John G. Kelly was on probation in 1992 when he hit his boss with a hammer.
TAMPA - John G. Kelly failed his first several tries at probation in the 1980s, a pattern he would go on to repeat for the next decade.
In 1992, a judge placed him on probation for 12 months after he assaulted his sister, but two days after that sentence was handed down, the self-described alcoholic beat his boss' head with a hammer.
That landed him in prison. He got out after six years, in March 1998, with three years of probation to serve.
Three months later, he was caught with cocaine in his system and charged with punching his girlfriend. He got one year in jail, with credit for time served, and a year's probation.
Then in March 1999, after a year of freedom, he broke into the shed of a Tampa house and stole a bike. He was arrested and faced prison because the bike's value elevated the crime to a felony.
Kelly wrote a letter to a judge asking for help.
" . . . I haven't been able to get a grip on my life since I was released from prison," he wrote in the 1999 letter. "There was a time when I was a hard-working, productive citizen, and I wish more than anything to be so once again."
It didn't work. Kelly was sent back to prison for more than a year for stealing the bike and violating his probation. When he got out, again, records show he did cocaine, burglarized people's homes and trespassed. He beat up his girlfriend, tried to elude police. He did marijuana and tried to sell stolen goods.
He blamed homelessness and the pressure of finding a permanent house and steady work; he blamed alcohol and a lack of support system.
Since 1985, he was charged with about 30 crimes and spent four terms in prison. Each time he got out, he violated his probation by committing more crimes, but often continued to get short jail or probation sentences.
"I do not want to go back to prison only to be 40 or 45 years old and still have nothing going for me," he wrote in the 1999 letter.
The former boss whom Kelly assaulted with a hammer in 1992 ran into him at the courthouse this past March. Kelly was awaiting sentencing for driving with a suspended or revoked license and fleeing to elude a police officer, and for burglarizing and doing drugs while on probation.
The boss, James Steere, is now a probation officer and was at the courthouse as part of his duties.
"We reminisced about what happened," Steere said. "He told me he lived in St. Petersburg. I assumed he was going back on some type of probation. That was the last time I saw him."
Kelly was sentenced to eight years in prison and is incarcerated in Union County in north Florida.
