As first reported by The Eggplant FSU, FSU College Republicans President James Fletcher Dilmore received a Notice of Impeachment from the FFCR for a variety of offenses ranging from embezzlement (to the tune of $16,000) by the CR treasurer, threats of violence, sexually charged language in the general body meetings and most shockingly “…overt solicitation of sexual favors in exchange for favorable board positions.” FSU College Republicans Treasurer Ben Hoades was named in the notice in relation to the embezzlement accusations.

When The Tab attempted to reach out to a board member for the College Republicans, the website was down and showed no information.

When asked for comment, the Chairman of the Florida Federation of College Republicans and Vice Chairman of the College Republican National Committee, Cade Marsh, who sent the notice to Dilmore, told The Tab:

“Just to clarify – there is an internal investigation underway by FFCR to collect further evidence and testimony of malfeasance by past leadership, in order to correct the mistakes and set the club back on the path to complete autonomy. These do not represent legal proceedings or facts necessarily, but are in the pursuit of an internal audit as to the charges. Generally, these things are rarely if ever made public, but given the severity of the charges brought, an immediate suspension was necessary, and we had to formally censure Fletcher and Ben to all applicable authorities. I’m 100% not at liberty to discuss the identities of any individual who has come forward with those details. Furthermore, it’s far beyond the scope of my authority or responsibilities to pursue reconciliatory action on those fronts. I can tell you that as applicable, FFCR has, and will continue to, operate in close coordination with the school administration and any law enforcement agencies that intend on pursuing the other allegations at their discretion. I only have the power to re-structure leadership and authorize funding to provide additional security for the safety of my members at every level.”

When additional questions about the length of time between the first complaint against Dilmore and the Notice of Impeachment letter, and if he believed law enforcement would intervene if the allegations proved true, Marsh stated:

“No serious allegations were lodged with FFCR until just days before the Quarterly meeting where the impeachment vote was held. Once I had been looped in by the old executive board, I began fact-finding, and encouraged them to do the same. What information I could vet was then presented to the State Board, we had open discussion time, and then voted with an overwhelming majority to intervene. And yes, I’m fully confident that should the allegations of sexual impropriety be proven to the degree necessary to prosecute in a court of law, they will be handled to the fullest extent of the law. No one should be above the repercussions of their actions.”

Faculty Advisor to the FSU College Republicans Dr. Sam Staley was also available for comment on the internal investigation, and admitted to no prior knowledge of any wrongdoing by Dilmore or Hoades before the notice was sent by the FFCR. He maintains that there is no solid evidence on any of the accusations listed in the letter, and that he remains skeptical until the investigation comes to a close.

When asked about how the alleged victims of the sexual misconduct could have felt safer about lodging their complaints, Dr. Staley noted that there is a campus-wide issue with lack of knowledge about how to report student misconduct, and urges anyone who is facing such issues to report sexual misconduct to the Dean of Students office or a member of the Florida State faculty.

The Secretary of College Republicans had this to say:

“We have just recently learned about these allegations and there is an internal investigation that is going on right now so until the investigation is over it has not been proven true or false, although these are huge allegations and we are not handling them lightly. We are working with FSU administration to have a resolution hopefully as soon as possible.”

Freshman member of College Republicans Elinor also shed light on the situation:

“I have most definitely heard about the situation and have complete faith in the CR executive board to handle the situation appropriately. I’m going to kindly refrain from making any comments on Dilmore’s actions though. I think very highly of and have great respect for every member of the executive board and the club and have complete faith that they will handle the situation with grace and with the well being of the entire organization in mind.”

Images of the Notice of Impeachment can be found below:

@cschlt