Clay County Sheriff Darryl Daniels is facing more challengers to reelection, as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates claims surrounding his extramarital affair with a subordinate officer when he worked at the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
Daniels, a Republican, is facing increased competition from within his party.
Republican Ben Carroll is a retired emergency management specialist/SWAT team member at the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, according to his Facebook page. Carroll has so far raised more than $21,550 in contributions.
Harold Rutledge also filed to run against Daniels next year's election. Rutledge is a former Clay County commissioner who also has a long history in the criminal justice field. Rutledge has amassed $13,805.
And former FDLE agent Mike Taylor, also a Republican, is kicking off his campaign Thursday evening in Green Cove Springs following a failed run for sheriff in 2008. The Clay County Supervisor of Elections didn’t have an active filing for Taylor at the time of this story’s publication.
That's as Daniels is at the center of an FDLE investigation related to his affair with a woman he supervised when he was chief of the jail for the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, as WJCT News partner News4Jax reports.
Bill Bortzfield can be reached at bbortzfield@wjct.org, 904-358-6349 or on Twitter at @BortzInJax.
