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Legal Action Considered Against Polk Sheriff

Associated Press file photo

Christina Garcia, right, claims the sheriff failed to handle the arrest of her daughter, Mercades Nichols, "with integrity and a degree of care" that would have protected her against "unfair treatment and exposure."

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By RAY REYES | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 21, 2008

LAKELAND - The attorney representing Christina Garcia, the mother of one of the teens accused in the videotaped beating of Victoria Lindsay, has filed a notice to sue Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd for making defamatory remarks.

The four-page legal notice sent to the Polk County Sheriff's Office by Lakeland attorney Michele Bernard says Judd has "uttered untrue facts about the nature of my client and her status as a parent towards her minor child, Mercades Nichols, with reckless disregard for the truth."

Bernard will sue over the "severe emotional damages" Garcia suffered when those comments were publicized in newspapers, the Internet, national talk shows and local news stations, according to the legal notice.

Polk sheriff's spokeswoman Donna Wood said Monday that her agency has received Bernard's intent to sue document but said the agency will have no further comment. The sheriff's office has six months to respond to the notice, which is legally required before a suit can be filed.

Nichols, 17, and four other teen girls were arrested in April, accused of attacking 16-year-old Lindsay and recording the beating on video. Investigators have said that the attack on Lindsay was in retaliation for online trash-talking with some of the girls and that the footage was going to be posted on MySpace and YouTube.

Each of the girls is charged with kidnapping and misdemeanor battery. Nichols, Brittany Mayes and Brittni Hardcastle, both 17, are also charged with witness tampering. Charges were dropped June 14 against two boys and a 15-year-old girl accused in the incident.

In her intent to sue notice, Bernard wrote that Judd failed to handle the arrest of the teens "with integrity and a degree of care" that would have protected them "against unfair treatment and exposure."

Judd has described the March 30 beating in published news stories as "animalistic" and said that after the teens were arrested, they were laughing together in a holding cell, saying "Am I going to miss cheerleading practice?" and "I guess we're not going to the beach this week."

Nichols and the four other defendants have a pretrial hearing scheduled for Aug. 26.

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