JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier announced his office is suing the City of Jacksonville over a list of gun owners who entered city buildings it kept for two years.
Only Action News Jax has obtained a copy of the lawsuit filed in Duval County Court seeking a $5 million civil penalty against the City of Jacksonville.
Action News Jax was first to report on the existence of logbooks maintained by the city of gun owners who entered city buildings while armed between 2023 and 2025.
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The suit seeks to enforce a state law prohibiting the creation of gun registries by Florida cities and counties.
“The city’s logbooks, maintained with city management’s knowledge and approval, constitute such a registry,” said Uthmeier in a video posted on social media announcing the lawsuit.
Under the law, the Attorney General can pursue civil penalties of $5 million against municipalities if it’s proven they were complicit in and aware of the creation and maintenance of a gun registry.
Criminal penalties can also be enforced by local prosecutors.
An eight-month investigation by the State Attorney’s Office found no criminal wrongdoing, with the final report contending the city employee involved did not realize what they were doing violated the law.
But in the newly filed suit, Uthmeier argued that as far back as 2007, city attorneys had addressed the question of tracking gun owners who entered city buildings.
He alleged that in that year, a memo drafted by city attorneys specifically warned the city could not create or maintain a gun registry.
The AG also claimed that, because the logbook policy was crafted by the city facility manager and approved by the City’s Deputy Chief Administrative Officer, it was therefore “compiled and maintained with the knowledge or complicity of City management”.
The allegation the logbook policy was approved by former Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Charles Moreland is a departure from the State Attorney’s Office report, which asserted the directive was never reviewed or approved by “any senior official in either the Curry or Deegan administrations”.
Moreland served in both.
Appointed by former Mayor Lenny Curry in 2022, Moreland served continued to serve as Deputy CAO under Mayor Donna Deegan for about two months after she took office.
The AG’s complaint alleges he approved the logbook policy on July 13th, less than two weeks after Deegan entered office.
The AG’s complaint does not suggest any higher-ranking officials within the administration played a part in the creation or approval of the logbook policy.
The mayor’s office has consistently maintained Mayor Deegan did not know of or have any role in creating of the logbook policy.
The State Attorney’s Office also absolved the mayor of having any part in the logbooks’ creation.
“As the state pursues politically motivated deflections that waste taxpayer dollars, the mayor remains focused on addressing affordability challenges for the people of Jacksonville,” the mayor’s office told Action News Jax in response to the filing of the AG’s lawsuit. ”It would be nice to have a state partner that is doing the same”.”
Councilmember Rory Diamond (R-District 13) said he hopes the city comes out unscathed, but believes the evidence does not lean in the city’s favor.
“I absolutely support the law. I think it’s tragic that Jacksonville’s running into this and that the court of law is going to decide whether or not we violated it, but it sure looks like it to me,” said Diamond.
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