REVEALED: Florida data scientist who said she was axed for refusing to alter COVID-19 stats NEVER had access to the data and was fired for insubordination
A Florida data scientists who claimed that she was fired for refusing to manipulate the state's COVID-19 data never actually had access to the raw information, according to a new report.
Rebekah Jones, 31, became the darling of liberal media over the summer when she accused Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, of attempting to cover up the true scale of the pandemic, and was a frequent face in magazines and on cable news.
Jones was fired in May 2020, and described herself as a whistleblower, and set up her own website to rival the Florida Department of Health's - although the two use the same data.
On Thursday, however, journalist Charles C.W. Cooke claimed in The National Review that Jones never had access to the raw data that she was allegedly told to manipulate. He said she was simply uploading the information to the website.
Jones called Cooke's report part of 'a smear campaign' against her.
Rebekah Jones, 31, was fired in mid May 2020 from her job at Florida's Department of Health
Jones called The National Review's report a 'smear campaign' and has denied criminal charges
Jones accused Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, of presiding over a cover-up
She was arrested in January on one count of offenses against users of computers, computer systems, computer networks and electronic devices, and is currently awaiting trial.
Jeb Bush, the former presidential candidate and former governor of the state, tweeted a link to Cooke's article.
'Thank you, Mr. @JebBush, for drawing attention to how smear campaigns targeting whistleblowers reach all levels in the political hierarchy, from the rising to the fallen, the current and the irrelevant, the Desantises and even the Jebs,' she responded.
Cooke further claims that Jones was not fired for refusing to manipulate data, but rather for misconduct.
He obtained her personnel record from the Department of Health, which showed that as early as April she was vociferously contradicting the department on Facebook, and giving frequent media interviews.
Jones is seen in her booking photo when she handed herself in in January
Jones was briefly held, then released on January 15 to await trial
Jones, on losing her job, then set up a rival website to the state's official COVID dashboard
In June Jones confirmed her own website used the same data as the state health department
Her supervisors asked her to stop.
They expressed repeated concern, and she was placed in special management supervision, in a bid to save her job.
For a while it worked, but on May 7, 2020, she altered the design of the data site to make herself the sole administrator.
'This created unnecessary delays in updates to the dashboard over the next few days until all content was appropriately moved and layers properly recreated,' her supervisors wrote in the file.
'This change, without my approval, directly disobeyed my instruction the previous day.
'Because the team was not informed, the team began troubleshooting the issue as if it were a system issue.'
Jones was removed as administrator of the dashboard.
On May 15 she sent an email to all those on the mailing list, including some external individuals, 'stating that she was no longer assigned to the dashboard that in my opinion casted doubts on the integrity moving forward as she indicated that she was removed because she would not manipulate data.
'This email caused and immediate influx of request from media outlets,' her file states.
Jones was fired in mid May.
On November 10, a message was sent to all of her former colleagues urging them to 'speak up' about COVID.
'It's time to speak up before another 17,000 people are dead. You know this is wrong. You don't have to be a part of this. Be a hero. Speak out before it's too late,' the message stated.
Jones was accused of using old login credentials to gain 'unauthorized access' to an employee messaging platform to send the group text.
Jones' home was raided on December 7 by Florida law enforcement (pictured)
Jones is suing the Florida Department of Law Enforcement over the raid, calling it excessive
On December 7 Florida law enforcement agencies obtained a warrant to search her Tallahassee home, on the grounds that Jones illegally accessed the system sending a message to approximately 1,750 people and downloaded confidential FDOH data and saved it to her devices.
The warrant also alleges that Jones downloaded and saved health department data — containing contact information for 'approximately 19,182 people across the state of Florida' — to her own devices, and tried unsuccessfully to gain access to the messaging platform again on November 12.
She claimed that the police brandished guns and terrified her family, but video footage of the incident obtained by Tampa Bay Times showed an orderly seizure of her electronic devices, without guns drawn.
According to Jones, Florida investigators 'found no evidence' related to the incident that officials said had triggered the raid: a chat message that was sent to a planning group on an emergency alert platform, urging people to speak out publicly about Florida's coronavirus strategies.
She wrote on Twitter after the raid: 'police did find documents I received/downloaded from sources in the state, or something of that nature.'
She has maintained her innocence, and is suing the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for 'terrorizing' her family and violating her First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
She handed herself in to law enforcement on January 18, once an arrest warrant was issued.
She is awaiting trial on a $2,500 bond, conditional on her having no contact with any of the people whose personal information was allegedly downloaded and no contact through state of Florida computer systems. The judge ruled against GPS monitoring and a ban on Internet access, which the state had requested.
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