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Video Beating Defendant's Pretrial Restrictions Eased
News Channel 8 photo by RUGENE MOORE
Mercades Nichols makes an appearance before Circuit Judge Keith Spoto.
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Published: June 3, 2008
Updated: 06/03/2008 01:40 pm
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TAMPA - BARTOW Mercades Nichols will have to wait for trial to tell her version of what happened to Victoria Lindsay in the now infamous Lakeland video beating.
This morning, Polk Circuit Judge Keith Spotomorning refused to allow Nichols, 17, to travel or to talk to media about the attack. Nichols', attorney, James Holz, had filed a motion asking for the eased bond restrictions and suggesting Nichols might want to issue an apology.
Under media questioning outside the hearing, Holz later said he made reference to a possible apology for strategic reasons.
He said the larger concern was Nichols' basic right to defend herself publicly against an onslaught of public comment from Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and from Lindsay, who is represented by celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred.
Nichols is one of one of six teens accused of beating Victoria Lindsay on March 30 and recording the attack so it could be posted online. All of them, plus two teens accused of acting as lookouts, face kidnapping and misdemeanor battery charges.
Several of the teens had engaged in online and text trash talk with Lindsay, police say, which culminated in the beating. All eight teens will be back in court July 8 for a pretrial hearing.
Holz said his client has been portrayed unfairly as an instigator and key actor in the attack when the beating videos and other evidence suggest she never struck Lindsay. Holz said evidence also shows Nichols did not lure Lindsay to the house on Calendar Court in Lakeland where the attack is said to have occurred.
The home belongs to Nichols' grandmother, and Lindsay had been staying there because of family trouble, police have said.
The kidnapping charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Holz said that potential penalty is grossly out of proportion to the relatively minor injuries Lindsay suffered.
"Why is my client facing life in prison when the victim got two black eyes?" Holz said.
Some police and media reports have stated that Lindsay claims to have been knocked out at one point during the beating and to have suffered some lingering hearing loss. Those reports have never been verified.
Though Spoto spiked Nichols' effort to raise her profile, she Holz did win one concession: Spoto lifted the house arrest. Thatwhich will allow Nichols to attend church and will assist in her home schooling, Holz said.
Nichols testified briefly during today's hearing that she wanted to tell her story and work to get her diploma.
Outside the courtroom, she looked on silently as Holz and her mother, Christina Garcia, held an impromptupress news conference.
Garcia criticized the ruling as unfair. "I'm not happy with this decision." She said Nichols had hoped to speak with local, not national media.
Garcia also jousted with reporters, scolding one cameraman for jostling Nichols as he tried to film what was going on.
"Don't touch my daughter," she said to the apologetic videographer. And she seemed genuinely surprised when another reporter asked her name.
"You don't know my name?" she said.
Reporter Ray Reyes contributed to this report.
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