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Bollea's Attorneys Stop Release Of Calls, But Can't End Isolation

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Nick Bollea's attorneys wanted Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Philip Federico to move Bollea to a minimum security pod where he could interact with inmates or let him go home with an ankle bracelet until he turns 18 in July.

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 3, 2008

Updated: 06/04/2008 04:40 am

CLEARWATER - Nick Bollea's attorneys may have failed at getting him transferred out of his solitary cell, but they succeeded in stopping Pinellas Sheriff Jim Coats from releasing any more audio recordings of Bollea's visits at the jail with his family – for now.

Without elaborating, Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Philip Federico denied a request Tuesday to take the 17-year-old out of a maximum security cell in which he is separated from adult inmates at Pinellas County Jail.

"We're very disappointed, but we're not going to stop," said Sandy Weinberg, one of Bollea's attorneys. Among the legal moves contemplated is a court filing with the 2nd District Court of Appeal, he said. A decision will be made within the next couple of days.

Weinberg and Kevin Hayslett, another Bollea attorney, filed a request in court Friday asking Federico to move Bollea. They wanted the judge to put Bollea in a minimum security pod where he could interact with other inmates. Failing that, they wanted the judge to send him home until he turns 18 next month, at which point Coats could put Bollea in with other adults.

They categorized Bollea's current accommodations – a cell with a slit to pass food through, and a window impossible to look through – as the equivalent of solitary confinement and "cruel and unusual punishment." On Tuesday, Weinberg said Coats was putting Bollea "in a category of a man without a country," and said no other person has been treated like Bollea in the state.

While their request was winding its way through the criminal justice system to Federico's desk, another request by the attorneys was winding its way through the civil arena, asking that Coats be stopped from releasing any more recorded conversations among Bollea and his family members. More than 20 hours of recorded conversations were released to media outlets last month.

The request also asks that Coats stop allowing television crews to videotape the Bollea family as they talk with Bollea on a video monitor in the jail's visitation center. It also asks that Coats be stopped from releasing surveillance video that shows the Bollea family entering the center and sitting at a monitor for the visit, according to a copy of the request.

This request has been assigned to Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Nelly Khouzam, but she hasn't seen it yet, Pinellas courts spokesman Ron Stuart said. Even so, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office has opted not to release any more recordings to the media, at least for now, because the matter is now in litigation, sheriff's spokeswoman Cecilia Barreda said. Barreda declined further comment.

Bollea, whose father, Terry, is the famed wrestler Hulk Hogan, was sentenced to eight months in jail after he pleaded no contest to reckless driving in May in a wreck that left his sole passenger, Iraq war veteran John Graziano, with brain damage.

By releasing the video footage and the conversation recordings – some of which paint Bollea and his family as remorseless – Bollea's attorneys say Coats is hurting Bollea's ability to defend himself in a civil lawsuit filed by the guardian for John Graziano. Graziano is seeking millions in damages from Bollea and his parents.

The releases have also caused Nick Bollea extreme emotional distress, the attorneys say in their civil court filing. Already in solitary confinement, Bollea "feels further isolated by the inability to communicate with his own family without his conversations being aired on national media outlets," according to the court filing.

They cite the Florida Administrative Code, which governs media access to inmates and correctional facilities. "Privacy rights of inmates shall be observed by the media," the lawyers say, quoting the code. "No photographs, movie films, television tapes or recordings may be made without the consent of the inmate involved."

Bollea's attorneys also argue that by statute any information obtained by an agency in the discharge of its duties – such as inmate telephone conversations recorded for security reasons – is confidential when the person the agency is dealing with is a juvenile, the filing says.

But Jennifer Monrose Moore, deputy general counsel for the sheriff's office, has written Bollea's attorneys noting Bollea hasn't been classified as a juvenile.

"Rather, Mr. Bollea is properly classified as an adult offender having pled and been sentenced as an adult of the felony of reckless driving with serious bodily injury," she wrote to Sandy Weinberg in a May 27 letter. Because he has been classified as an adult, juvenile laws governing the release of information don't apply to him, she notes.

Weinberg said Tuesday it doesn't make any sense that Coats treats Bollea as a juvenile when it comes to how the teen should be housed, but as an adult when it comes to releasing the audiotapes of the visits.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336 or spthompson@tampatrib.com.

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