A Florida man has been arrested following an alleged theft at an election supervisor’s office, according to law enforcement.
John D. Panicci, 59, of Lake Worth, was arrested on Saturday and charged with theft after the Palm Beach County elections office reported that sensitive computer equipment had been stolen from the office.
According to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, the Supervisor of Elections Office held a training session for volunteers working a March 24 election.
Investigators believe that Panicci attended that training and used the opportunity to steal an encrypted access key from a voter registration terminal.
On his Facebook page, Panicci, a U.S. Army veteran, posted several times expressing outrage at the actions of the Trump administration.
On March 16, Panicci posted about Trump invoking the deaths of servicemembers in Kuwait in a fundraising email. “I mean seriously, he agrees making money over the death of a soldier is just fine to do. He then goes on in the same breath to spout about votes and poll numbers?! WTF?,” he wrote. That same day, Panicci also criticized Trump for apparently alienating U.S. allies with the ongoing conflict in Iran.
On November 17, 2025, Panicci wrote a lengthy post criticizing the president’s reluctance to release the Epstein files. In 2024, Panicci wrote that during his refresher class at the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office, he was told that if Trump came to vote, he would not be allowed because of his New York felony conviction.
This is not the case, as Florida law dictates that only felons convicted in the Sunshine State are forbidden from voting. If a person is convicted out of state and that state allows felons who are not currently incarcerated to vote, they are allowed to vote in Florida.
A special election was held on March 24 in which Florida Democrats flipped two state congressional seats, including District 87, which includes President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
The sheriff’s office said that the stolen key only provided access to training databases, not to voter kiosks.
After establishing probable cause, the sheriff’s office executed a search warrant at Panicci’s house and found the key, as well as electronic and digital storage devices, according to the release.
Panicci was arrested and appeared in court on Sunday.
A judge told him he was to have no contact with the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office. He was then booked into the Palm Beach County Jail on $6,000 bail.
