By Mark Schlueb
Orlando Sentinel

ORLANDO, Fla. — A cheating probe at the Orlando Fire Department widened Thursday night when the city's Civil Service Board decided to launch its own investigation.

Administrators had closed the books on the case after they demoted two members of the department's top brass who cheated on a 2002 promotion exam.

But with more than 100 firefighters urging them on, the Civil Service Board voted to subpoena the two demoted firefighters — former deputy chief Rudolph Johnson and former district chief Brian Will — and force them to answer questions about the incident under oath. The board also is expected to exercise its rarely used subpoena power to order the appearance of two other firefighters who might have been involved in the cheating case but were never punished.

The board opened the investigation at the request of the labor union that represents the Fire Department's rank-and-file firefighters.

"We do not believe that anyone who cheats on that test should be allowed to profit from that cheating," union attorney Joe Egan told members of the Civil Service Board, which oversees testing and disciplinary actions for the fire and police departments.

The scandal centers on a competitive test for the rank of district chief in 2002.

At the time, a union leader filed a complaint on behalf of an anonymous firefighter, alleging that Johnson, Will and two others were seen sitting in a parked car outside the department's testing center. A witness said he'd seen the four men using a department radio to secretly listen while others were taking a "live fire" test they would be taking the next day.

The complaint was apparently investigated but disappeared without any action being taken. That changed earlier this year, when city administrators received an anonymous complaint, this time with an audio recording in which Johnson and Will could be heard commenting about their competitors' performance while the test was taking place.

Fire Chief James Reynolds initially suspended Johnson, one of the department's top-ranking officers, and Will, who was in charge of internal-affairs investigations. Later, he enacted harsher punishment, demoting the two men by one rank and cutting their pay.

Will dropped back to lieutenant, the rank he held before the exam. But Johnson had been promoted twice more, so he dropped back to assistant chief.

Union leaders, who are representing others who took the test but were passed over for promotion, said that wasn't good enough.

They want Johnson's rank reduced to lieutenant, too.

Board members initially seemed reluctant to weigh in, saying they did not have the authority. One member, Ronald Hamlin, labeled many of the union's requests "garbage."

In the end, the board voted to hold an evidentiary hearing on Johnson's case at a future meeting.

The union is expected to request subpoenas of the other two firefighters said to be listening in on the test.
 
Copyright 2007 Sentinel Communications Co.