Pembroke Pines police union nears 6 months of legal battle. Here’s what we know
CORRECTION: The outcome of a hearing on a motion for a temporary restraining order was incorrectly stated in an earlier version of this story. The story was updated on Feb. 12 to reflect the order has not been granted.
The corrected story is below.
A Pembroke Pines police union is nearing the sixth-month anniversary of a legal battle with city officials over where private text messages fall within public records law.
Need a refresher?
The Florida State Lodge Fraternal Order of Police — which represents 24,000 law enforcement officers across the state — filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Pembroke Pines and Police Chief Jose Vargas in August after a scheduling conversation discussed via text escalated into an internal investigation, court records show.
Months later, city and union officials are still in a legal stalemate regarding whether those messages are owed to the Pembroke Pines Police Department as public records or if the agency’s demand infringes upon officers’ constitutional rights.
A federal court is slated to settle the matter in April.
Here’s what we know about the lawsuit.
Lawsuit details
The legal battle follows a June 5, 2025, email sent by PPPD Officer Joel Cuarezma — then a sergeant with the bicycle patrol unit — and commissioned by his supervisor, Captain Adam Feiner, soliciting volunteers to cover the two-day shift of a new bicycle officer attending trainings, according to court documents.
“This option would obviate or otherwise minimize the need for potential overtime payment(s) as the volunteering officer would simply work the swapped shift,” Feiner detailed in a Sept. 4 written statement.
Shortly after sending the email, Cuarezma received a text from PPPD Detective Scott Kushi — the president of FOP’s Pembroke Pines branch — who advised the officer that the call for shift swaps could breach the union’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Cuarezma advised Feiner on his talks with Kushi, adding that he planned to recall the email “to avoid a violation of the CBA,” reads an Aug. 11 complaint, and was told to “leave the email as sent and that he would handle the matter himself” by the captain.
The bicycle patrol sergeant retracted the email on June 9, followed by Feiner, who disagreed with the interpretation of the CBA, requesting that Cuarezma send copies of his and Kushi’s text messages discussing the contract.
Cuarezma “respectfully declined” to do so — first by call, then through his city email account, per Feiner’s instruction — and was notified he was the subject of an internal investigation two days later.
“There’s a provision in Florida law that says that communications between a local union leader and one of his or her members is protected speech as long as it’s dealing with labor-related stuff,” Paul Daragjati, FOP’s lead attorney, told the Pembroke Pines News.
According to Daragjati, “(The city attempted) to violate both of these members’ Fourth Amendment rights” — which protects individuals from unreasonable search or seizure — by demanding the text messages the officers say were shared via their personal cellphones during off-duty hours.
“This issue comes up every now and then ... and normally we send them the cases from Florida law stating that they don’t have right to it, and it ends right there,” said the attorney, who has represented FOP for nearly 18 years. “We’ve never really come across an agency that dug their heels in like these guys have.”
But the city countered in court documents that state law defines communications “made or received pursuant to law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business by any agency,” as public record, even if sent on a private device.
To that, FOP says Cuarezma and Kushi’s exchange didn’t affect how the officer performed his duties, but instead were discussions about how to interpret the CBA.
The City of Pembroke Pines’ attorneys — Jonathan Railey and Christopher Stearns — did not comment when contacted by the Pembroke Pines News, saying they are prohibited from doing so during active litigation.
“For whatever reason, the relationship between management and the union down there, it’s a little bit tense,” Daragjati said. “You have the issue of what point does the Public Records Act end and the Fourth Amendment begin. It’s just one of those things that we just have to get a court to answer.”
In his Sept. 4 statement, Feiner described Kushi as exhibiting “a pattern of unwarranted control and influence over PPPD decisions on the FOP’s behalf” for several years, court records show.
Daragjati holds that he hasn’t “seen Scott do anything that he wasn’t within his rights as a union president to do,” adding he’s a “local president that is assertive and doing (his) duties,” which the attorney says can rub management the wrong way.
FOP speaks out
Though the city has remained largely reticent, FOP has expressly condemned the “retaliatory action” it says city officials are imposing on union members, namely the suspension of Kushi from his PPPD post.
“The City’s unwillingness to intervene and address this clear abuse of authority has allowed a toxic and retaliatory climate to flourish within its police department,” the union wrote in a letter posted to its Instagram account on Oct. 21.
In the same letter, FOP announced it would soon plan “a peaceful First Amendment demonstration at or near Pembroke Pines City Hall and the Police Department Headquarters,” though no protest has taken place as of Feb. 10.
When Pembroke Pines Mayor Angelo Castillo publicly commented on the case, describing the city’s proposal to FOP as “fair” and “amicable,” the union deemed it hypocritical.
“You cannot champion officer wellness in public, yet silently endorse punitive tactics against them behind the scenes,” reads a Nov. 2 letter on the union’s Instagram.
A Jan. 21 commission meeting saw union supporters file into the chambers to urge city officials to “closely monitor this matter because it’s an issue that touches all of us.”
“This issue goes far beyond labor representation and workers’ rights into a more significant and sacred matter, their individual constitutional rights and freedoms,” labor representative Troy Wilson said.
“We are here to respectfully remind the Commission that this matter has not yet been resolved and is continuing to create internal strife within the agency.”
City Attorney Samuel S. Goren warned commissioners against responding, citing ongoing legal proceedings, active collective bargaining and an upcoming arbitration process.
“And the person that’s considering and reviewing those matters is either a judge or an arbitrator,” Goren said. “You are neither.”
What’s next?
The FOP and Kushi requested a temporary restraining order prohibiting the city “from pursuing any further administrative and/or investigative proceedings against Kushi for his response” to the records request, documents show.
The city has opposed the motion, and both parties are still waiting on the court’s ruling on the TRO.
A trial period is set to start April 27, when a judge will determine via a final hearing whether the police union’s petition for permanent injunctive relief — which would put an end to the records requests — is granted.
This story was originally published February 10, 2026 at 3:58 PM.