Gary Graham, removed from the Citrus County bench in 1993, now faces charges of molesting two girls.
By JORGE SANCHEZ
Published November 30, 2004
INVERNESS - Gary Graham, whose controversial judicial career in Citrus County ended a decade ago with his removal from the bench, was arrested Monday and accused of committing sex crimes against two 10-year-old girls.
Graham, 56, is charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct and one count of sexual battery on a child younger than 12, an arrest report showed. He was being held without bail in the Citrus County jail.
"The lewd and lascivious charges stem from the complaints that he (Graham) reached inside the girls' pajamas - inappropriate touching or fondling, that kind of thing," said Gail Tierney, spokeswoman for the Citrus County Sheriff's Office.
The alleged sexual battery occurred during that same episode, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said. The events happened earlier this year in a northwest Citrus home, authorities have alleged.
Graham has been a subject of controversy through much of his legal career. As County Court judge, Graham once ordered a man to kill poisonous snakes that had bitten a neighbor and were ruled a menace.
He sent several people to jail for using foul language or otherwise acting contemptuously in court. He put one man behind bars for 10 days because he wore a T-shirt to court that showed scantily clad women riding in the back of a pickup and the caption "Haulin' A--."
But not all of Graham's actions from the bench drew laughter. He publicly clashed with the state attorney and sheriff. He once repeatedly increased a defendant's sentence after the defendant questioned its fairness. He lectured a young defendant's mother in open court, saying she was his problem.
The Judicial Qualifications Commission found that Graham improperly criticized people from the bench, abused his powers of contempt and sentencing, and acted rudely toward litigants and lawyers.
The Florida Supreme Court removed him from the bench in 1993. Graham has practiced law in Inverness since that time. Among his criminal defense clients have been Bruce A. Young, the nurse accused of sexually abusing sedated female patients at Citrus Memorial Hospital.
The criminal case against Graham began developing in late April, when the mother of one of the 10-year-old girls filed a report with the Sheriff's Office. The two girls are not related, according to Tierney, the sheriff's spokeswoman. Tierney said the original complaint investigated by the Sheriff's Office only contained information about alleged fondling.
After interviewing the two girls, their mothers and some school personnel, the Sheriff's Office turned the case over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, whose further investigations led to the sexual battery charge.
"We're not going to get into the specifics of the crime," said Rick Morera, an FDLE spokesman in Tampa. "We're not going to try this case in the press."
Prosecutors reviewed the case, and a judge issued an order for Graham's arrest. He turned himself in at the jail Monday afternoon.
Jail officials, citing security, would not say whether the former judge was being held in protective custody.
