http://web.tampabay.com/news/courts/civil/lawyer-suing-pasco-county-wants-sheriff-chris-nocco-to-be-held-in-contempt/2272005
An attorney wants a judge to find Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco in contempt of a court order protecting sex offenders suing the county from being harassed by Nocco's deputies.
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"We are going to be seeing you a lot more often based on recent events," an unidentified Pasco sheriff's deputy told one of the sex offenders suing the county on Monday, according to a motion filed by the offender's attorney, Patrick Leduc.
Leduc is suing to overturn the 2015 ordinance that places even more restrictions on where certain newly classified sex offenders can live in Pasco County.
The motion asks Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Linda Babb to hold Nocco in contempt of court for violating an order she issued March 30 that barred county personnel, including sheriff's deputies, from approaching the sex offenders suing the county.
Babb issued the order last week after Leduc's complaint that two deputies visited a sex offender on March 15 and tried to dissuade him from joining the lawsuit. The attorney representing Pasco County in the lawsuit joined Leduc's request for a protective order.
But a deputy violated that protective order on Monday, according to Leduc's latest motion. The unnamed Pasco deputy visited Scott Wright, another sex offender and plaintiff in the lawsuit, and questioned him for 15 minutes.
Wright "did not feel free to leave while being questioned," Leduc wrote in the contempt motion, which was filed Tuesday.
The "recent events" that the unidentified deputy mentioned to Wright were John Jonchuck throwing his 5-year-old daughter, Pheobe, off the approach to the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in January 2015, and 11-year-old Janiya Thomas being found dead in a padlocked freezer in Bradenton in October.
Neither incident had anything to do with sex offenders or had any connection to Pasco County.
The Tampa Bay Times is awaiting a response from the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.
Leduc is suing Pasco to challenge the constitutionality of a new county ordinance that prohibits certain sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of schools, childcare facilities, parks, playgrounds and libraries.
It's more than twice as restrictive as the state's 1,000-foot limit. It also bars offenders from loitering within 300 feet of designated "child safety zones."
In his motion asking the sheriff be held in contempt, Leduc cited a military principle called "unlawful command influence," in which commanders make public comments that influence their subordinates, as justification for requesting that the sheriff be held in contempt. Nocco supports the county's restrictive ordinance and has been outspoken in his defense of it.
"When you have the commanding officer of (the Sheriff's Office) make the public statements he's made," Leduc said, "then that sets the tone for the people that work for him."
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Lawyer suing Pasco County wants Sheriff Chris Nocco to be held in contempt for violating judge's order 04/05/16 [Last modified: Tuesday, April 5, 2016 4:52pm]
