TAMPA A former state labor judge sentenced in 1991 for delivery of cocaine and having sex with a 14-year-old girl has violated probation by practicing law without a license, prosecutors say.
Louis Tidwell, 69, appeared in court this morning on an outstanding warrant.
Circuit Judge Gregory Holder ordered Tidwell taken into custody and set bail at $5,000.
Holder said the warrant called for an arrest without bail, but he set bail because Tidwell's attorney said his client consistently has tested clean for drugs and hasn't been a flight risk.
"I will tell the court that I do have a letter before me that Mr. Tidwell received from Social Security in '95 giving him authority to represent people in Social Security claims," Tidwell's attorney, Ron Cacciatore, said in court. "Stated another way, one does not have to be a lawyer in order to represent claimants, and that's what he has been doing since he was released from incarceration, judge."
Holder said nonattorneys can practice before the Social Security Administration, but the state attorney's office claimed that Tidwell had been representing himself as an attorney.
Tidwell was sentenced to 12 years in prison in July 1991 after pleading no contest to one count of delivering cocaine, 17 counts of committing a lewd and lascivious act on a minor and four counts of committing a lewd and lascivious act in the presence of a minor.
His prison sentence was cut to eight years in May 1993.
Tidwell, whose occupation is listed as "paralegal" on the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office Web site, remains in Orient Road Jail.
Tidwell was released in 1994 and had been placed on 45 years' probation, Cacciatore said.
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