Court Watch | Records Desk: a public-records dispute, documented.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office closed a Crime Docket public-records request for the Sarah Boone investigative file within hours of receiving it, with a one-line explanation: “This is not a public records request.” Crime Docket has asked the agency to reopen it.
The request
On August 31, 2026, Crime Docket’s Records Desk submitted a request through the sheriff’s office’s online records portal (request 26-30389) under Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes for records from the concluded investigation of the February 24, 2020 death of Jorge Torres Jr. in Orange County. Sarah Boone was convicted of second-degree murder in his death in October 2024 and sentenced to life in prison in December 2024.
The request asked for six categories of records: the recorded interviews of Boone; body-worn camera video from deputies who responded to the residence; the 911 audio and dispatch records; the investigative case report and supplemental reports; scene and evidence photographs, excluding any image of the deceased and any material exempt under Florida’s autopsy-photograph statute; and the evidence log and any index of audio-visual materials in the file. It noted that the prosecution has ended in a conviction, so the active-criminal-investigative-information exemption no longer applies, and it asked the agency to redact rather than withhold, citing the statutory basis for any material held back.
The response
The portal acknowledged the request the same day. About seven hours later, a closure notice arrived. The stated reason, in full, was: “This is not a public records request.”
No exemption was cited, no record was identified as withheld, and no custodian was suggested for any category.
Why that is not how Chapter 119 works
Florida’s public-records law does not prescribe a form or a set of words for a request. It requires the agency to permit inspection and copying of public records and, when it withholds any record or portion of a record, to state in writing the basis for the exemption, including the statutory citation, if the requester asks for it (section 119.07(1)(e) and (f)). A closure notice that declines to treat a request for a closed homicide file as a request for records at all does not meet that duty.
What Crime Docket did next
On September 1, Crime Docket replied through the request’s own correspondence channel asking the office to reopen the request and, if it maintains that any category is exempt, to identify the record and the exemption in writing. Because trial exhibits are held by the Clerk of Court, Crime Docket offered to redirect those items to the Clerk while holding the sheriff’s office to the records it generated itself: the interviews, body-worn camera video, 911 audio, the case report and the evidence log.
If the office does not respond by the second week of September, the desk’s next steps are a call to the records unit and, if needed, a fresh request in the office’s preferred form. Crime Docket will report what the office produces and will publish the records it releases after privacy review.
Correspondence on this request is available from foia@crimedocket.com.
Sources
- Orange County Sheriff’s Office public-records portal, request 26-30389 (submitted and closed Aug. 31, 2026) – correspondence on file with the Crime Docket Records Desk
- Crime Docket reopening request (Sept. 1, 2026) – on file
- Florida Statutes, Chapter 119 (Public Records), s. 119.07
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