Lake Wales man guilty of lewd molestation

JURY VERDICT: Lake Wales man guilty of lewd molestation

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Charles Bailey

When Charles Bailey found out he was going to be arrested for molestation in 2013, he fled from his Lake Wales home and left the state of Florida.

Bailey, 73, evaded law enforcement for more than a year before he was apprehended by US Marshalls in Virginia. On March 15, a jury convicted him of lewd molestation.

Assistant State Attorney Ashley McCarthy told jurors law enforcement began investigating Bailey in 2013 when a victim came forward to say she’d been molested by him. When the girl was between the ages of 9 and 11, Bailey would touch her inappropriately and perform sexual acts on her.

The defense claimed the victim lied about the allegations so she’d get attention, but McCarthy brought in a witness who had also been molested by Bailey.

The woman, who is now in her 30s, testified in court that she was living at the same address as the current victim and was also between the ages of 9 and 12 when Bailey performed sexual acts on her.

Bailey took the stand March 16 and denied ever touching them inappropriately, saying both victims were lying. But McCarthy reminded jurors that when they looked at the evidence, testimony from the witness and the fact that Bailey fled the state, it was clear to see the victims’ assertions weren’t made up.

“The victims were done covering up for him for so many years, and he knew it,” McCarthy said in her closing statement. “That’s why he ran.”

David Broxterman, 57, speaks in court just before his sentence was imposed on March 16. He told the judge he was sorry about the entire incident but never admitted that he'd done anything wrong.

SENTENCING UPDATE: Broxterman sentenced to five years for faking PhD

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David Broxterman grabbed the side of the jury box for support as Judge Yancey sentenced him for lying about his doctoral degree in order to teach at Polk State College.

He was sentenced March 16 to five years in prison, followed by 20 years of probation.

David Broxterman, right, is fingerprinted following his sentencing on March 16. Judge Yancey sentenced him to five years in prison, which is nearly three times the minimum sentencing guideline.

Broxterman, 57, of Lakeland, faked a PhD in organizational management from the University of South Florida when he applied for a job as a professor at Polk State in 2008. He was selected for the position and was paid $258,760 for classes he taught from 2009 to 2014.

Assistant State Attorney Michael Hrdlicka asked Yancey not to depart from the sentencing guidelines, which were a minimum of 21 months.

“He needs to go to prison with a long period of probation following so he can begin to make amends for the lie he told to Polk State College,” Hrdlicka said.

Yancey granted that request by nearly tripling the guideline.

While witnesses testified to Broxterman’s credibility, praising his compassion and dedication to his students, Yancey said that over the course of the trial, he’d seen an alternate side of Broxterman.

“A lot of very fine people spoke on your behalf, but none of them sat through the trial and heard what I heard,” Yancey said. “While they have one perspective of things, I – perhaps – have another … It’s almost like we’re dealing with, in some ways, two different people.”

When Hrdlicka questioned Broxterman, he maintained that he did nothing wrong.

Before the sentence was imposed, Broxterman was asked by his attorney if there were any final words he’d like to say to the judge: “I’m just so sorry that it happened,” Broxterman said from the witness stand. “I wish I could take it back.”

David Broxterman, 57, speaks in court just before his sentence was imposed on March 16. He told the judge he was sorry about the entire incident but never admitted that he’d done anything wrong.

James Brady, 62, of Lakeland.

JURY VERDICT: Lakeland man shoots wife, found guilty of attempted murder

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Sherry Brady heard a loud bang and looked down to see her blood everywhere – her husband of nearly 10 years had fired a shotgun at her.

James Brady, 62, of Lakeland.

James Brady was found guilty Thursday of attempted second-degree murder, shooting into a dwelling, tampering with a witness and domestic battery. He faces a minimum of 25 years in prison, with the possibility of life.

He will be sentenced on May 4.

Sherry Brady spent two months in the hospital and had over 25 surgeries. She suffered extensive damage to her arm, resulting in a torn bicep and the inability to use her left hand.

Over 100 pellets are still embedded in her arm.

Assistant State Attorney Mattie Tondreault told jurors Tuesday that it started the evening of Sept. 5, 2015, when Sherry Brady went to pick her husband up from a family member’s cookout. He’d consumed half a bottle of bourbon and was heavily intoxicated.

Concerned for his well-being, Sherry Brady took her husband’s keys without him noticing and tried to take him home. When James Brady realized his keys were gone, he punched his wife in the jaw, pulled a sign out of the yard and beat on the windows of his truck in an attempt to gain entry.

Sherry Brady left him there and went home, where she immediately hid the 9mm firearm her husband kept underneath his pillow and the ammunition in case he came back to the house that night. It wasn’t long before he was at the doorstep, banging on the door.

He shoved past her, went into their bedroom and locked the door.

Sherry Brady was standing just outside their bedroom attempting to call family when her husband fired the shotgun through a wall at her. She immediately went outside to the front porch where others would be able to see her in case he tried to hurt her further.

“It’s all your fault,” James Brady yelled at his wife, leaving her on the porch in a puddle of her blood.

Realizing she was going into shock, Sherry Brady went back inside the house to grab a phone and call 911. While she had 911 on speaker, James Brady smashed both the house phone and her cell phone.

Fearful that law enforcement may not arrive, Sherry Brady went back inside, grabbed a belt and wrapped it around her arm to stop the bleeding. Her husband found his car keys in her purse and left.

When James Brady took the stand, he admitted to being angry at his wife for taking his keys. But the reason he grabbed the shotgun was not because of that anger, Brady claimed, it was because he wanted to kill himself.

Assistant State Attorney Mattie Tondreault addresses jurors in opening statements March 7. The jury deliberated for about two hours before finding Brady guilty as charged.

“He intentionally raised the gun above the door handle … knowing she’s on the other side,” Tondreault said. “He could have stood anywhere in that bedroom to kill himself, could have pointed that gun in any other direction, but he didn’t.”

Brady also stated he accidentally fired the shotgun, and he “doesn’t know how it went off.”

Tondreault told jurors there was evidence to prove that it’s impossible for a shotgun to misfire.

“You need 6 pounds of a (trigger) pull,” Tondreault said, adding that the same force required to open a soda can is required to pull the trigger. “It wouldn’t go off by shaking it, dropping it or losing control of it. The shot (Brady) fired into the wall was a straight shot; it wasn’t angled. A straight shot is not an accident.”

“What did he have to say for it? ‘It’s all your fault,’” Tondreault said in closing statements. “What did he do? He left her there in a pool of her own blood. These were deliberate decisions.”

William McGee, 39, of Lakeland.

JURY VERDICT: Lake Hollingsworth attacker convicted of kidnapping, attempted sexual battery

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William McGee, 39, of Lakeland.

William McGee admitted he could have raped his victim if she hadn’t talked him out of it.

The 22-year-old girl was running around Lake Hollingsworth about 11 p.m. May 18, 2015, when she saw the shadow of a man begin to approach her from behind.

“He was coming up behind me fast. I glanced back and smiled at him,” the victim said in court Thursday, noting that he wasn’t wearing shoes or a shirt. “I wasn’t worried anything would happen.”

As McGee’s shadow neared, the girl moved to the right so he could pass on her left.

The victim felt his arm slip around her neck and his hand cover her mouth, and that’s when she realized he wasn’t there to run the lake. He was there to hurt her.

McGee was found guilty Friday of kidnapping and attempted sexual battery. He faces up to life in prison and will be sentenced March 24.

Assistant State Attorney Jaenea Gorman told jurors McGee confined the victim for 49 minutes after pulling her off the running path.

“He wasn’t out there jogging. He was in his socks,” Gorman said Friday. “This wasn’t somebody who was out there to run. This was somebody who saw an opportunity, pursued a girl and attacked her.”

“Why are you out here this late? You deserve this,” McGee yelled at her while forcing her into a wooded area and then to the ground, where he attempted to remove her shorts.

The victim fought to keep him off of her, pleading with him to not hurt her. When she realized she wasn’t strong enough to overpower him, she changed tactics and began to reason with him.

“I knew that I wasn’t going to live if I kept fighting him,” the victim said. “I thought that if I could get inside his head and use sympathy maybe that could work.”

McGee admitted to law enforcement that she asked him not to hurt her and that she was crying.

“I knew she was afraid for her life,” McGee said in a taped statement played in court. “I already knew she was trying to get free.”
He also admitted that he could have raped her if she hadn’t calmed him down.

During the encounter, the victim told McGee about how she was training for a marathon and how her mother was dying from cancer. She even asked him questions about where he was from and what he did in an attempt to learn about him.

Once McGee realized she stopped fighting him, he stopped pulling at her shorts. He noticed her earbuds and yanked them from her to listen to her running music, which the victim used as another way to engage him and attempt to change his mind.

The DNA found on her earbuds would later match DNA taken from underneath her nails from fighting McGee. Both samples were a match for him.

“He would have committed the crime had she not talked him back,” Gorman reminded jurors in her closing statement Friday. “She talked him back from the ledge.”

He eventually let her up off the ground and pulled her to a dock, telling the victim he couldn’t let her go because he was afraid she’d call the police.

“I figured he was going to kill me on that dock,” she said, adding that she began calling him by name.

She continued to call him by name and reason with him, learning that he was homeless and had recently been kicked out of his grandmother’s house. The victim said she had friends who could help him find a job and a car.

And after gaining his trust, she was able to convince him to walk her back up to the running path.

She offered to give him her shoes after noticing he was wearing socks, hoping she could run from him when he stopped to put them on, but he declined her offer and stayed by her side.

“He walked with me,” she said. “I didn’t feel like I was truly free to leave.”

But she knew that her window to escape was narrowing, so she took off running and immediately called 911. McGee did not attempt to follow her.

The defense told jurors that when choosing a verdict they should remember that McGee gave a DNA swab and a statement to police voluntarily.

Gorman then asked jurors if it was reasonable to think that because he was cooperative it meant he was not guilty. That line of thinking, she said, is not reality.

“He did not voluntarily renounce his actions on his own. She talked him out of it,” Gorman said. “This is what it looks like when somebody lays in wait, goes after another person.”