On Jan. 30, Hoot Crawford was wrongly convicted of interfering with child custody and of tampering with a witness/victim.
Hoot’s only crime was protecting a teenage victim’s rights under Marsy’s Law, which angered Lt. Jeremy Mathis of the Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) on May 6, 2022.
Earlier that morning, Hoot arrived with the girl and her parents for a voluntary interview with the Department of Children and Families about her recent allegations of sexual abuse by her brother when they lived in Tennessee several years earlier.
A week before arriving with her parents and her attorney, she was suffering an emotional breakdown and told a deputy that it happened and she said that it didn’t happen. She also indicated that she was so upset that she might be suicidal.
She was placed in state custody until a doctor released her back to her parents three days later. The day she got home, a deputy came asking her mom about the brother. The next day BCSO Investigator Trey Fondren banged on the door and berated her mom and threatened to arrest her for child endangerment and take her other children away.
That’s when mom hired an attorney, Hoot Crawford. The girl felt safe with Hoot, who they described as “grandfatherly.” Hoot promised to stay by her side and make sure she was OK. Her mom and dad had been providing therapy since February during this trying time.
This brings us back to the scheduled voluntary interview with DCF on May 6 at the Gulf Coast Children’s Advocacy Center. The girl only wanted to do the interview with Hoot at her side, making sure she was OK. She was scared, especially after her past few encounters with authorities.
But the authorities said that Hoot wasn’t allowed to stay by her side for the voluntary interview. Hoot insisted that she was guaranteed the right to an attorney every step of the way. But the authorities said it was against the rules; she has to go into the room alone.
Lieutenant Jeremy Mathis arrived to confront Hoot about protocol. He pulled Hoot aside and accused him “interfering with an investigation.” Lieutenant Mathis even mocked the notion that she was Hoot’s (air quotes) “client.”
Lieutenant Mathis shouted that if they didn’t comply with the rules, then he could make a phone call, kick Hoot and the parents out of the building, and put the girl in state custody. All by this afternoon, even.
It was no idol threat. He has lots of connections.
Lieutenant Mathis was on the Board of Directors of the CAC along with Sheriff Tommy Ford and State Attorney Larry Basford. The CEO is the daughter of Sheriff Ford’s top investigator, Major Jimmy Stanford. And Stanford’s wife is top brass for DCF for the State of Florida. Mathis has the local DCF supervisor Beau Whitfield on speed dial.
It’s quite an arrangement. The President of the Board, Michael Johnson is gone now, though. He went to prison last year for grand theft, money laundering, and official misconduct at his other gigs.
Hoot reiterated to Lt. Mathis that the girl had a right to an attorney. Hoot asked what law compelled her to answer questions during a voluntary interview without an attorney. Lieutenant Mathis’ shouting could be heard through the walls of the “Safe Place” for children, and now the girl was crying in the other room with her parents.
Hoot joined them and assured her that he wouldn’t leave her side. Surveillance video shows that’s what she wanted.
About this time, they all decide to leave and head out to the parking lot. Lieutenant Mathis called DCF Supervisor Whitfield and got an emergency shelter order on the spot. They were about to turn a voluntary interview into a closed-door interrogation.
A DCF agent catches them in the parking lot and says that she’s sheltering the girl in state custody. This was the first time Hoot had seen this person. Hoot agrees to go with them to the DCF office down the street but then the authorities change plans and decide to keep the girl with the authorities who are determined to question her.
Hoot decides that they’ve been yanked around enough, and they would go to his law office just a few blocks away. If they get a court order, then can come get the girl. As an officer of the court and her attorney, Hoot continues to honor his duty to his terrified young client.
The DCF agent follows Hoot and the girl to his car and tries to detain to detain them by trapping him in the parking spot. She stands directly behind his car, about an arm’s length away. Hoot backs up a foot or two, and then puts the car in drive. He’s forced to run over the parking curb, onto the grass, and out of the parking lot toward his office a few blocks away.
The DCF agent accused Hoot with striking her with his car. Surveillance video proves her claim to be absurd, as she walks briskly carrying a heavy bag on talking on the phone. Three days later she went to the emergency room, and gave the medical papers to the Sheriff’s Office. Then she went on Workers Comp for about five months.
Local TV news outlets sensationalized the whole ordeal: Local attorney kidnaps child and runs over DCF agent. Hoot was charged with fleeing the scene of a crash with injury and reckless driving. Days before the trial, the bogus charges were dropped.
Lt. Mathis and Investigator Fondren gave chase and pulled him over minutes later. They never ask them to get out of the vehicle. Instead, Hoot and the girl are detained for more than an hour on the side of the road. Hoot refuses to roll down the window but yells out the sunroof to get a court order before they take custody of the girl.
That’s when Lt. Mathis called the State Attorney’s Office, and Larry Basford gives the OK to arrest Hoot for interference with child custody. They claim Hoot took the girl out of the unknown DCF agent’s custody in the parking lot.
An emergency shelter order was approved by a judge that afternoon, just like Lt. Mathis had threatened back at the CAC. The girl got out of the car and was taken back for questioning by DCF and Investigator Fondren, who had shouted at her mom in front of their home just one week earlier.
The authorities finally got what they wanted: multiple interrogations. She had been stripped of her right to an attorney. That’s how it’s done at the CAC. Rules are rules.
They asked what Hoot had told her, and what she had told him. A week later, she was questioned again by another investigator, Jake Roberts. She was all alone again, and they asked more questions about Hoot.
At trial, authorities told the jury that Hoot wasn’t acting in the girl’s best interest. That’s one of the reasons he was arrested, according to deposition testimony.
Hoot’s defense was supposed to be a slam dunk. Both the prosecution and the defense said it all hinges on whether or not DCF had statutory grounds to issue the emergency order. If it’s not a lawful oder, then the state didn’t have custody of the girl and Hoot is not guilty. If it was a lawful order, then Hoot is guilty of interfering with child custody.
So the week before trial, the Judge presided over an evidentiary hearing and a motion to dismiss. The question at issue was the validity of DCF’s emergency order at the behest of Lt. Mathis. It was Judge Kelvin C. Wells’ job to determine the legality of the emergency order, which requires observable, immediate, clear-and-present danger to the child.
But Judge Wells said that he didn’t want to make the decision. hear the evidence at the evidentiary hearing challenging the basis of the emergency order. He said they weren’t going to spend time on that. If the DCF agent told Hoot that they were sheltering the girl in state custody, that’s good enough for him.
“I’m not going to go in to determine the legality of the shelter,” said Judge Wells during the evidentiary hearing on Jan. 25, 2024.
So the jury was not allowed to hear whether or not DCF’s emergency order was lawful or not. All they were told is that Hoot heard an unknown DCF say so. This is why Hoot was unable to defend himself in front of a jury of his peers.
It would be like having your home seized because the police got a warrant, but you’re not allowed to challenge the validity of the warrant. If the judge refuses to consider the law, and just rubber stamps the warrant, well then you lose your home.
In Hoot’s case, Judge Wells rubber stamped DCF’s emergency order on the basis that they can take your kids from you on the spot to absolutely ensure their safety in the future.
Nobody can say that the girl was in observable, immediate, clear-and-present danger while she was at the Children’s Advocacy Center (a Safe Place) with her parents, her attorney, and law-enforcement officers.
But instead of considering that, the jury was instructed to vote guilty if these three conditions were met: (1) Hoot took the girl from the CAC; (2) the girl is under 18; and (3) she was sheltered in state custody.
So, essentially, Judge Wells convicted Hoot Crawford by virtue of condition number 3 with no consideration of its legality.
And that’s why Hoot is filing an appeal so that he can have a fair trial. One in which the jury sees the unlawful basis upon which DCF issued the emergency order. It’s such an outcome determinative issue, that the case should be dropped as soon as an honest judge rules on the matter.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “Show me a hero, and I’ll write you a tragedy.”
But there is another victim here along with Hoot Crawford. It’s the teenage girl who was stripped of her attorney. Her advocate. Her grandfatherly protector. The man who risked his Bar license, his livelihood, his name, and his liberty while honoring duty in the face of grave threats by an angry law-enforcement officer. One who had the connections to make good on his threat.
The teenage girl already knew that there are criminals in the world who will hurt her. The tragedy of tragedies is that that now she knows that sometimes they have badges, guns, and gavels.
