DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Volusia County Sheriff-elect Mike Chitwood apparently wasn't the only candidate for office apparently fooled into accepting the political consulting services of one Gregory Fournier, also known by Texas penitentiary officials as Gregory Noll.
Fournier has worked for big-name candidates like State Rep. John Mica and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in his run for president. He also served as a political consultant for Deb Denys in her initial attempt at a seat on the county council before she won four years later in 2012 without Fournier's involvement.
Headline Surfer learned from an anonymous tip that Fournier is a convicted felon who did time in Texas related to writing bad checks to pay close to a dozen or so employees knowing he did not have the funds to cover the payroll expenditures from which the checks were drawn from. Fournier himself acknowledged his ctriminal past to Headline Surfer in the waning days of Chitwood's outright primary win of Aug. 31 over four other candidates.
Because Headline Surfer has had a rocky relationship with Chitwood, it waited until the primary was over to report Fournier's connection because the media outlet did not want to be accused of using the information to embarrass Chitwood so close to the primary vote.
And certainly, after Chitwood won decisively, Headline Surfer did not want to throw in this wrinkle and be accused of tainting his victory celebration so it waited for a couple of weeks to pass, considering that Chitwood wasn't the only politician duped by this ex-con.