The West Palm Beach Police Department chief announced the firing of five command-level officers on Friday, ending a years-long saga that had embarrassed the storied department and left key positions vacant.
Chief Tony Araujo officially terminated Asst. Chief Tameca West, Maj. Michael Deighan, Capt. Joseph Ahern, Capt. Dennis Wrobbel and Capt. Theordore Swiderski. They had been on leave for nearly two years over accusations of “double-dipping,” instances where they allegedly worked lucrative off-duty assignments during working hours.
“ We recognize that the actions that led us here have legitimately impacted the confidence our community has in its police department,” Araujo said at a city hall press conference.
He said the firings were in line with a greater effort to overhaul the culture at the department. The agency also released a 68-page administrative investigation conducted by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
The records paint a damning portrait of leadership under former West Palm Beach Police Chief Frank Adderley, who led the agency from 2018 to 2024 before the mayor fired him over financial mismanagement. Adderley was alerted numerous times to complaints about double-dipping but failed to respond, the PBSO report states.
Multiple command-level officers interviewed said the chief was often out of office. He frequently used the training budget to attend out-of-state conferences, they said.
Meanwhile, the captains under Adderley’s oversight showed up to work in gym clothes, gathered amongst themselves in an exclusive "morning coffee club," missed department meetings for off-duty work during the day, and even circumvented steps taken by the city to curb their use of alleged double-dipping, the report said.
Adderely did not respond to a request for comment.
As WLRN found in its investigation in January, this period of absentee leadership coincided with a pattern of forceful arrests and reckless chases by members of an elite police unit, known as “GHOST.”
Adderley disbanded the unit and seven officers were fired and indicted, after a GHOST car chase in July 2024 led to a crash in another city that killed a pregnant woman and her mother.
READ MORE: Revealed: Cops in South Florida elite 'GHOST' unit left a trail of red flags before fatal chase
The officers sought to cover up what happened by returning to West Palm without telling anyone what occurred, nor stopping to help the women, according to Palm Beach County prosecutors. They’ve pleaded not guilty and their cases remain pending.
Key accusation
Based on the findings of the PBSO report, a memo authored by Chief Araujo said command-level staff “purposefully and continually utilized the time keeping system for their own personal and monetary gain,” and did so in an “organized manner.”
PBSO found that after Adderley and the mayor became aware of the double-dipping accusations, the city put in a technological fix in its software to halt the practice. Yet, the captains found a “loophole” to sign up for lucrative assignments and work them during working hours — without having to touch their leave time, the report said.
It gave them the ability to “be paid both their city hourly pay while receiving the secondary pay for the scheduled off duty job they had signed up for." The memo emphasized the word "while," in bold, italics and underlined.
The 15th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s office and sheriff’s office first investigated this as a criminal matter. Neither found evidence to support probable cause of a crime.
Union responds
The union representing units within the police department expressed disappointment about Araujo’s determination to fire the captains.
“Conduct that was known, accepted, and directed under former Chief Frank Adderley's administration is now being judged by an entirely different standard,” said Lt. Adam Myers, who serves as president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #2.
Myers said the union believed the officer’s rights under the Florida's Police Officers' Bill of Rights were “not fully honored” during the investigative process.
However, the union already sued over those claims and sought an emergency injunction in October, which they received and held up the administrative investigation for six months. The captains continued to collect on-leave pay during that time.
The union withdrew its legal case in May 2026, saying they now had enough information to agree to interviews with the sheriff’s office.
“ We're gonna leave that to the continued due process that will take place,” Araujo said, responding to the union’s complaint. “I don't begrudge the union for advocating for their membership.”
