The Arrest of Two Walton County Administrators

In February of 2025, State Attorney Josh Mitchell filed no-bail felony warrants absent a judge’s signature for the arrest of two former county administrators, Quinn Robertson and Joseph Turner, who lived in Virginia and Kansas, respectively. They were charged with two felony counts: unlawful interception of electronic messages and offenses against users of computer systems, computer networks, and devices.

On April 21, 2026, Mitchell added 32 more felony charges in an Amended Information filing. With each felony carrying up to five years of prison time, Robertson and Turner faced up to a maximum of 170 years of incarceration.

All of these charges stemmed from their possession of a county-owned iPad in December 2023 in which a former employee by the name of Charles “Chas” Galloway had synced his personal iCloud account to the device. After observing content on the device that potentially implicated Galloway and BCC Chairman Danny Glidewell in a criminal conspiracy, Robertson and Turner contacted the Walton County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) and requested an investigation. They met multiple times with Undersheriff Donnie Clark and Detective Miles Marthinsen.

On January 22, 2024, a day before the BCC Commission meeting in which Commissioners Glidewell and Tony Anderson would attempt to terminate County Administrator Robertson for the third time in three months, Marthinsen informed Robertson and Turner that they were the subjects of a felony investigation — not Glidewell or Galloway.

Galloway was hired by Walton County in November 2021 to be a social media specialist and he left just a few months later in March 2022. A couple weeks after his departure, he announced he was running for the county commission in District 4. He would ultimately finish last in a three person race and lose to Donna Johns who was the most vocal supporter and advocate of Robertson and Turner.

Now would probably be a good time to tell you that Galloway is a friend and political ally of Board Chairman Danny Glidewell, and two other now former commissioners by the names of Mike Barker and Trey Nick. He has called Glidewell his “political mentor” and referred to Barker as the “boss man.” Glidewell, Barker, and a third member of the Walton County BCC were former deputies with the WCSO.

Just a few weeks after joining the county in October 2023 and after Turner disciplined the planning department director, he became the target of a massive email campaign waged by Galloway. The planning director was supported by a powerful and politically connected land development attorney who relied on his relationship with the planning director to push projects through the bureaucratic pipeline in one of the fastest growing counties in the country.

During Turner’s brief stint with Walton County, multiple administration staffers told him that they believed Galloway had breached county databases and stolen data during his employment. Additionally, after Galloway’s departure staff became concerned about invoices for software and services he had purchased with a county credit card. There were concerns that Galloway had outsourced his job to third party virtual assistant type vendors and also used county purchased resources for his own personal benefit. There were additional concerns about thousands of dollars in Facebook ad purchases. Galloway had created approximately two dozen community Facebook news groups and Turner had wondered if those ads were used for county purposes or to benefit his planned political run for county office by directing traffic to build those news groups which were then used to spread his political propaganda.

In fact, staff asked the WCSO to investigate Galloway. Everyone agrees that the WCSO investigation into a political ally of former WCSO deputies sitting on the BCC was extremely limited in scope and ultimately the matter was closed without any charges filed.

In November 2023, Robertson and Turner met with State Attorney Josh Mitchell to request they investigate the allegations against Galloway. This fell on deaf ears. In December, Robertson and Turner would reach out to ask the WCSO to re-open the 2022 investigation. Additionally, they requested an investigation into their concerns about the aforementioned potential criminal conspiracy.

Below is a list of the major motions and court filings in the criminal case against former assistant county administrator Joseph Turner.

Court Records: State of Florida vs Joseph Turner

You can find every document related to the court case here, but we have taken the liberty of posting the major documents below:

Charging Documents

Depositions & Other Transcripts (Chronological Order Taken)

Turner’s Reciprocal Discovery Submissions

  • First Submission: Emails and human resources records pertaining to Charles “Chas” Galloway
  • Third Submission: Federal motion to dismiss Teresa Lowery’s lawsuit filed by Walton County
  • Sixth Submission: Recordings of jailhouse phone calls by Robertson and emails pertaining to his incarceration in Henrico County, VA
  • Eighth Submission: Press release from Walton County Sheriff’s Office about arrest of Robertson and Turner
  • Eight Submission (Misnumbered): Amended civil lawsuit filed by Teresa Lowery acknowledging that Robertson and Turner were acting within the scope of their employment when they viewed the text messages on the county-owned iPad
  • Ninth Submission: Order granting motion to dismiss federal claims against Walton County in civil lawsuit
  • Eleventh Submission: Honorable Thomas Dannheisser as an expert witness

State of Florida Discovery Exhibits

  • Seventh Exhibit (iPad Extraction): Released more than a year after our arrest in April 2026

Notices

Motions