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Ex-Beau Had Court Protect Him From Girl In Beating Case

Associated Press photo

Mercades Nichols, 17, made her first appearance at a hearing in Polk County court via television from the county jail in Bartow on April 11.

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By BILLY TOWNSEND | The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 18, 2008

Updated: 04/18/2008 06:31 pm

BARTOW - A former boyfriend of Mercades Nichols, one of the girls accused in the videotaped beating of a Mulberry teenager, obtained an injunction against Nichols in fall 2007 for dating violence, court records show.

Jacob Johns, 16, said in requesting the injunction that 17-year-old Nichols subjected him to violence and threats of violence several times after the couple's break-up in October.

In February, Nichols was arrested and charged with aggravated stalking and violating the injunction. The reason: She sent Johns text messages and enlisted Brittni Hardcastle to take Johns a Valentine's Day present to his home, according to a Polk County Sheriff's Office report.

Aggravated stalking is a third-degree felony.

It's not clear whether the state attorney's office is pursuing the February charges against Nichols. Chip Thullbery, a Polk state attorney's office spokesman, said he could not comment.

Hardcastle and Nichols are among eight teens accused in the beating of Mulberry High School student Victoria Lindsay, which was videotaped for posting on the Internet.

Nichols and Johns dated for more than a year.

"We were very close," Johns wrote in his court petition, which was filed Nov. 13.

After their breakup, relations grew tense and violent, Johns said.

On Oct. 31, "Mercades stabbed me with a pen [three times] in an attempt to recover a note written between us two," the boy wrote in the petition. "The note listed numerous threats of violence that she would unleash upon me after school. The note basically said that after school she would follow me home and a group of boys would jump me."

The petition cites a pattern of threats and violence toward Johns and others associated with him.

After a hearing attended by both teenagers and their mothers, Circuit Judge Robert Doyel granted the dating violence injunction, saying Nichols presented "an immediate and present danger of dating violence" to her former boyfriend and his immediate family.

The order, issued Nov. 27, instructed Nichols to have no contact with the boy and to stay at least 500 feet away from his home in Mulberry.

Doyel's handwritten notes on the order indicate Nichols was not enrolled at Mulberry High School at the time he issued the injunction.

"If the school board allows respondent to attend Mulberry Senior High School, she may attend and participate in activities of the school but shall not speak to, curse, signal, follow, or threaten petitioner," Doyel wrote.

Four months after the injunction was issued, on March 30, Victoria Lindsay was beaten at the home of Mercades Nichols' grandmother, investigators said. Nichols and Lindsay had been staying at the home.

Nichols and seven other teens are accused of luring Lindsay to the home on Calendar Court in south Lakeland and attacking her with the intent of posting the videotape on MySpace and YouTube.

All eight of the teens face adult felony kidnapping charges that carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Johns and his mother, Peggy Smith, said they are familiar with all or most of the teens accused in the beating.

They said they were not surprised to see Nichols involved in the attack.

Smith described her as "vindictive."

Efforts to contact Nichols or her attorney today were unsuccessful.

The release of three minutes of video from the attack created a media sensation last week.

One program, "Dr. Phil," posted bail for Nichols and planned to have her appear on the pop psychology show.

Show officials changed course Saturday and said staff erred in posting bail.

Reporter Billy Townsend can be reached at (863) 284-1409 or wtownsend@tamptrib.com.

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