A top candidate for Orange-Osceola public defender was forced to resign in 2019 from the office she now hopes to lead, branded as “toxic” after she made inappropriate comments about her supervisor and colleagues.
In an interview this week with the Orlando Sentinel, Melissa Vickers, once the No. 2 administrator in the public defender’s office, apologized for her expletive-laden remarks against Public Defender Robert Wesley and two other employees sent in August of that year as instant messages to a ranking attorney she oversaw.
Details of the communications were first shared with the Sentinel by Wesley, who is set to retire following this year’s election after serving as public defender since 2001. The Sentinel obtained additional material through a public records request. Wesley is now backing Lenora Easter, the other candidate to replace him.
According to the messages, Vickers was frustrated with Wesley and wrote that the two other workers should “rot in hell next to Bob.” She then asked the recipient to “please delete these IMs.” One of the employees, currently Wesley’s research and writing chief Catherine Conlon, appeared to be a particular source of Vickers’ ire, as she wrote, “They are both a–holes who are too much of [wimps] to live in the real business world.”
“Stay away [from] that bitch. She’ll get you fired if you look at her the wrong way,” Vickers wrote of Conlon. Days later, Wesley emailed Vickers that he accepted her immediate resignation, writing that the message string “demonstrates that your presence is toxic and that your remarks concerning coworkers are harmful and unprofessional.”
Vickers told the Sentinel she was venting in what she considered a private conversation, but acknowledged that the comments were “inappropriate.” She said she already was slated to leave the office in October after putting in her resignation weeks before the messages were written, but left immediately after they came to light. Emails obtained by the newspaper support this version of events.
“I take full responsibility for what I said. It was inappropriate, it was wrong and I shouldn’t have said those things,” Vickers said. “This was one snapshot out of 18 years at the office, and I have no ill will against any of them.”
Wesley sent a message to agency managers announcing Vickers’ departure and warning staff that their emails and instant messages were being monitored. “Delete does not always mean delete and cannot conceal rude, hateful and improper messages,” he wrote.
His support for Easter, who has served as a public defender in Central Florida and elsewhere in the U.S., is featured on her campaign website. But the reasons behind his break with Vickers, once considered his chosen successor, were not publicly known until he reached out to the Sentinel. In an interview, Wesley described Vickers as “devious” and someone who was “able to conceal the worst parts about her.”
“If Melissa wins, I don’t think I can be counted on to say something helpful,” Wesley said.
The messages shared by Wesley are the only blemish appearing in Vickers’ personnel file over her time at the Orange-Osceola Office of the Public Defender, which she joined in 2001. She then climbed the management ladder steadily and in 2017 she was promoted to chief assistant public defender.
Included among the records are positive performance evaluations, a 2002 letter by Wesley congratulating her on receiving an award for her work and a letter sent by the parents of a former client in 2014 calling her and another attorney “simply wonderful.”
In her bid to replace Wesley, Vickers has collected a vast slew of high-profile political and legal endorsements, including Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and Florida House Rep. Anna Eskamani. Her list also includes former assistant public defenders who worked with her during her time in the agency.
“I disagree with Bob’s assessment that I created a hostile work environment,” Vickers said. “That is not who I am.”
But Conlon told the Sentinel that there had been some animosity between her and Vickers over a period of several years, though at one point she considered Vickers to be a good friend. The strife apparently stemmed in part from Conlon being assigned to work in the public defender’s Osceola County office, a supposedly temporary move that ended up lasting for several years.
Conlon said at the time she felt like she was being targeted by Vickers, who she said had conflicts with others at the office. At the time, she said, no one felt comfortable telling Wesley about their issues with Vickers, calling it a “losing battle.”
“If I worked for Elon Musk, I wouldn’t complain about him to HR,” Conlon told the Sentinel. She was slated to leave the office in 2019, before Vickers’ resignation was accepted early in light of the messages. “I told Bob I was looking for a job, then she left. And when she left, he found a way for me to stay on.”
Vickers denied she was the reason why Conlon was sent to work in Osceola, saying that she advocated on Conlon’s behalf. Still, while Conlon described Vickers as hostile in the office, she acknowledged there is a “draw to her, from an attorney’s perspective.”
“She’s a strong person who can try cases and is very personable,” Conlon said. “If she liked you, you could feel it. For those people she targeted, they would just leave the office.”
When asked, Vickers said she would not seek Conlon’s removal should she win the election for public defender.
“This was five years ago,” she said. “I hold no grudges.”
