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Former candidate a no show in court

He lost the GOP County Commission primary, then faced three criminal charges. Now he's riding horses in Montana.

By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published July 29, 2005

BROOKSVILLE - Luke Aaron Frazier vowed last summer to govern based on the Bible if elected as a county commissioner. In the last six months, he's been arrested on charges of sodomizing a 21-year-old single mom, a felony, and giving misleading statements to authorities, sheltering a 16-year-old and contributing to the delinquency of a minor - all misdemeanors. Now he's off riding horses in Montana.

That's where he was Wednesday morning, said his attorney, Peyton Hyslop, when he had a date in Circuit Judge Richard Tombrink's courtroom.

It's where he will be Tuesday, too, when he's scheduled to be arraigned on the sheltering charges.

Wednesday's 9 a.m. hearing was for him to answer the charge of making misleading statements.

Ultimately, Frazier got off with 40 hours of community service - hours that already have been completed, Hyslop said, in Marietta, Ga., at the Optimist Club.

But that almost didn't happen.

"Luke Aaron Frazier!" Tombrink called out a bit after 9.

"Frazier!" he said again.

People looked around.

There was silence.

"It's now 9:06 a.m.," Tombrink finally said. "The court will note the failure to appear. If there's nothing further, that concludes criminal matters."

He set bail for $3,013.

He struck the gavel.

Then: "Your honor?" prosecutor Lisa Redmon said.

Hyslop could be seen through the small window of the door to the courtroom.

He opened the door and walked down the center aisle.

"You have a client?" Tombrink asked from the bench.

"I have a file," Hyslop said.

"All right," the judge said. "Let's go back on the record."

Hyslop told the court about the 40 hours of community service Frazier served. He asked for the case to be dismissed.

"That is sufficient," Redmon said of the service hours, although she said she would have preferred a formal plea.

The hearing stemmed from the April arrest after Frazier, 20, was accused of sodomizing a 21-year-old female acquaintance, who had fallen asleep on a couch after taking pain medication, according to a Hernando County Sheriff's Office report. But the State Attorney's Office dropped the first-degree felony charges two weeks before the arraignment, court records show, for insufficient evidence.

Frazier, who ran unsuccessfully in the 2004 Republican District 1 primary, told the Times after his arrest that he was the victim of overzealous prosecution by the Hernando County Sheriff's Office and Sheriff Richard Nugent.

Although the more serious charge was dropped, Frazier still faced the misdemeanor charge of making the misleading statements to authorities.

When investigators had confronted Frazier with the allegations, he told them the woman had sexually assaulted him, a sheriff's report said. But in a recorded phone conversation he said the woman had consented to sex.

On Wednesday, in the courtroom, Tombrink asked: "Where is Mr. Frazier?"

"He's in Montana," Hyslop said.

Tombrink asked if he was employed there.

"For the immediate future," Hyslop answered.

Tombrink released the bail. Case dismissed.

Outside the courtroom, Hyslop had a faxed copy of the community service form from the Optimist Club in Marietta, Ga., showing Frazier had completed the 40 hours from June 29 to July 14. The sheet said he'd done things to "provide assistance to the community."

When contacted at the Optimist Club on Thursday, Sergio Gill, the organization's secretary-treasurer, said Frazier had done some cleanup work, worked at a clothing center that's part of the Salvation Army and had volunteered with collection drives at a church in Atlanta.

"We do help out the kids and stuff like that," Gill said.

Hyslop says he last spoke to Frazier last weekend.

"He said he's got a job near Glacier National Park taking horse rides into the park," he said Wednesday outside the courtroom. "He's a tour guide, I guess, at least temporarily.

"He may have to come back."

But he won't be back in Hernando County for Tuesday's scheduled arraignment for the runaway case.

"We anticipate that going away," Hyslop said.

"The parents" - the parents, that is, of the 16-year-old - "believe he acted appropriately."

Frazier could not be reached this week. He's somewhere in Glacier National Park, Hyslop said, which, according to its Web site, has its headquarters in West Glacier, Mont. But where at the park, exactly, Frazier might be, and what, exactly, he's doing, is not clear.

"When he called me," Hyslop said, "he said it was the first time in four days he'd had cell service. He said he was someplace out there with his parents and that he was thinking he was going to stay out there for a while."

Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or 352 848-1434.

[Last modified July 29, 2005, 00:51:17]