Cope clashes with property appraiser

Already facing trial, embattled Judge Charles Cope is now accused of verbally abusing a county property appraiser.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 29, 2002

PALM HARBOR -- The note in the property appraiser file warned, "Beware of dog and owner too." The appraiser visiting the house didn't see a dog.

Instead, the owner chased the appraiser away.

Pinellas-Pasco Judge Charles Cope angrily confronted a county property appraiser conducting a routine inspection in the yard of his Palm Harbor home on Nov. 30. An appraiser said Cope cursed and tried to grab a piece of the appraiser's equipment.

"What the f--- are you doing on my property!' Pinellas appraiser Mike Powell said Cope yelled.

"I could not explain to him why I was on his property as he was too busy verbally abusing me as loud as he could," Powell said in a report.

Cope, who faces a trial in California next month for getting drunk and trying to break into the hotel room of two women, offered a different version of the dispute.

Cope's attorney, Bob Merkle, said the appraiser's employee kicked in a gate at Cope's home, and peered into a window.

Merkle said the appraiser was trespassing and never knocked to see if anybody was home.

"If the guy had come on my property like that, he probably would have gotten shot," he said.

Cope, who could not be reached to comment, later called Property Appraiser Jim Smith's office.

He told Smith's assistant he was friends with Smith's wife, former Judge Catherine Harlan, and complained of harassment, the assistant reported.

Cope, 53, then said he was going to sue Smith.

Smith then called the judge to tell him his employee was simply doing his job.

"I told him I was not happy with his demeanor," Smith said in an interview on Friday. "We're both elected people and we should be held to a higher standard. Everybody puts their pants on one leg at a time. Everybody's the same. Just because you're elected doesn't give you a reason to be abusive."

The appraiser came on a Friday, during the day. He was nearly finished with his work when Cope confronted him, so Smith said his office had no problem appraising the home.

The home is valued at $342,500, which Smith said is increasing about 1.6 percent this year.

Smith said his appraisers are legally allowed to enter the yard of a home if, after knocking, nobody answers. Powell said he knocked to no avail. A physical inspection of every property in the county is required every three years.

Merkle denied that anyone knocked.

Cope faces a trial in California next month on five misdemeanors for an incident in Carmel, where he was attending a judicial conference last year. The Judicial Qualifications Commission also is reviewing his behavior, though a JQC panel last week cleared him of several allegations.

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