By Michael Phillips | MDBayNews
The FBI has opened an investigation into four Cecil County Sheriff’s Office employees caught on a 2023 recording fantasizing about sexually assaulting the county’s top elected official — a case that has spent more than three years in the shadows and erupted into a full-blown law enforcement accountability crisis this spring.
Two sources familiar with the probe told The Baltimore Sun this month that federal investigators are now examining the incident. The development marks a significant escalation in a scandal that began when an accidental “butt dial” left a five-minute voicemail on a colleague’s phone — and sat unreported for nearly three years before surfacing on social media in early February.
What the recording contains
The voicemail, recorded on May 19, 2023, was first published online on February 3, 2026, by the Cecil County News blog and the Facebook page of Towson civil litigation firm Turnbull Brockmeyer Law Group. The audio captures several men — identified in social media posts as high-ranking Cecil County Sheriff’s Office supervisors — making violent sexual comments directed at then-County Executive Danielle Hornberger, now known as Danielle Robinson.
The conversation took place while the deputies were on duty. According to attorney Adele Brockmeyer, who co-runs the Turnbull Brockmeyer page, she received the recording from a friend of the original recipient, who had held onto it for years out of fear of retaliation from law enforcement.
Robinson, who said she had no advance knowledge that the recording would be made public, described the content as a threat, not locker-room talk. “This recording is not ‘just boys being boys,'” she said in a statement. “These are grown men, with badges, guns, and authority talking about intended sexual violence while they are wearing those guns and in uniform — likely in a county patrol vehicle.”
Three suspended, one already retired
Sheriff Scott Adams initially reassigned three of the deputies — Lt. Michael Zack, Sgt. Francis Wallace, and Cpl. Jeremy Strohecker — to administrative duty in February, removing them from public contact. A fourth employee purportedly on the recording has since retired.
In mid-May, Adams upgraded the status of the three remaining deputies to indefinite suspension with pay after the Maryland State Police Internal Affairs Unit provided its first formal update on its administrative investigation. “They were suspended due to a change in the case status from Maryland State Police,” Adams said.
The suspensions came roughly three months after the scandal became public — and only after outside investigative pressure had been applied. Adams had initially requested that the Maryland State Police handle the inquiry, writing on February 3 that he sought an investigation into “potential unethical and unbecoming conduct on the part of ranking officers.”
Sheriff says FBI hasn’t contacted him
Despite the Sun’s reporting that federal investigators have opened an inquiry, Sheriff Adams said his office has not been contacted by the FBI. “If there is an FBI investigation going on, no one told me about it,” Adams said. He added that he had also confirmed the state prosecutor’s office was similarly unaware of any federal investigation at the time of his inquiry.
That disconnect — between what federal sources told the Sun and what the sheriff says he knows — raises its own questions about the scope and direction of the FBI’s interest. Federal civil rights statutes covering law enforcement conduct under color of authority could potentially apply to the recorded threats, depending on investigators’ findings.
County orders harassment training
Cecil County officials separately mandated harassment training for all Sheriff’s Office employees in early May, following reports that included not only the voicemail scandal but also accounts of employee harassment and mocking of coworkers inside the agency. The training order was one of several institutional responses to what has become an extended public accountability crisis for the department.
The county executive’s conspicuous silence
Notably absent from the public record is any statement from current Cecil County Executive Adam Streight — either in response to the original scandal in February or to the FBI investigation confirmed this month.
The silence is not incidental. Streight is a 25-year veteran of the Cecil County Sheriff’s Office, the same agency whose supervisors are now under federal scrutiny. He defeated Robinson in the May 2024 Republican primary — the same woman who was targeted in the recording — before winning the general election and taking office in December 2024. When the voicemail story broke in February, his administration’s only response was to say it “would be inappropriate for Cecil County Government to comment at this time,” referring all questions to the sheriff.
That posture has not publicly changed. Streight has issued no statement on the FBI development, has not called for accountability measures beyond what the sheriff has already taken, and has not addressed whether his own prior working relationship with the deputies under investigation creates any appearance of conflict in the county’s oversight role.
Robinson, for her part, called in February for the deputies to be suspended without pay and ultimately terminated. “This is not about politics or personal offense,” she said at the time. “It is about fitness for authority.” She has not issued a public statement in response to the FBI news.
An accountability gap that took three years to surface
The central unresolved question in this case is not only what was said on the recording — it is why it took nearly three years for the incident to become public, and how it was preserved and eventually leaked. The recording sat with a private citizen who feared law enforcement retaliation before an attorney made the decision to post it online. The official accountability machinery — internal affairs, the state prosecutor’s office, the FBI — was not engaged until the recording became a viral public scandal.
Robinson’s call for the immediate suspension of all involved personnel was not met until three months after the story broke, and only after outside investigative pressure was applied. The fourth deputy involved avoided suspension entirely by retiring before formal consequences could reach him. The county’s top elected official — a career colleague of the men under investigation — has said nothing.
Whether the FBI investigation produces federal charges, referrals, or simply closes without action remains to be seen. What is already documented is a pattern: a threat was made, it was recorded, it was suppressed for three years, and at every stage since — from the sheriff’s office to the county executive’s office — the institutional response has been to wait, defer, and say as little as possible.
Sources: Baltimore Sun (Feb. 4, Feb. 7, May 9, May 12, 2026); Cecil Daily / Star Democrat (Feb. 10, May 15–16, 2026); WMAR-2 News (Feb. 8–10, 2026); The Baltimore Banner (Feb. 5, 2026); Fox Baltimore / Spotlight on Maryland (Feb. 7, 2026); Delaware Business Now (Dec. 2, 2024 — Streight background)
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