Ex-Plantation Official on Probation After ‘Misusing Position’

Weighing the stage-three colon cancer diagnosis of a 50-year-old man accused of falsifying government documents for personal gain, a Broward County judge on Monday decided against the recommended two years in jail and instead sentenced him to 364 days in jail and 10 years of probation.

In December 2023, prosecutors accused former Plantation public works director Steven Rodgers of falsifying government documents to have an employee paint his girlfriend’s apartment in 2022. Prosecutors initially offered Rodgers a plea deal for probation, which he rejected in April 2024, pleading not guilty. Instead, he went to trial in December 2025, just weeks after his colon cancer diagnosis. He was found guilty.

At the Monday hearing, Rodgers gave a gory description of the pain and bleeding he’s faced since the verdict and said he delayed surgery to remove part of his colon until after sentencing because he wasn’t sure how to handle the situation.

In an interview with New Times before the sentencing, Rodgers’ defense attorney George Reres argued that Rodgers’ loss of “hundreds of thousands” from two pensions was more than enough punishment for a man also facing cancer surgery and treatment. In handing down his sentence, Judge Thomas Coleman said he didn’t want to give Rodgers a death sentence, which attorneys seemed to agree would be the case with two years under Florida’s prison healthcare system.

“He’s 50 and has over a decade in public service,” Reres told New Times. “Sending someone to prison for this is insane.”

But Rodgers’s decision-making, even in light of his diagnosis, left Judge Thomas Coleman perplexed.

“I want to make sure I understand the position you want to put me in,” Coleman said, seemingly perturbed. “Mr. Rodgers made the decision with all the information he had. He had an offer on the table for probation where he would have complete control of his health, knew about the health situation in October, knew from doctors it was rapidly deteriorating, opted to go to trial, was found guilty, and now that he has put all his chips on the table, lost, now he wants me to give him his money back?

“Would that ever work in Vegas?”

Coleman scolded the defense for focusing on the roughly $600 at issue rather than Rodgers’ misuse of public office, but still granted a downward departure from the recommended sentence. He noted that Rodgers was convicted of official misconduct and unlawful compensation, not theft.

Public Works, Private Perks

In the sleepy, suburban center of Broward County, Rodgers rose to director of the Plantation Public Works Department in 2019 and served until the city fired him in 2023, following charges of unlawful compensation, official misconduct, and dealing in stolen property, a charge that prosecutors later dropped. Public works employees, who typically maintain city infrastructure like roads and handle bulk pickup, described Rodgers as a domineering boss who abused his power by coercing them to do his personal work, according to arrest affidavits from 2023.

More than 20 of Rodgers’ friends and family members, including his mother and daughter, attended Monday’s sentencing, with many having written letters to vouch for his upstanding character and moral fortitude. Coleman pushed back on a few such occasions, asking how a man with such high moral standards could so easily order other Plantation employees to falsify government documents on his behalf.

In a statement made to the court during the Monday sentencing hearing, Rodgers initially couched the crime as an “isolated” incident, prompting Coleman to ask if he wanted to open that can of worms. The judge could have been referring to about $4.5 million in misspent public works funds identified by the Broward Office of Inspector General (OIG) in the last year of Rodgers’ reign. His attorney then asked if Rodgers could start his statement over, apparently having read through red-lined portions of his prepared words.

Although defense attorneys argued he only misspent about $600 in government funds, the OIG report, released in September 2025, alleges millions in misspending occurred in 2022 alone. It’s unclear why officials never charged Rodgers in connection with millions in misspent government funds, and instead focused only on a portion worth less than one percent of the total. When asked in court about the OIG report, a prosecutor told New Times she couldn’t comment and referred questions to her office’s media team.

“Prosecutors filed the criminal charges they believed they could legally prove in 2023,” Broward State Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Paula McMahon said in an emailed statement. “Some of the criminal charges that were initially filed had to be dropped, based on legal rulings and the ability to narrow down the timeframe of some of the alleged offenses, as required by state law.”

She didn’t answer follow-up questions about whether prosecutors considered accusations laid out in the OIG report, saying that the report didn’t refer any criminal charges.

OIG’s investigation focused solely on the final full year of Rodgers’ employment with the city, suggesting that the total loss to questionable expenses could be significantly higher. Plantation City Council has worked with Breece to correct protocol issues she found in the department, OIG inspector general Carol Breece previously told New Times.

In an emailed statement, Breece said her department refers cases to prosecutors when it finds probable cause to believe a violation of law occurred over which the state attorney has jurisdiction.

“In this case, the State Attorney’s Office filed charges well before our investigation was complete,” Breece wrote. “After the state filed its charges, our investigation focused on the city’s processes, not on Rodgers or his culpability in any criminal violations.”

According to the report, for at least the four years Rodgers was in charge, “the timecard editors inherently approved paid time off, deducted unpaid time off, and approved time worked for these employees with ADP for every pay period. And they did so despite no one having cross-checked, verified, or approved the timecard editor’s work.”

While it’s unclear exactly how many employees benefited from questionable timecard punches, evidence indicates that Plantation might have spent two years paying an electrician for work no one verified. The arrest affidavit described a man who would sporadically show up at the office and do no discernible work.