Press Release
The Office of State Attorney Glenn Hess announces that on February 7, 2019, a six-member Bay County jury found Matthew Fiquett, Jr. guilty of Robbery. Evidence presented at trial proved that on August 12, 2018, Fiquett, along with two juvenile co-defendants, devised a plan to meet and rob another juvenile at the Men’s Club in Callaway, Florida. The juvenile victim testified at trial that when he arrived, he was expecting to meet one person, but there were at least three others present. He told the jury the older man, Fiquett, asked him to come into a wooded area that was out of the line of sight from the roadway. The juvenile victim testified when he bent down to retrieve Xanax from his backpack he was hit in the face. Fiquett put him in a headlock and held on to him while the two other juvenile co-defendants fled the area with some of his belongings; including a backpack and tablet.
After the other juvenile co-defendants left, Fiquett released the juvenile victim and told him to give him his watch. After Fiquett left the area, the juvenile victim walked out of the wooded area and found two officers sitting nearby in their patrol vehicle. He approached the officers, allowed them to take photographs of him and his injuries, and gave them a description of the individuals who attacked him. The patrol deputies contacted the on-call investigator with the Bay County Sheriff’s Office, Christian Williams. Investigator Williams responded to the scene and while he was walking around the Men’s Club looking for evidence, the juvenile co-defendants returned to the park.
The juvenile co-defendants implicated Fiquett as the leader and the one who devised the plan to steal from the juvenile victim. Investigator Williams was able to locate Fiquett at his girlfriend’s house later that night. Inside the house, Investigator Williams located the juvenile victim’s birth certificate, shredded and stuffed into the toilet bowl, and he found the juvenile victim’s tablet in the water tank of the toilet. He also located the juvenile victim’s backpack in the bedroom where Fiquett stayed.
The jury deliberated for twenty minutes before returning a verdict of guilty for Robbery. Fiquett faces up to 30 years in the Department of Corrections as a Habitual Felony Offender and a Prison Releasee Reoffender. Circuit Judge Brantley Clark, Jr., will sentence Fiquett on February 28, 2019. Assistant State Attorneys Cord Grimes and Alyssa Yarbrough prosecuted the case with the help of the Bay County Sheriff’s Office and the juvenile victim.
For additional information, contact Chief Assistant State Attorney Larry Basford.