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Bay County Chief Prosecutor Mark Graham obtained a guilty verdict against Thomas Moses Thursday.
A man accused of sexually battering a teenage girl over a 2-year period was found guilty Thursday and sentenced to consecutive Life sentences, State Attorney Larry Basford announced.
Thomas Lamonte Moses, 55, of Panama City, was found guilty of two counts of Sexual Battery on a Child 12 Years of Age or older but Under 18, as well as Lewd and Lascivious Molestation. The 6-person jury reached the verdict Thursday afternoon in about 35 minutes after Bay County Chief Prosecutor Mark Graham presented his case in the 1-day trial.
Circuit Court Judge Timothy Register then sentenced Moses to Life in prison on each of the sexual battery charges, plus 15 years for the Lewd and Lascivious Molestation, with each charge running consecutively. Judge Register also designated the defendant as a Sexual Predator.
Graham and Co-Prosecutor Jeffrey Moore called witnesses, including the victim and the lead Bay County Sheriff’s Office detective, to prove their case.
“The victim showed tremendous courage and strength in testifying against her attacker,” Graham said. “Her testimony, along with the work of the Gulf Coast Children’s Advocacy Center and Bay County Sheriff’s Office, helped ensure this defendant will never again harm a child.”
The testimony and evidence showed that the defendant sexually battered the victim over a two-year period from 2020 to 2022.
Basford thanked the Bay County Sheriff’s Office and Gulf Coast Children’s Advocacy Center for its work on the case.*-
State Attorney Larry Basford and Keria HicksState Attorney Larry Basford and Jake Mitchell
The 14th Judicial Circuit has two new Assistant State Attorneys.
Keria Hicks and Jake Mitchell, who were notified last week they passed the Florida Bar exam, have been sworn in as prosecutors by State Attorney Larry Basford.
Hicks and Mitchell did not have to travel far for the ceremony, both were already employed at the State Attorney’s Office since last Fall.
Hicks began working at the SAO in Panama City last August as a Paralegal Specialist. She will be handling misdemeanor offenses in Bay County.
She grew up in a small Mississippi town but always had her eyes on becoming an attorney or a journalist. She completed four grades of high school in three years, then went to the University of Mississippi where she took only three years to earn her four-year degree. While in high school and college she also devoted 400 hours to Americorps and took an internship with the state’s U.S. representative.
Keria Hicks with Circuit Judge Devin Collier (right) and her husband Lamont Henderson.
At the beginning of her third year of law school at University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, she was offered a job as a prosecutor at a different judicial circuit in Florida.
“Then I met someone who had worked both in this circuit and the circuit where I had the job offer, and after reading my resume she told me she thought I’d like Panama City a lot more,” she said, adding that an interview was set up. “In the interview, Mr. Basford asked me about my family and that’s something no one else had done. At the time I was a new mother and that meant a lot to me.
“My husband thought I was making this place up but when we flew down and met everyone and saw the area, he was like, ‘I get it, I totally get it.’”
Hicks believes that as a prosecutor she can help make the community a better place to live.
“If there’s anything that identifies my life, it’s that I’m trying to be the change I want to see in the world,” she said.
Mitchell joined the SAO’s Marianna Office in August as a Paralegal Specialist and will temporarily handle misdemeanors in Bay County before shifting back to Jackson County.
Mitchell is returning to his roots as a Marianna High School graduate who went on to attend both Chipola College and Florida State University, where he graduated with a B.S. in Criminology. He received his law degree from the Jones School of Law at Faulkner University in Montgomery, Ala. He worked as an assistant at the Montgomery County, Ala., District Attorney’s Office, and was a legal intern for County Judge Wade Mercer in Marianna.
Circuit Court Judge Ana Maria Garcia swears in new Prosecutor Jake Mitchell.
His inspiration to practice law, he said, came from his grandmother.
“My grandma always had a dream of me and my brother opening our own law firm together,” he said. “I stuck with my end of the deal and my brother decided to go to medical school.
“Even though the chance of ‘Mitchell and Mitchell’ law firm is gone, I know my grandmother and grandfather are looking down and smiling.”
Mitchell’s grandmother lived long enough to see him graduate from law school.
Mitchell worked and lived in Alabama for about two years working both in private and state practice when he heard about an opening that would bring him home. He took it.
“Justice is a universal concept, but I like being on this side of the law,” he said. “We, as prosecutors, are here to be fair but firm. It creates a great responsibility to the community in helping to keep it safe while treating everyone fairly and respectfully.”
State Attorney’s Office Prosecutor Frank Sullivan was honored with the “Making the Difference” award by the Gulf Coast Children’s Advocacy Center, State Attorney Larry Basford announced.
The award was given Friday at the GCCAC’s Panama City Appreciation Luncheon recognizing Bay County agencies that support and work closely with the GCCAC.
GCCAC Executive Director Lori Allen and SAO Prosecutor Frank Sullivan.
GCCAC Executive Director Lori Allen said Sullivan was chosen for the honor based on his consistent, continuing and successful prosecutions of child abusers.
“I’m extremely grateful to be recognized for the hard work that our office does, in conjunction with law enforcement and the GCCAC, to help protect our community’s children from some of the most heinous crimes we see,” Sullivan said after accepting the award at Emerald Coast Fellowship on Jenks Avenue.
The luncheon was one of a number of events hosted by GCCAC during Child Abuse Prevention Month highlighting its work and the collaboration with its partner agencies across Bay, Jackson, Gulf, Washington, Holmes and Calhoun counties.
There are still a number of planned community events for those wanting to show their support.
Wednesday is #DenimDay, where employees at participating agencies and businesses contribute $5 to wear blue jeans to work. Also Wednesday is the Marianna is the Walk in My Shoes 2024 event. (https://tinyurl.com/2va6n62d)
Saturday is Panama City’s Walk in My Shoes, along with a Community Day Celebration from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m . at the GCCAC, 210 E. 11th St. (https://tinyurl.com/4w445x58)
Investigators and staff from the SAO and BCSO
Basford said the GCCAC not only works to protect and serve victims of child abuse, but is invaluable to the prosecution of cases involving child abuse. Victims of child abuse are interviewed by professionals at the GCCAC with training in dealing with juvenile victims.
Prosecutor Peter Overstreet, left, questions Bay County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Jason Daffin.
A four-day trial ended Friday evening with a guilty verdict for a Southport man charged with Second-Degree Murder, State Attorney Larry Basford announced.
The jury deliberated for 2 ½ hours before finding Justin Isaac Drinkard, 38, guilty on the murder charge, and trespassing in an occupied building while armed. Circuit Court Judge Shonna Young Gay set sentencing for May 6. The defendant faces up to Life in prison.
Prosecutor Peter Overstreet during closing arguments.Defendant Justin Drinkard
Drinkard was arrested for the Nov. 25, 2018 beating death of Jerry Dee Benefied, Jr., 20, in the victim’s Lynn Haven home.
Prosecutor Peter Overstreet said he hopes the verdict will help the victim’s family find closure.
“I’m happy for the family of the victim. This was a brutal beating death,” Overstreet said. “We had a defendant who repeatedly struck someone in the head with a baseball bat even after they were unconscious, then hours later tells investigators he would do the same thing again.”
Overstreet presented evidence and witnesses, including victim’s then 16-year-old girlfriend who witnessed the beating and tried to save him, that proved the defendant showed up unannounced at the victim’s home trying to buy methamphetamine. Drinkard admitted he had already consumed over 12 large beers and smoked crack cocaine. After using meth with the victim, Drinkard began to make inappropriate sexual comments to the young girl. The victim attempted to get Drinkard to leave peacefully. Testimony showed he refused to leave and instead followed the girl into a bathroom and shut the door.
The defendant watches as a video of his statement is played for jurors.A BCSO bailiff keeps an eye on the defendant as the attorneys speak with the judge.
The girl began screaming for help. The victim got the door open and became engaged in a struggle with Drinkard who ultimately grabbed a baseball bat and began beating the victim in the head, even after he lay unconscious.
The girlfriend testified she did everything she could to stop the attack – hitting the defendant in the head with two different frying pans, the ceramic top from the toilet, whatever she could find – but that it did not seem to faze the defendant.
She was able to get away and run to a neighbor’s house who called 911. The defendant was still in the house when Bay County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived.
In ensuing interviews with detectives, the defendant at times said he did not remember what happened and then admitted to hitting the victim with the bat – “I smashed him in the face a couple of times” – including after he was unconscious.
Basford thanked the Bay County Sheriff’s Office for its work on the case, which occurred just a month after Hurricane Michael hit and while the county was in a state of emergency.
A woman who drove her boyfriend away from the scene of a murder – with her young daughter in the vehicle – and lied to authorities about it has been sentenced to 75 months in prison, State Attorney Larry Basford announced.
Kim Marie Whaley, 43, of Southport, pled guilty Tuesday to Accessory After the Fact to Second-Degree Murder, Neglect of a Child, and Child Abuse. Circuit Court Judge Dustin Stephenson accepted the plea and sentence. Whaley was charged with helping her boyfriend, Jeremiah Beazley, flee the scene so he could dispose of the weapon after he shot and killed Bryan T. Anderson in the residence the three shared on March 31, 2021.
Upper left: The car the defendant used after the shooting. Bottom left: The residence where the shooting occurred. Bottom Right: Closer view of entry to residence. Center: Defendant Kim Marie Whaley.Prosecutor Peter Overstreet at Jeremiah Beazley’s trialJeremiah Beazley
Beazley was found guilty of Second-Degree Murder with a Firearm and Felon in Possession of a Firearm after his July, 2023 trial. He was sentenced to Life in prison under Florida’s 10-20-Life Statute.
At Beazley’s trial, Prosecutor Peter Overstreet proved to jurors that Beazley was living in a Southport residence with Whaley and the victim, Anderson, at the time of the shooting. Jurors found that Beazley shot the victim twice in a bedroom during an argument. Whaley and her 7-year-old daughter were in the residence at the time.
Overstreet was prepared to call witnesses, including deputies from the Bay County Sheriff’s Office who handled the investigation, and present evidence proving Whaley helped the defendant afterward and ordered her daughter not to tell anyone what she had seen or heard.
The evidence would have shown that Whaley, with her 7-year-old daughter in the car, drove the armed defendant away from the home and dropped him off at a park. When sheriff’s deputies served a search warrant at the residence, they found evidence of open drug use and syringes, as well as unsanitary conditions.
Basford thanked the Sheriff’s Office and Gulf Coast Children’s Advocacy Center for their work on the case that led to two successful prosecutions.
BONIFAY – A Westville man was found guilty Thursday of intentionally driving his truck into an ATV, injuring the driver of the ATV when it flipped over, State Attorney Larry Basford announced.
A Holmes County jury deliberated just over 20 minutes before finding Jesse David Hicks, 31, guilty of Aggravated Battery and Leaving the Scene of an Accident with Injuries. Judge Colby Peel set sentencing for next month.
A Second-Degree felony is normally punishable by a maximum of 15 years in prison, but Holmes County Chief Prosecutor Jacob Cook is seeking to have Hicks sentenced as a Prison Releasee Reoffender, meaning he will have to serve a mandatory 15-year sentence.
The defendant was released from prison in October, 2022, about 6 months before his arrest in this case.
Cook called four witnesses and presented evidence gathered following the by the Florida Highway Patrol and the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office showing that the victim was stopped on Arrant Road at County 181 when they saw the defendant approaching in his truck.
Testimony showed the defendant ran into the ATV and pushed it into a ditch, where it overturned. The evidence showed that the victim had never met the defendant and the victim was out with his wife and 2-year-old granddaughter to take her swimming at Lake Cassidy when he was struck.
The defendant fled, but later was spotted near the scene and taken into custody by the FHP and Holmes County Sheriff’s Office deputies.
Basford thanked the FHP and Holmes County Sheriff’s Office for their work and collaboration on the case.
BONIFAY – A jury took about 25 minutes Wednesday to find a registered sex offender guilty of failing to report a chance in vehicle registration, State Attorney Larry Basford announced
Brian T. Wise, 44, of Bonifay, was found guilty as charged of Failure of a Sex Offender to Report Change in Vehicles Owned. Circuit Court Judge Russell Roberts set sentencing for April 17.
Holmes County Chief Prosecutor Jacob Cook is seeing to have the defendant sentenced as a Habitual Felony Offender, which would double the maximum penalty from 5 years in prison to 10 years. Cook provided the court records of previous convictions for escape and burglary of a structure. The defendant has served prison time for a number of offenses included Lewd and Lascivious Indecent Assault on a Child Under the age of 16, Possession of Methamphetamine and felony Littering (more than 500 pounds).
Wise was last released from prison Oct. 5, 2022 on a burglary charge. He was arrested on the latest charge in March, 2023, by the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office.
During the one-day trial, Cook called two witnesses and entered evidence proving that when Holmes County sheriff’s deputies encountered him on March 13, 2023, he had a vehicle that had was not registered as required.
Florida law requires sex offenders to meet a number of conditions for public safety, including notifying law enforcement within 48 hours of changing addresses, email addresses, home and cellphone numbers and any changes in vehicles registered in their name.
Basford thanked the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office for its work on the case.
MARIANNA – A 6-person jury took about 25 minutes Wednesday to find a Marianna man guilty as charged of Lewd and Lascivious Molestation, State Attorney Larry Basford announced.
Nathan Robbert Johnson, 49, was arrested in February 2022 by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office on a charge of molesting a girl older than 12 but younger than 16. Circuit Court Judge
Ana Maria Garcia set sentencing for May 7 at 2:30 p.m.
Jackson County Chief Prosecutor Shalla Jefcoat called 5 witnesses – including the victim and 3 Sheriff’s Office deputies – and presented evidence proving that the victim was molested by
Johnson in early 2022. The act was discovered when a parent saw a diary entry made by the victim.
BONIFAY – A man with a lengthy criminal history was found guilty by a Holmes County Jury of leading deputies on a high-speed chase has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and designated a Habitual Felony Offender , State Attorney Larry Basford announced.
Franklin Pierce Smith III, 54, of Bonifay, was found guilty of Fleeing or Attempting to Elude (High Speed or Reckless) on Feb. 27 by a Holmes County jury that deliberated for 15 minutes.
Holmes County Chief Prosecutor Jacob Cook sought to have Smith designated as a Habitual Felony Offender, as the Defendant has been to prison six times over the last 25 years. Circuit Court Judge Russell Roberts agreed to the designation last week and sentenced Smith to 10 years in prison. “To protect the citizens of Holmes County it is important that career criminals be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Career criminals need to know that Holmes County is not a place they need to live if they continue breaking the law.” stated Prosecutor Jacob Cook.
At trial, Cook called Holmes County Sheriff’s Office deputies Rodger Young and Wade Strickland, and presented evidence proving the defendant fled after Young pulled him over for a traffic violation.
Testimony showed the defendant pulled over initially, but when asked to exit his vehicle, he instead drove off at a high rate of speed, almost hitting Deputy Roger Young in the process. The defendant ended up driving into a field before abandoning the vehicle and running into the woods, where he was captured a short time later.
Florida Department of Corrections records show the defendant most recently served a 4-year prison term and was released in October, 2021, about 15 months before his arrest in this case. He previously served prison terms for crimes ranging from grand theft and armed burglary, to sale of methamphetamine and resisting arrest with violence.
Basford thanked the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office for its work on the case.
The defendant outside his camper as deputies await a search warrant.
Sentencing is set for May 8 for a Panama City man found guilty of having more than 6,000 grams of GHB, commonly known as “Scoop,” hidden under the bed of his camper, State Attorney Larry Basford announced.
Darren Scott Tyrell, 54, was found guilty Thursday of Trafficking in GHB (more than 5kg, less than 10kg), and Possession of Paraphernalia. Circuit Court Judge Shonna Young Gay ordered the defendant held without bond.
Prosecutors Zachary VanDyke and Jackson White called three witnesses and presented evidence to jurors that on March 25, 2021, Bay County Sheriff’s Office investigators served a search warrant at 1210 Oak Ave. The search warrant included a “free-air sniff” around the camper in the backyard by Inv. Dwight Cummings’ K-9, Fila.
The 6+ kilos of GHB were found in the gray “bag/container” seen in the bottom right photo. The container is next to security camera boxes.
Fila “alerted” to the presence of narcotics in the camper. Inside, deputies found the defendant in the bed. In a compartment under the bed they found a large plastic jug which contained 6.12 kilograms of a “clear oily liquid” right next to the boxes from the security cameras that were installed on the property to protect the illicit operation. The liquid tested positive for GHB, which was later confirmed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
On the street GHB is measured and sold by pouring it in a bottle cap. This is thousands of doses.
GHB is known as a date rape drug and its use at “raves” and clubs. It goes by street names like “Scoop,” “Georgia Home Boy,” and “Water.” It affects the body’s central nervous system. One of the dangers it poses is that users do not know the strength or potency of the drug they are consuming.
The amount seized weighed about 6.12 kilograms, or about 6,120 grams. Under Florida’s enhanced drug laws, trafficking in more than 6 kilograms of GHB is a First-Degree Felony punishable by a minimum-mandatory prison term of 7 years with a maximum possible sentence of 30 years.
Basford thanked the Bay County Sheriff’s Office for its work on the case and for proactively seizing a large amount of GHB before it could be sold on the street.
