When New College of Florida hired Fredrick Piccolo Jr. as communications director in December, he had already been charged three times with indecent exposure — a criminal history that the school’s background check failed to uncover, records obtained by Suncoast Searchlight and WUSF show.

The background check, run on Jan. 8 through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Criminal History Services, came back clean, stating there were “no relevant criminal records.” 

But public records show that Piccolo had been charged three separate times with first-degree misdemeanors for “exposure of sexual organs.” 

The charges were filed in October in Sarasota County by 12th Circuit State Attorney Ed Brodsky. They stemmed from incidents in August and September at the University Town Center Mall, where female employees at Banana Republic and Dillard’s alleged that Piccolo exposed himself and, in one case, masturbated in a fitting room.

Rather than arresting Piccolo, the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office filed non-arrest affidavits. Because those charges did not involve arrests or fingerprints, the FDLE background search did not pick them up — a limitation acknowledged on FDLE’s website, which states that results may return “no record” if the person “has never been arrested or fingerprinted for a serious offense in Florida.”

A basic search of Sarasota County’s clerk of court records, however, would have turned up all three cases. Nothing in Piccolo’s personnel file suggests New College checked that source.

Piccolo pleaded not guilty to the three misdemeanor charges and requested a jury trial, which has been scheduled for May.

FDLE said in an emailed statement that its criminal history reports include “fingerprint-based arrests that are reported to FDLE by the local and state arresting agencies. Judicial disposition information for the specific arrest events is included when that information is transmitted to FDLE by the clerks of court.”

New College told the news organizations that it performed the FDLE search using accurate information but did not respond to a question about why it did not also search the Sarasota County Court system.

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Piccolo applied for the position of Director of Marketing & Media, Strategic Communications at New College in early November and included among his references Florida State University System Chancellor Ray Rodriguez, New College President Richard Corcoran and state Rep. Danny Burgess, R-Zephyrhills.

Piccolo had served as spokesperson for Corcoran when Corcoran was the Florida Speaker of the House from 2016 to 2018, and remained in that position under Republican state Rep. Jose Oliva, whom he also listed as a reference. 

In July 2020, DeSantis hired Piccolo to run his communications operation, and in 2021, Piccolo started a new position working for the Florida Department of Education’s Division of Colleges. 

After DeSantis removed elected Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren in August 2022 following his refusal to enforce bans on abortion and transgender healthcare, the governor tapped Piccolo to handle public relations for his replacement, Susan Lopez. In his role with Lopez’s office, Piccolo coordinated a communications strategy to introduce Lopez and manage her opposition.

On Dec. 2, Piccolo was officially offered the job at a salary of $75,000 a year — $10,000 less than he had requested — with a start date of Dec. 9. The offer was contingent on his legal authorization to work in the United States and the completion of a background and employment verification check.

His employment verification was completed on the same day he started work, but his background check wasn’t submitted until a month later. 

Piccolo also had answered a series of questions as part of his employment application. Among them was whether he had ever been convicted or pleaded no contest “to a criminal offense or first-degree misdemeanor” or been sued for causing “death or injury to a person or for causing any property damage (e.g. for assault, battery, defamation, etc.)?” 

He answered no to both questions. 

In 2022, however, former Florida State Rep. Jackie Toledo sued Piccolo for allegedly sexually harassing her while he served as campaign manager during her congressional run. The case was voluntarily dismissed. 

Piccolo was fired from New College on April 16, one day after his arrest by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office on exposure of sexual organs, second subsequent offense — a third-degree felony. That charge stemmed from a March 28 incident in which he allegedly stopped his vehicle while wearing nothing but a T-shirt and exposed himself to a Manatee County woman after asking her for directions.

Piccolo pleaded not guilty to the felony charge on Monday and requested a jury trial, court records show. A date has not been set. 

After Piccolo’s arrest, his attorney, Eric Reisinger, stated that Piccolo takes medications to treat Parkinson’s Disease that cause compulsive behavior and hypersexuality and have caused Piccolo to “behave in a manner inconsistent with his established character.

This story was jointly produced by Suncoast Searchlight and WUSF.

NOTE: This story was updated to include a statement from FDLE that was provided after the original version was published.

Suncoast Searchlight is a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.