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No Ruling Made In Hearing On Bollea's Jailhouse Recordings

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 30, 2008

Updated: 07/30/2008 04:24 pm

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Michael McKinney

LARGO - A circuit judge this afternoon reserved judgment on a couple of legal issues in the lawsuit filed by Nick Bollea to stop the Pinellas County sheriff from releasing audio recordings of visits Bollea had with family while an inmate at Pinellas County Jail.

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Jirotka has not decided whether Bollea's mother, Linda, may intervene in the case or whether there should be a hearing soon on the issue of further releases of audio recordings, sheriff's spokeswoman Cecilia Barreda said.

In June, the then-17-year-old's attorneys filed a lawsuit against Sheriff Jim Coats, who operates the jail, after Coats released to the media hours of taped conversations Bollea had with his father, former famed wrestler Hulk Hogan, and with Linda Bollea, who is divorcing Hogan.

Nick Bollea is serving an eight-month sentence because of a wreck that left his passenger, Iraq war veteran John Graziano, with brain damage.

In one of the audiotapes, Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, says that Graziano might have deserved his fate.

Coats released the recordings – along with video of Bollea's family visiting him at the jail's video visitation center – after media organizations asked for them under Florida public records laws. There is no expectation of privacy in the conversations since communicants are constantly reminded as much, Coats' spokesmen have said.

Coats' office stopped releasing the audio recordings once Bollea's attorneys filed suit, because the sheriff wants a judge to decide the issue. Bollea's attorneys have argued that the audio recordings should not have been released because Bollea was a juvenile at the time the recordings were made, and typically a detained juvenile's conversations with his parents are not public record.

Bollea recently turned 18.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2366 or spthompson@tampatrib.com.

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