Public defender's office employee on taxpayers: ‘I really don't think they give a s***'

UPDATE: Duval County Public Defender Charlie Cofer fired Robbie Foster on his first day in office.

A public defender’s office employee had some choice words on Dec. 20 about the taxpayers who pay his salary.

That was after Action News Jax asked him why he was barely swiping his security badge at work, while enjoying a raise that nearly doubled his salary.

Robbie Foster said he doesn’t think taxpayers care if he shows up for work.

“I really don’t think they give a s***,” Foster said.

Multiple sources inside and outside Public Defender Matt Shirk’s office reached out to Action News Jax, saying Foster hasn’t been at work --  so we started looking into it.

On Monday, we uncovered Foster only swiped his badge at the office 24 of the past 71 work days.

We started counting on Sept. 1, the day Foster’s salary nearly doubled from $39,000 to $73,000. That was two days after Shirk lost the August primary election.

Foster said he got the raise when he became media coordinator. Multiple sources said Foster worked on Shirk’s campaign.

Our public records request showed Foster only swiped his badge at the office on one day in November, and then didn’t swipe again for more than a month.

Foster told Action News Jax on Monday that’s because he lost his badge and then later got a new one.

But on Tuesday, Action News Jax got his badge history from the city, which shows Foster has had the same active badge since July.

While the document shows Foster has a history of losing badges in the past, there’s no record that he reported this particular badge missing or that he got a new one since his raise in September.

Foster said on Monday that he was using a master key to get around the building while his card was “lost.”

That’s not true, according to city records.

The Public Buildings Department has no record of Foster ever having a master key.

“Ch***, if you want, I can take a f***ing picture of it and send it to you,” said Foster on Tuesday.

Foster did not send Action News Jax a picture.

Foster said on Tuesday that just because he’s not at the office, that doesn’t mean he’s not working.

“I work 24 hours a day, seven days a week," Foster said. "And because you people want to muckrake the story about whether or not I’ve carded in, which is not required by my job, has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of blood, sweat and tears that I have poured into the state of Florida and the public defender’s office."

Foster was not at work on Tuesday. He said he stayed home because he was sick.

Action News Jax has left repeated messages for Shirk to ask about his oversight of employees. Shirk has not responded.

Incoming public defender Charlie Cofer has expressed concern over Foster and 10 other employees’ pay raises after Shirk lost the primary.

Cofer said he plans to make staffing changes once he’s in office.

Cox Media Group