Monroe County prosecutors will seek prison time at the Nov. 24 sentencing of a former sheriff’s deputy who pleaded no contest this week to 40 felony counts for misusing her public office, misusing law enforcement computers and databases and unlawful use of a cell phone.
Jennifer Ketcham, 41, was a deputy with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office when she was arrested in July 2024, having been hired in June 2021. She has since been terminated.
Ketcham pleaded no contest to the charges on Nov. 5, but was not guaranteed or offered any reduced sentence by prosecutors in doing so. Her sentence, based on the charges, could range from about three years in prison to five years per each of the 40 counts.
Ketcham’s attorney has filed a request for “downward departure” with the court, which, if granted, would give Judge Sharon Hamilton leeway to impose whatever sentence she deems appropriate regardless of state sentencing guidelines. In his request, attorney Dustin Hunter states that Ketcham has been evaluated by two mental health professionals in New York, one of whom is still meeting weekly with Ketcham, according to the court filing. Both professionals stated that Ketcham meets the diagnostic criteria for Post-Traumantic Stress Disorder, Hunter writes in his motion.
“The defense believes that (the doctors’) written reports will serve to qualify Ms. Ketcham for a downward departure under Florida Statute,” Hunter’s motion states.
Ketcham’s sentencing hearing is set for 9 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 24, when prosecutors are expected to seek prison time for Ketcham and present witnesses to testify on behalf of the request.
In discovery documents pertaining to the case against Ketcham, prosecutors present several pages of text messages between Ketcham and her then boyfriend, Ryan Hernandez, who was 18 at the time of her arrest.
In the text exchanges, Ketcham tells Hernandez where narcotics officers are patrolling on Stock Island and Big Coppitt Key. She also texted him a photo of one of the narcotics deputies so Hernandez would recognize her, the court documents state. Further, Ketcham texted Hernandez about an arrest she had made that night, and revealed the name of the arrestee, who had agreed to become a confidential informant for the sheriff’s office. Such information is considered sensitive material for law enforcement. Ketcham routinely ran license plate numbers through law enforcement databases at Hernandez’s request and then sent him the vehicle registration information, court records state.
There is no mention in the case records of Hernandez being involved in drug sales that was aided by Ketcham’s text messages about narcotics officers, and Hernandez is not charged with any wrongdoing in this case. But in a text message to a female friend and fellow deputy, Ketcham says, “(Hernandez) is dealing dope and I can’t be tied into that,’ her arrest report states. The report also alleges that Ketcham advised Hernandez of areas to avoid on Stock Island in 2023 while she was an acting supervisor, who dictated the zones to which patrol deputies were 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.”
