William M. Clark

Police are searching for a man suspected of sexually assaulting an eleven year-old girl, in Palm Bay.  William M. Clark, (81), of Okeechobee,  is accused of touching the child’s genitals inside her clothing, December 17th, while seated next to her in his vehicle.

The child disclosed the abuse to her mother several hours after the alleged incident. The next day, specialists with Brevard’s Child Protection Team, recorded a statement in which the child identified Clark as her abuser.

Palm Bay Detective David Coulter, confirmed that the matter is under investigation, but would not say whether a warrant has been issued for Clark’s arrest.

The child’s mother told The Guardian-Brevard that police have been unable to locate the retired railroad worker.  They said his home in Okeechobee appears to be vacant and his whereabouts are unknown.  She said Clark has acquaintances in Cleveland Ohio;  Indianapolis, Indiana; and Davie, Florida.  He is said to be an active member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Clark may be driving the large, brown and white van, in which the assault allegedly occurred.

Sheriff Candidate Wayne Ivey

The Amber Alert ticker which crawls atop this page, is a big part of the resume Wayne Ivey offers in his bid for Sheriff.

The AMBER alert was instituted in 2002 as a system to notify the public after a child has been abducted.  Following the 2004 kidnapping and murder of Sarasota girl, Carlie Bruscia, police realized that alerting the public rapidly, through media and other means, was not enough. Ivey was part of the group that developed the Child Abduction Response Team (C.A.R.T.).  The system marshals specially-trained professionals, including police and other first responders, who react instantly to the alert.  The program has been adopted nationwide through the Department of Justice.

A former Resident Agent in Charge with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and over thirty-one years of law enforcement experience, Ivey is one of six candidates running for the job of Sheriff of Brevard County.  Ivey, a Republican, has been endorsed by Sheriff Jack Parker as well as a number of Brevard Police Chiefs. Parker is retiring at the end of his term.

Joining Ivey on the Republican ticket is Sgt. Gary Harrel, an eighteen-year veteran of the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office and fellow Deputy, Lt. Todd Maddox, who has performed a variety of roles in his twenty-one years with the Sheriff’s Office.

Corrections officer Mark Orndoff is running as a Democrat.  Orndoff has served as a municipal police officer for West Melbourne and Melbourne Beach Police Departments.  Deputy Sheriff Adrian Moss Beasley, also a Democrat, has also announced for the top cop post.  A  fourteen-year, veteran Deputy, Ernest Cathy, is running as an independent.

Joe Smithwick IV

Viera – January 4, 2012

A local man serving time for molesting a ten year-old girl, has lost his bid to have his conviction overturned. Joe Smithwick IV, was ordered back to prison, January 4th, after Judge Charles Roberts denied his claim that he was improperly defended by his court-appointed attorney.

Smithwick, (31), took the stand wearing shackles and handcuffs, during the three-hour hearing, in Viera. He said Public Defender Andrew E. Reid did an inadequate job of representing him.

Smithwick was found guilty of committing a Lewd Act on a Child Under 12, in a 2009 jury trial.  Judge John Earp, sentenced him to serve 25 years in prison, followed by a lifetime on probation. He was acquitted on a second count of Providing Obscene Material to a Minor.

During the hearing Wednesday, defense attorney Charles Nervine asked the judge for a dismissal on the grounds that Reid failed to cross-examine key witnesses.  He also said Reid erred when he made his summation to the jury. Assistant State Attorney Kari Mackay said the evidence in the case was so strong, that minor mistakes made by the defense, would not have affected the outcome.

Smithwick rejected a plea agreement offered by the State Attorney and opted to take his chances with a jury.  During the three day trial, jurors heard an audio recording of a telephone conversation between between Smithwick and the father of the victim.   In the call, which was  secretly recorded by police, Smithwick admitted to improperly touching the child. The State’s case was also supported by video recordings, of statements made to police, by both Smithwick and his victim.

Since his conviction, Smithwick has vigorously pressed the courts for relief.  In 2010, the Fifth District Court of Appeals, in Daytona, denied his request to have his sentence reduced.

Judge Roberts ordered Smithwick returned to Walton Correctional Institution in Defuniac Springs. He will remain in prison until 2032.

Volunteer court monitors with Protect Our Children were on hand for the hearing.

Taser probes still pinned to his body, Richard Newell is searched and secured.

Polk County, Florida, December 17, 2011

Undercover agents with the Polk County  Sheriff’s Office are packed into a rented house in an upscale subdivision near Davenport, Florida. Upstairs and down, cops in “T” shirts and jeans, sit cross-legged on beds, balancing  computers on their knees.

Arrayed around the dining room table, they scowl as they type. The look on their faces is made even more intense by the wierd glow of the LCD screens. The glossy, plastic lids of their laptops square off across the table: Viao vs Apple, Toshiba vs HP.

The week-long internet sting has not been as productive as they had hoped:  “Another one bites the dust…” a veteran detective complained.  Seated on the living room sofa, hunched over a laptop computer on the coffee table, he shakes his head and makes a sour face.  “As soon as they realize the house is in Polk County, they break off.”

One man, chatting online with a detective posing as a teen girl, offered to pay cab fare, if the child would travel to a neighboring county to meet him. Polk County, it seems, has gained a reputation as a “speed trap” for child molesters.

At 8:30 PM there are sounds other than the tapping of keyboards. Suddenly,  booming footsteps are heard from the second floor and creaking sounds emanate from the popcorn cieling above us. Heavy units from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office are on the move. It has been a seven-hour, shut-out. Now, they are restless and hungry for action.

The suspect has been traveling for hours from St.Augustine, and he is due to arrive around 9 PM.  Black vests are slipped over shoulders. and the menacing ornaments of law enforcement are hung from their bodies: Pepper spray canisters, stun guns, tasers and cuffs.  Hand guns are holstered, unholstered, checked and rechecked.

Agents move to positions near the front door. All eyes are on the single laptop set on its own table.  The screen  displays a grid of boxes, each frames the view of a different camera.  One pans the cul-de-sac street that stretches out before the sting house, others combine to cover he entire yard, front and back.

The call comes in from a patrol unit.  He’s blocks away now, and soon headlights swing around toward the street camera and slide slowly forward.  There is a flash behind he curtains of the front window as he pulls into he driveway. In the silence, someone’s knee pops.

On the first knock, the door is yanked open and agents charge forward.  From our protected place, we can hear shouted commands: “Get on the ground…Don’t move!”  There is a pile-up on the front lawn.

The suspect tried to run, and swung his fists at the officers.  One man points the stun gun at his belly and launches two darts with their coiled leads spiraling out from his hand.  He is grabbed from behind and falls backward on top of an officer.  Now he will be charged with Resisting Arrest and Battery on Law Enforcement as well as Soliciting a Child for Sex.

He flops around for a moment with the beefy forearm of an agent still wrapped around his neck.

Ten minutes later, they bring him in.  He is Richard Newell, a thirty-five, year-old man who has travelled 180 miles to meet a thirteen year-old girl.  As he is searched, plastic cuffs are attached to his ankles forming a makeshift set of shackles.  A detective waves his hands in front of his face: “Why did you resist… are you stupid?”

Newell, looking groggy and confused, will be taken to the hospital for a medical check-up before being booked into the Polk County Jail.  He is one of only seven suspects taken in this operation - a mere fraction of the numbers pulled in on previous stings.

Word is out.  Pedophiles willing to travel to have sex with a child, are steering clear of Polk County, Florida.

Nathan Williams, 38, of Lakeland, contemplates his fate.  Sheriff Grady Judd’s Cyber Crime Unit, roped him in on December 15.    

Jeffrey Jenkins charged with abusing teen girl

Prosecutors are upset after a Brevard judge lowered the bond for a man charged with molesting a thirteen year-old girl.

Judge Charles Roberts granted the motion to reduce bond for Jeffrey Randall Jenkins (24), a West Melbourne resident, who has been held in the Brevard County Jail since his arrest June 23rd.  The bond was lowered from $75,000 dollars to $30,000 dollars in a hearing November 28th in Viera.

“I’m disgusted!”, said Assistant State Attorney Kaylee Taylor, “This man is definitely a danger to the community.”

Taylor spoke to The Guardian moments after the hearing concluded.

Jenkins is facing trial on two counts of Lewd & Lascivious Battery on a Minor as well as one count of Lewd & Lascivious Exhibition.  Police said he initiated intercourse with the child, performed an oral act upon her and had sex with his girlfriend in front of the girl.

His fiance’ and co-defendant, Jaclynn Marsingill (25), posted bond in July, three weeks after her arrest on three counts of sexual offenses against the child. The charges stem from the same alleged incident, which occurred between June 16th and June 20th in West Melbourne.

Prosecutor Taylor told the court that Jenkins instigated the activity by promising Marsingill that he would perform oral sex on her,  each night,  for one week, if she helped him to seduce the child.

The State’s case is supported by text messages sent between the defendants. West Melbourne Police said the pair provided alcohol to the victim in order to make her pliant.

Judge Charles Roberts said Jenkins has no prior felonies on his record, and does not appear to be a flight risk. He ordered Jenkins to wear a GPS monitor and to avoid contact with the alleged victim and her family.

Jenkins is scheduled to appear in court January 4, for a docket sounding.

Members of Protect Our Children’s court monitor team were present for the hearing.

Flanked by the image of Junny Rios-Martinez, Sheriff Grady Judd speaks to a group gathered at the Polk County Sheriff's Office, November 15.

Armed with two tanks of fuel and an acrylic trophy, members of Protect Our Children headed for Polk County November 15, to present the 2011 “Junny Award” to Sheriff Grady Judd and his Cyber Crimes Unit.

Using a variety of innovative techniques, Judd’s internet cops roped in 109 suspected sex predators in 2010.

“Our people are all highly motivated because most of them have children, the same ages as the kids these people show up to abuse.” said the soft-spoken Sheriff.

His “motivated” people have arrested 246 suspects in two and one-half years, by exploiting the vulnerabilities of predators on the net. Their main tactic is to pose as children in chat rooms in order to bait pedophiles into driving to the rural county in the Eastern end of Central Florida.

Operation Child Shield II collared 50 men in April 2010, topping the 45 arrested the previous year. The investigation targeted people who were manufacturing and distributing child pornography.  Polk County detectives were able to locate and rescue eight children who were being exploited by the suspects.

In August 2010, Judd’s investigators placed an advertisement on “Craigslist” the online classified ad site.  Using language that suggested an offer of sex with young girls, fifteen men were lured to a vacant house in Polk County to be taken into custody.

Weeks later the Cyber Crime Unit arrested 44 men and women who offered sex for money to police who answered personal ads posted online.

“There is no such thing as an internet predator…they are just predators who use the internet as a means to get children.” said Kevin Gillick, President of the Brevard-based group.  “When one of these people shows up at your sting house, it is likely that some kid, somewhere, is going to make it to bed that night without being molested one of these people.”

Gillick said internet decoy tactics should be “…mainstream law enforcement everywhere.” He said each county in Florida should be arresting 200 child molesters each year using these techniques.

Vicki and Junny Rios-Marinez presented the award to Sheriff Judd, standing beside a poster of their son who was murdered in 1991 by a convicted child molester. Junny was eleven years old when he was kidnapped and killed.

“We give this award each year…”, said Mr. Rios-Martinez, “…in memory of our son and in recognition of excellent work such as you have done here.”

Protect Our Children bestows the “Junny” each year upon a Florida citizen whose work has advanced the American child-protective movement.

P.O.C. Director, Shelly Coyne was also on hand. Coyne, posing as a thirteen year-old boy on he internet, helped apprehend a sex predator in 2001. The man had been released three weeks earlier from a Tennessee prison, after serving a sentence for abusing an adolescent boy. Stephen Mathews ultimately pleaded “Guilty” to three counts of Soliciting a Minor.

Sheriff Judd promised to continue his internet dragnet campaigns.

Tracking Officer Valerie Claycomb keeps Melbourne's sex offenders under close scrutiny.

by Kevin Gillick

Two Citrus County Sheriffs stood in the living room of a mobile home on South Snowbird Terrace, in Homosassa, talking to the occupants who rented the place by the month. A child was missing had they seen anything? Dorothy Marie Dixon shook her head. She said she lived there with her fiancé, her niece and grandson. She lied, neglecting to mention her brother, John Evander Couey.

Down the hall, in a back bedroom, a nine year-old girl crouched in a closet, ordered by her abductor not to make a sound. She didn’t.

The next day; February 27, 2005,  Jessica Marie Lunsford would be dead.

In the days that followed, a picture of the man who kidnapped and murdered the child would unfold. He was a wanted man, with a warrant for his arrest, but with no police agency searching for him. Couey was a registered sex offender who had walked away: “absconded” from his registered address.

The outrage began a revolution in the way sex offenders are tracked and monitored. State legislators passed the “Jessica Lunsford Act”: a law which not only increased the penalties for sex crimes committed against children, but set out new protocols for law enforcers in the way they manage offenders in their jurisdictions.

Cities were given options to pass ordinances pushing offenders away from schools and playgrounds, and to develop their own tracking programs. The law was like a promise made to the children of Florida, and some municipalities, like the City of Melbourne, have kept that promise.

 Gathering All The Marbles

There were two absconders in the City of Melbourne when Officer Valerie Claycomb became the Sex Offender Tracking Officer. Now, one year later, there are none. Jose Cruz had been missing for five years when an investigation by Claycomb and Agent Mike Schmidt, her counterpart at the Sheriff’s Office, located him in Puerto Rico. Federal Marshalls hauled him back in March and installed him in a “Frequent Flyer” cell.

Vigorous interface with the family of Mathew Biggs, brought an end to his seven-month run.  Biggs was persuaded to return from Georgia and surrender to Melbourne Police in May.

 No one knows when John Couey began to drift. Sometime after August 27^th 2004, the last time police verified his address, Couey began to roll like a marble around the tiny town of Homossassa. He would take a job as a mason’s helper, where he would work for a time at local elementary school. It would take nearly six months before he would close the four-mile distance between his last, registered address and his victim’s home.

“We check each of the offenders at least once every ninety days…” Says Claycomb, who monitors Melbourne’s 103 sex criminals with the help of a part-time clerical worker. “ … if we have complaints, we check more often”

By law, sex offenders in Florida must report to the sheriff twice, per year. Those designated as Sexual Predators must report four times. If they live in Melbourne they can add two: Claycomb schedules two additional appearances in her Melbourne office.

“We update everything when they come in…phone numbers, emails, next of kin, known associates, workplace.” says Claycomb, “ We even take swabs for DNA.”

Melbourne’s Sex Offender Tracking unit compiles a complete criminal history on all their charges, including details on their sex crimes. Facts about their ‘Method of Operation” (how they did what they did), are loaded into a database, so that if a child is abducted or a sex crime is committed, details on the crime can be matched with information on local sex offenders. The search for a likely suspect can begin within hours rather than days or weeks.

If law enforcement had this tool in 2005, the deputies who stood in the trailer that day, might have known they were talking to the sister of a missing child-molester. Dorothy Dixon was literally the only person in the world who would open the door and let John Couey in. His own mother, who lived near Gainesville, severed all ties with Couey in 1978, when he was caught attempting to rape his five year-old stepsister. Karen Goshe, his drug-addicted wife, had been estranged from him for nearly fifteen years.

Seamless Passage – Unified Response

The forty-six year-old drifter had been on probation for several years when he abducted Lunsford. Indeed, probation officers were the first to notice him missing from his stated residence after he failed to report to them. Three months before Jessica’s death, they asked a judge to issue a warrant for violating his probation. The warrant was promptly signed, dated and filed along with thousands of others – virtually ignored by police.

“We usually know about warrants before they are issued.” Says Claycomb. She maintains regular contact with probation officers who supervise about half of Melbourne’s sex criminals. When their sentence is complete and the iron hand of the probation officer is lifted, they pass seamlessly into the attentions of officer Claycomb.

John Couey’s probation officers had another handicap back in 2005. Though they were aware that he was placed on probation for driving drunk and possessing marijuana, they had no knowledge of his prior criminal record. In fact, he had been arrested 26 times over three decades. His criminal history included two sex offenses perpetrated upon young girls. Probation officers were not even aware that he was a registered sex offender.

Officer Claycomb is a member of the Central Florida Sex Offender Task Force, a group of law enforcement professionals who manage and supervise offenders. They meet bi-monthly to trade information on individual offenders and the train with the newest techniques for keeping registrants on a short string.

“We have representation from sheriff’s departments, municipal police, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Law Enforcement,” says Detective Robert Tyrrell.

A Specialist In Action

Tyrrell, a member of the Osceola County Sheriff’s Department, is the current Director of the Task Force. He is a strong advocate for maintaining special officers like Claycomb:

“Most departments have regular patrol officers verifying addresses in addition to their regular duties. Sex offender management works best when you have a specialized, dedicated officer assigned to the task. Patrol officers have to deal with drugs, homicides, domestic violence…and policing sex offenders is simply piled on top of these other duties.”

By the third time Citrus Sheriffs returned to Dorothy Dixon’s trailer, John Evander Couey was their person of interest. This time, investigators headed straight for the back room and saw bloodstains on Couey’s bed sheets. As they bounded down the wooden stairs, on their way to Savannah Georgia where Couey had fled, they passed within yards of the soft spot in the sand where Jessie Lunsford’s body was buried.

At that moment Couey’s registered address was still listed as Grover Cleveland Boulevard – the location he walked away from, almost six months earlier. No one informed the F.D.L.E. – the agency tasked with maintaining the state registry.

Compliance Officer Claycomb flips through her notes sitting in her tiny office at the Melbourne Police Department. “ We are averaging nearly two arrests per month.” she says. “In Melbourne, sex offenders have more contact with law enforcement than anywhere else in the county…”

Claycomb says she fields a constant flow of phone calls and emails from residents, who have questions about their sex offender neighbors. “We get tips and information from the community, which is always helpful in tracking these folks.”

The job of tracking sex offenders has come a long way since 2005, when our registry relied upon offenders themselves to provide information on their whereabouts, and open warrants were tucked away in files waiting for another arrest to awaken them. We were promised an end to a passive system where loose bolts like John Couey were left to rattle around the machinery, and competing state agencies treated information like private property.

Melbourne’s sex offender specialist leans back in her chair, just missing the boxes stacked against the wall. A modest smile breaks her crisp, professional demeanor, as she tells me about the Halloween Task Force, in which volunteer officers fan out across the City of Melbourne. While costumed children roam the streets in search of candy, they pay a face-to-face visit to each of the city’s 103 sex offenders.

The trick is in deploying specialists to police sex offenders, and the treat lies in keeping a promise to the children of Melbourne.

Read more about Melbourne Police Sex Offender Tracking Unit: http://www.melbourneflorida.org/police/melbpred.htm

Richard Brown, 63, sentenced for assaulting a four year-old, girl.

by Kevin Gillick

The grandmother of a young girl who was sexually assaulted, says the child’s abuser doesn’t deserve to be released.

Richard Lee Brown, 63,  stood silently, listening to the woman’s sob-choked comments to Judge Robert T.  Burger, on June 23rd, in Viera. Brown was sentenced to serve 354 days in jail followed by eight years of probation, for sexually abusing a four year-old girl.

Brown was arrested by Cocoa Police in September 2010, charged with one count of Lewd Conduct with a Child, and one count of Lewd and Lascivious Molestation of a Child Under 12. Defense Attorney Michael Kelley negotiated a plea agreement calling for Brown to plead guilty to the “Lewd Conduct” charge, in exchange for the probation sentence.  State prosecutors dropped the second count, which could have sent Brown to prison for life. The State Attorney agreed not to file charges relating to child pornography, reportedly found in Brown’s possession.  

Due to the age of his victim, Brown will be registered as a Sexual Offender for the rest of his life.  He must wear a G.P.S. tracking device, and complete a sex offender therapy program. Brown was given credit for 275 days of time served in jail since his arrest. Judge Burger agreed to waive the costs of supervision for the first year of his probation.

His attorney said he expects Brown to be “homeless” when he is released from custody.  Local ordinances prohibit Brown from residing in his Cocoa home because it is located within 1.000 feet of a school. Kelley said his client, who has awaited sentencing in the Brevard County Jail since pleading “Guilty” in May,  might relocate to Georgia to complete his sentence. 

The tearful grandmother – the only family member to address the court, hurried from the Moore Justice Center after making her statement.

Court Monitors from Protect Our Children were present for the hearing.

View Richard L. Brown’s current status: http://www.dc.state.fl.us/ActiveOffenders/detail.asp?Bookmark=1&From=list&SessionID=448003557

Sex Offender Carl David Herto

by Kevin Gillick

A local sex offender has been released from the Brevard County Jail after his arrest for assaulting a Rockledge woman.  According to  Rockledge Police,  Carl David Herto became violent after the woman told him to stay away from her and her family.  

The woman had been dating Herto until she became aware of his 1997 sex offense, and broke off the relationship. She said Herto came to her home five days later on May 21, and became enraged when she told him to leave.   Herto allegedly took the woman’s car keys and snatched her cell phone as she attempted to call police.  He threw the phone against the wall and pushed the woman over a table,  according to the complaint.

Rockledge Police took him into custody where he has remained since his release June 3rd. Herto is charged with a single count of Battery – a misdemeanor. Two felony charges of False Imprisonment and Tampering With a Witness will not be pressed by the State Attorney.  He is due to appear before Judge John C. Murphy, in Viera,  June 28th.

The arrest report says Herto threatened to burn down the place of business operated by his former employer.  His criminal record shows he served three years in prison in the late 1980′s for Arson.  Herto has also been imprisoned for Burglary and Grand Theft. 

The Rockledge mother of two, told police she fears for her safety.

Herto, (41) served nearly four years in a Michigan prison for Criminal Sexual Conduct. He admitted to assaulting a five year-old girl in the basement of a home where he had been babysitting the child. He relocated to Florida upon his release in 2000,  and is compelled by law to register as a sex offender.

View Herto’s Rockledge Arrest Report: HERTO_Rockledge

View Herto’s Michigan Sex Offense: HERTO_Michigan

Timothy Stephen Angel is back in Brevard after being captured in El Salvador.

by Kevin Gillick

Runaway sex offender Timothy Angel (49), was arraigned in Titusville today after being caught hiding in El Salvador. Judge Jack Griesbaum ordered him held without bond on nine felony counts of failing to register with police.  Court records show he has not registered since 2006.

U.S. Marshalls apprehended Angel March 8th. He had been living  in Chalchuapa, a mountain village in central El Salvador.   Agents with the Sheriff’s Sex Offender Registration and Tracking Unit alerted the Marshall’s service in early March after receiving an anonymous tip concerning his location. Investigators believe Angel was living in Mexico prior to making his way south to El Salvador. Authorities have not determined the exact date when Angel fled the U.S.

Brevard Sheriffs issued a warrant for Angel’s arrest in 2009, when he failed to register his address as required of all convicted sex offenders in Florida.

The former construction worker has a history of noncompliance. He was sentenced to serve ten years in prison in 1994, for sexual assaults on a girl under the age of twelve. However, the court agreed to suspend the sentence and allowed Angel to serve ten years on probation. Two years later, he was back before the judge for violating the court’s restrictions and was sent to prison. He was released from custody in 2002 according to Department of Corrections records.

Judge Griesbaum scheduled a docket hearing for April 26th. Court monitors from Protect Our Children were on hand for today’s arraignment.