Bogenschutz told The Herald that Jenne might not have known that Innovative was doing business with his agency. The ethics code bars officials or employees from doing private business with a company that sells products or services to their agency.

CRIMINAL MISCONDUCT

The sheriff also faces potential criminal official misconduct charges, with felony penalties up to one-year in prison.

Among the allegations:

• Two BSO detectives were ordered to gather information about the Hollywood police's investigation into the 2002 shooting of Seminole tribal general counsel Jim Shore in his Hollywood home. Those detectives obtained information from Hollywood police and later discussed it with Jenne in the presence of T&M executives, who had hired his firm to do consulting work for the tribe. State law forbids a public official from sharing information about a criminal probe with outsiders who are not involved in the case, because the evidence could somehow be passed along to suspects.
• When Jenne recommended that Innovative Surveillance Technology, the BSO vendor, hire his consulting firm to craft police-training courses for Caribbean law enforcement agencies, the sheriff may have crossed a legal line.

State law bars an official from accepting "any pecuniary or other benefit" from a company doing business with his agency. It's called "unlawful compensation."

Legal ethicists expressed concern over Jenne's conduct as sheriff.

"Law enforcement, along with elected officials, are held to a higher standard of ethical conduct because they are in the public eye, " said Jessi Tamayo, an attorney who works as a post-graduate fellow with the Center for Ethics & Public Service at the University of Miami.

"The public has much higher expectations for elected officials and if there is the appearance of impropriety, the public can perceive it as reality."

Nova Southeastern University law professor Robert Jarvis, who teaches ethics, said Jenne's conduct "looks very bad. . . . "If I was Ken Jenne, I would be very concerned."