10-11
May 5	8	Florida Leadership Academy, Fairfield Inn Clermont (May 4-5)

PUBLIC RECORD: The payroll record showing all sick and vacation leave entered during the period.

Four for four. All 28 hours.

Sick leave carries particular value at the end of a career in Satellite Beach. Unlike vacation, which is capped, it banks indefinitely and pays out in full at separation. Pearson forfeited 36 vacation hours in 2025 to the accrual ceiling. He forfeited no sick time, and left with 597 banked hours.

Meanwhile the three purely personal trips on the investigators’ list, a Blue Ridge mountain trip in August, a family vacation in July, and another mountains trip in March, total 56 hours with no leave entered at all.

Against 192 flagged hours, roughly 48 hours of leave were recorded, and more than half of that was sick leave taken on teaching days.

A separate item appears in the same payroll report, unrelated to any of the above and deserving its own answer: during Hurricane Milton in October 2024, Pearson was paid 32.5 hours at the Hurricane 1.5 rate and 26 hours at the Hurricane 3 rate. That is 58.5 hours of premium overtime for a salaried department head.

The deal

The last interview on the investigators’ schedule was Lt. Ronnie Kinsey, 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, September 9, 2025.

Pearson signed a Separation Agreement and General Release the next day.

The agreement says he “decided to resign.” It gives no reason, names no investigation, and contains no admission of wrongdoing by anyone. Paragraph 2 acknowledges he would not have been entitled to the full benefits described but for signing. Paragraph 12 is a mutual non-disparagement clause binding both him and the city, which is part of why the public statements read the way they do.

Federal law gives employees over 40 twenty-one days to consider such an agreement. Pearson waived the balance of that period and signed the same day.

PUBLIC RECORD: Signed and notarized September 10, 2025, one day after the last employee interview.

The agreement lists no dollar figures. Five days later, an email to Pearson’s personal Gmail supplied them.

PUBLIC RECORD: One month’s salary, 597 sick hours, 344 vacation hours and a longevity bonus.

One Month Salary $10,513.60 Sick 597 hours $39,228.87 Vacation 344 hours $22,604.24 Longevity Bonus $1,500

Total: $73,846.71.

The attached worksheet shows the math: 160 hours at $65.71 an hour, implying an annual salary near $136,700. The same email committed the city to paying family health coverage through December 2025 and his own coverage indefinitely after that. The Florida League of Cities separately put his Share Plan balance at $30,214.49.

Most of the $73,846.71 was leave earned across 38 years, and it should not be called severance. The extra month’s salary, $10,513.60, was the distinct consideration for signing the release. But the largest single line, $39,228.87, was the sick leave payout, calculated on 597 banked hours by the same official whose report had just questioned whether his leave records accounted for his time.

That email also set the choreography: retirement letter out Thursday, September 18. Office cleared Friday, September 19. Everything returned to HR. City email access removed.

The first draft was more honest than the last

Drafting began September 12, two days after Pearson signed. Heyn sent him a draft announcement. By September 15 he was working versions for department employees and for the Brevard County Association of Chiefs of Police.

At 1:02 p.m. on September 15 he sent it to Retherford with a three-word message: “How does this look?”

PUBLIC RECORD: Pearson’s September 15 draft. The language was softened before distribution.

The draft was candid:

“This decision was not made lightly. My professional and personal obligations outside of work, along with my professional obligations at work, have stretched me pretty thin. When you have that much going on it’s hard to give 100% to all of it. And all of you deserve 100% of your Police Chief.”

The version distributed on September 18 says the same thing with the edges filed off:

“My professional and personal commitments outside of work, combined with my responsibilities at work, keep my life very full and active. It is challenging to give any one thing 100%, and you all deserve 100% of your Police Chief.”

“Stretched me pretty thin” became “keep my life very full and active.” “This decision was not made lightly” was detached from the outside-work explanation and reattached to a sentence about his DROP timeline.

Both versions name the cause. Pearson wrote that his commitments to the Florida Police Chiefs Association, the FBI National Academy, his gubernatorial appointment to the Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission, “along with my company, Lionshield Training and Consulting, which has also grown,” kept him very busy.

Eight days after signing the separation agreement, and roughly two weeks after investigators wrote that they could find no approval on file for that company, Pearson publicly named its growth as a reason for retiring. In his own words, his outside commitments had left him unable to give the job 100 percent. That is the absenteeism finding, restated as a virtue.

He asked Heyn to shorten the draft for countywide distribution while keeping the portion about being stretched thin. Five minutes after sending it to Retherford he sent her a corrected copy, noting he had misspelled the city manager’s name. At 3:27 p.m. she returned “Final Draft” with the dates inserted.

The administrative assistant at the center of the complaint prepared the final text of his departure announcement.

PUBLIC RECORD: The letter distributed department-wide and to police chiefs across Brevard County.

The letter also asserts the timing was always the plan: “as most of you know, my original plan when I entered the Deferred Retirement Option Program (DROP) in 2020 (which at the time was five years) was to retire in 2025.”

That claim has genuine support. October 31, 2025 was his scheduled DROP exit, listed in pension records for years. But the investigation file contains a competing account from former Officer Philip Martinez, who resigned after 10 years: when the DROP rules changed and the program was extended, “that meant Chief Pearson could stay even longer,” and Martinez left because he could not wait for change any longer.

The retirement date was not a surprise. The end of his command was.

The department changed hands before the public knew

On September 18, Heyn emailed Cocoa Beach police to inform the countywide chiefs’ association that Hodge “has assumed all command responsibilities” and would be the contact “for any time-sensitive or critical communications.”

On September 19 the department held a mandatory meeting where Retherford discussed Pearson’s retirement and announced Hodge as interim chief and Kinsey as interim deputy chief, effective that day. Pearson’s office was cleared and his city email shut off. In one exchange, Pearson wrote that October 31 would be his official retirement date “even though I won’t be coming into the office.”

By September 22, according to a police corporal’s email to a Fraternal Order of Police representative, Hodge was already discussing a move to 12-hour shifts, a change the email said Pearson had not supported.

The department was not waiting until October 31 for a transfer of authority. It had already begun operating under new leadership, eleven days before the public was told anything.

Heyn resigned before she could be questioned

The upheaval did not end with the chief. On September 24, Retherford told the mayor and City Council that she and Hodge had planned to meet with Michele Heyn about concerns raised during the employee interviews. According to her email, Heyn resigned before that conversation happened.

Retherford wrote that later interactions were difficult and that Heyn made comments to Hodge the city manager considered inappropriate. The city allowed Heyn to leave immediately while continuing to pay her through October 6.

Retherford emphasized that the city had not asked Heyn to resign, and that she had wanted to give her an opportunity to respond and explore a path forward.

By October 1, the department’s accreditation manager was writing to FDLE to explain a sudden administrative gap: “this is the first time I have encountered these administrative items for FDLE, since our primary contact, Michele Heyn, has resigned.”

As with Pearson, the record contains allegations and an exit, but no completed adjudication. Heyn was never publicly accused of anything and no finding was ever made against her.

September 30

10:04 a.m. Hodge sends Retherford a full-length draft press release praising Pearson’s “steadfast leadership, mentorship, and commitment to public service” and saying the department would build on the legacy he established.

12:09 p.m. Sherman circulates the program for Friday’s ceremony: invocation by Pastor Joe, the Lions Club, remarks from the city manager, the interim chief and Pearson, a final radio call-out, a walk-out, and a parade escort home.

12:14 p.m. Retherford cuts the release to four sentences and adds the “smooth transition” line.

1:46 p.m. Hodge asks about letterhead versus a banner.

2:00 p.m. “Feel like we are walking on eggshells! … less formal and more exciting instead of more like an incident.”

2:48 p.m. Retherford asks City Clerk Gwen Peirce to post it to the city’s own page rather than share it from the police department’s: “I rather it be its own posting and not sharing from PDs page.”

That evening. WKMG assignment editor Brianna Ellis emails Hodge asking whether there had been an internal investigation into Pearson and Heyn’s conduct in the past two months, and requesting comment on the departure. Hodge forwards it to Retherford with “FYI.” She replies: “Thank you.”

The sequence is the point. The framing was chosen hours before any journalist raised a question. And the shortest line in the chain may be the most consequential:

I did talk to Jeff too and he is good with it.

The subject of an unfinished misconduct investigation was given sign-off on the city’s public statement about his own departure.

The explanation shifts

Only after journalists pressed did the city say more. On October 9, the station updated its story with a statement from Retherford acknowledging concerns about the department’s organizational climate, Pearson’s outside commitments and the need for consistent leadership. The city said the parties had mutually agreed retirement was in their best interest.

That moved closer to the truth. It still did not disclose the investigation’s findings, the resignation language in the agreement, the payout, the office clearout or the non-disparagement clause.

What the public did not know

By the time Satellite Beach residents saw the retirement graphic with stars around it, city officials knew:

• A lieutenant had brought a formal complaint to city administrators on August 18.
• Nearly half the department had been interviewed about the chief’s conduct.
• Every interviewed employee had expressed a lack of confidence in his leadership, according to the city’s own summary.
• Investigators had found no outside-employment authorization anywhere in his personnel file.
• Investigators had documented a personal Georgia trip in a city vehicle with no leave recorded and no notice to the city manager.
• Pearson and Retherford had signed an agreement describing his departure as a resignation.
• He was to receive $73,846.71, plus ordinary pay and continuing health coverage.
• His office, equipment and email access had been surrendered on September 19.
• New command staff had already taken control of the department.

The public was told a veteran chief was retiring and taking leave for a smooth transition.

The step that never happened

The final page of Retherford’s report is a single sentence.

PUBLIC RECORD: The last line of the 25-page report. No record of that meeting appears in the production.

“The next step in the process will be to schedule a meeting with Chief Pearson to discuss and request any additional pertinent information regarding these concerns.”

That meeting appears nowhere in the released records. There is no interview with Pearson, no written response from him, no finding of sustained or unsustained, no discipline, no forensic timekeeping audit of the kind Holland requested, no review of the Career Development bonus folder, no closure memo of any kind.

The report identified possible violations under Group II offense 18 and Group III offenses 2, 11 and 14 of city personnel policy. Group III offense 11 covers being absent from duty for three consecutive working days without authorization. Nothing shows any of them were adjudicated.

The process simply stopped. The payout, the ceremony and the press release went forward.

The records themselves

Our request, filed October 1, 2025, sought any investigation in which Pearson was the subject, along with his time records and communications surrounding his retirement.

The city produced the retirement emails and a pay-code report. It did not produce the investigation.

The exemption notice attached to that production, signed by the city clerk on October 8, 2025, claims exactly two exemptions: employee Social Security numbers and protected contact information for police personnel. The boxes for an active misconduct complaint and an active criminal investigation are not checked.

The document the city used to explain its redactions therefore does not memorialize any exemption covering the investigative file it withheld. Under Florida Statute 119.07(1)(e), an agency that redacts or withholds must state the basis in writing.

The investigation was released on August 24, 2026, after Lt. Holland signed a waiver permitting the city to disclose his name. That production carries the same two exemption claims and again does not mark the matter as active.

What this story does not say

Pearson was not fired. He was not charged with a crime. No body has found that he committed fraud, and we do not allege that he did.

Many of the most serious items in the file, including claims that he appeared intoxicated at city events, that he intervened to void a friend’s arrest, and that he knowingly permitted timecard fraud by others, exist only as employee statements recorded in handwritten notes. They were never tested, never put to Pearson, and never resolved. They are allegations, and are identified as such throughout this report.

The 192-hour figure combines paid teaching with personal vacation, and the gap between it and his recorded leave does not by itself prove every unmatched hour was improper. Salaried department heads are not hourly employees, and there may be an accounting the records do not capture.

The sick leave pattern is different in kind. It is not an allegation. It is four dates in a payroll record aligned with four dates on a calendar. It invites an explanation rather than supplying one.

Questions the city has not answered

The Space Coast Rocket has put the following to the City of Satellite Beach and to Jeff Pearson. This story will be updated with any responses.

To the city:

1. Was the investigation ever formally closed? When, by whom, and with what finding? 2. Why was the meeting with Pearson described on the final page of the report never held, or if held, why is there no record? 3. Was his sick leave usage reviewed before the city paid out 597 banked hours worth $39,228.87? 4. Was the forensic timekeeping audit requested in the complaint ever performed? Was the Career Development bonus folder ever reviewed? 5. Did anyone verify whether Pearson was paid by FDLE, Daytona State College, Eastern Florida State College, McMurry University or Training Force USA on days he was also on city payroll? 6. How was the estimate of 192 hours away from work calculated? 7. Did Pearson reimburse the city for any personal use of his city vehicle? 8. What was the total taxpayer cost of the separation after salary, accrued leave, ordinary wages and health coverage? 9. What did “walking on eggshells” refer to? 10. Why was the subject of an open personnel investigation consulted on the wording of the city’s public announcement? 11. What statutory exemption did the city rely on to withhold the investigative file in October 2025, and where was that basis communicated to the requester as Florida Statute 119.07(1)(e) requires?

To Jeff Pearson:

1. Records show you took four sick days in 2025, each on a date your city calendar places you at a paid out-of-town teaching engagement. What is your explanation? 2. Did any city manager ever approve Lionshield Training and Consulting as outside employment in writing? 3. Did you use your city vehicle to travel to paid teaching engagements? 4. Were you aware an investigation was underway when you signed the separation agreement on September 10?

A planned date, an abrupt departure

Pearson gave 38 years to Satellite Beach and had planned for years to retire through DROP in 2025. Both things are true alongside the newly disclosed record.

October 31 was a planned pension date. September’s removal from active command was the product of a very different process: an internal complaint, extensive employee interviews, documented policy concerns, a negotiated separation agreement and a payout of $73,846.71.

The ceremony went ahead on Friday, October 3. Pastor Joe gave the invocation. The Lions Club attended. Hodge’s remarks called Pearson “genuinely kind, thoughtful, and caring.” There was a final radio call-out, a walk-out, and a parade escort home.

Brad Hodge did not become permanent chief. Ronnie Kinsey, the last person interviewed in the investigation, holds the job now.

The city was entitled to honor Pearson’s decades of service. The public was entitled to know the circumstances under which that service ended.

Instead, officials put stars around the announcement and called it a smooth transition.

Document note: This report is based on two City of Satellite Beach public-records productions. The first followed The Space Coast Rocket’s October 1, 2025 request for investigative records, time records and retirement communications. A second production, received August 24, 2026, included the investigative report and signed separation agreement. Allegations made by individual witnesses have been attributed and distinguished from the investigator’s own summary and from documentary findings. The full investigative report is below.