A Monroe County Sheriff’s deputy was fired at 5 p.m. on Aug 21 after an investigation found she allegedly used her computer to forward confidential information to suspected drug dealers.
The sheriff’s office said 40-year-old Jennifer Ketcham was officially terminated following her July 31 arrest. She faces 19 felony counts of misuse of law enforcement computers, computer networks, and electronic devices.
According to the sheriff’s office, Ketcham used law enforcement databases to look up information for personal reasons beyond the legal scope of her employment as a deputy and forwarded that confidential information to suspected drug dealers.
“Transparency in this agency is one of my highest priorities,” said Sheriff Rick Ramsay. “I am committed to keeping this community informed of all significant events that occur at the Sheriff’s Office and holding employees accountable.”
An incident report obtained by the Keys Weekly details the investigation of Ketcham and more than a dozen instances of her using her law enforcement credentials to access the Florida Criminal Information Center and National Criminal Information Center (F/NCIC) and Drivers and Vehicle Information Databases (DAVID) to look up information about Hernandez and send database search results to Hernandez regarding other vehicle plates and individuals.
In text messages between Ketcham and another sheriff’s office employee, Ketcham reportedly stated that “(Hernandez) is dealing dope, and I can’t be tied into that.”
The employee alleged that Hernandez was only 17 years old when the pair began their relationship, eventually living together as a couple. However, the arrest report references a Ryan Hernandez with a birth date of 1990, matching the only individual of the same name with seven arrests in the Keys for drug-related offenses over the past 14 years.
In an interview with sheriff’s office investigators, Ketcham reportedly stated that she did not have any “concrete” evidence that Ryan Hernandez is involved in any criminal activity, but that it had been brought to her attention during a previous investigation. She stated that she searched the databases for Hernandez’s name because he believed his license had been suspended.
The report goes on to allege that in addition to conducting numerous database searches to obtain information about drivers’ licenses and license plates, Ketcham advised Hernandez of areas to avoid on Stock Island in 2023 while she was an acting supervisor, who dictated the zones to which to which patrol deputies are assigned.
More than 11,000 pages of text messages allegedly sent between Ketcham and Hernandez, obtained via a search warrant for Hernandez’s phone, show that a contact named “J” warned Hernandez to “stay out of Big Coppitt Key, letting him know that ‘narcs’ are getting ready for a raid” on Sept. 6, 2023. Two days later, text messages from the same contact allegedly warned that a “narc is on Stock Island for a couple of hours.”
In her interview with investigators, Ketcham reportedly stated she had warned deputies to stay away from areas of Stock Island, but “only in a joking manner.”
Ketcham was hired on June 2, 2021 after graduating from the police academy that is held at the College of the Florida Keys. Ketcham was placed on administrative leave without pay pending an internal affairs investigation. Her bond was set at $1.9 million — $100,000 per felony charge – but was later reduced to $610,000 in an Aug. 5 order from Judge Albert Kelley.
