Citizen Report No. 1665356589 - 379163529

CLEET # 0122006  STATUS:  Active    EFFECTIVE:  06/26/2009

A wrongful termination lawsuit filed by a former Canadian County Sheriff Office Civilian Computer Forensic Examiner alleges she was terminated for reporting the misconduct of Major Adam Flowers.  The facts alleged in the Petition are as follows:

• "Adkins saw Major Flowers preforming a "Cellbrite Dump" on a phone with Jerry Flowers (Major Flower's father, a non-CCSO employee) and Lieutenant Paul Reynolds standing nearby"
• Adkins noticed Major Flowers had taken the cellular device of airplane mode - which is essential to preserve evidence when conducting a search on a cellular device.
• Adkins witnessed Major Flowers pulling up the personal Google account of the suspect on the CCSO ICAC forensic computer.
• Flowers then attempted to log into the Google account, resetting the google password through the suspect's phone, and downloading information from the suspect's personal Google account.
• She witnessed essentially the same sequence of events for the suspect's personal Facebook account.
• Adkins advised Lt. Reynolds against using any information obtained via Flower's search in any investigation because the manner in which it was obtained likely constituted an illegal search because Flowers conducted the search without the suspect's consent and without a search warrant.
• Adkins had reason to believe that Major Flower's search of the suspect's accounts were for private purpose in connection with his father's (Jerry Flowers) security job with an oil & gas company, rather for legitimate law-enforcement purposes.
• "Although Lieutenant Reynolds  initially asked Adkins to document the situation, he later pressured Adkins to keep the situation quiet by suggesting that if she spoke out about the misuse of county property and the illegal search, t would somehow reflect badly on her.
• Adkins reported the incident to Lieutenant Marty Burns on 04/28/2021.
• Lt. Burns reported the misconduct to Sheriff Chris West and Undersheriff Kevin Ward on May 7, 2021.  Adkins was questioned by West & Ward about the situation the same day.
• After these events Major Flowers told Adkins that an investigation had been conducted and that he had been "cleared".  Based on Flower's description, the investigation consisted of a hypothetical being described to the Canadian County District Attorney's Office and an unnamed Assistant District Attorney stating that the office would not file criminal charges in this circumstance.
• Adkins believes that either the investigation was not thorough or that CCSO fed the investigators false information.

Adkin's termination of employment in August of 2021 following retaliatory conduct from her superiors was the cause for bringing the civil suit.