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PENSACOLA - Suspended Escambia County Commissioner W.D. Childers was freed from jail Thursday while he appeals convictions for bribery and violating the state's open-government law.
Okaloosa County Judge T. Patterson Maney granted an appeal bail a day after another judge did the same for the unrelated bribery conviction. Both judges had been ordered by an appellate court to reconsider their initial denials of bail for the former Florida Senate president.
"The court cannot reasonably find that this defendant is likely to flee," Maney ruled. Childers soon left jail through a back entrance, evading reporters and photographers awaiting his release.
Childers, 69, had served all but two weeks of the 60 days he received for discussing public business in private with other commissioners. The Pensacola Republican is the first Florida official ever jailed for violating the open-meetings portion of the Sunshine Law.
Circuit Judge Jere Tolton has sentenced Childers to 31/2 years in prison for bribing another suspended commissioner, Willie Junior, to vote for the county's purchase of a defunct Pensacola soccer complex from an old friend of Childers in 2001.
Tolton on Wednesday set a $10,000 bail. Maney ruled that Childers could be freed under the same bail in the sunshine case.
Both judges initially had refused to free Childers after his convictions because each thought his appeal would fail. The 1st District Court of Appeal ruled those were improper grounds for denying bail and ordered both cases reconsidered.
A jury last June convicted Childers of one sunshine violation. He later pleaded no contest to a second count, reserving the right to appeal. A separate jury in April convicted him of bribing Junior.