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Father, son take parallel paths on drug charges

The two men shared a jail cell and a defense attorney. But their drug cases ended with different results.

By JAMAL THALJI
Published September 27, 2005

DADE CITY - Bob Focht hasn't practiced family law for more than a decade. Until Monday.

The Assistant Public Defender represented a father and son facing the same charge: possession of methamphetamine.

Father and son were arrested on the same April weekend in separate, unrelated cases.

Father and son shared the same jail pod.

Father and son on Monday found themselves facing trial at the same time this week.

Father and son were represented by the same attorney.

"Yeah," Focht said. "It's a little strange."

Father and son didn't do too bad with Focht as their lawyer. The son pleaded no contest and was sentenced to time served thanks to a deal worked out by the attorney, who also got a judge to suppress the evidence against the father.

Thomas Edward Knight Jr. walked out of the Pasco County Courthouse after pleading no contest.

Senior Judge Robert Beach sentenced the 26-year-old Lacoochee man to time served, 148 days in the county jail, and $593 in fines that will be set as a lien against him.

Thomas Edward Knight Sr. had the charge against him dismissed, but the 48-year-old Lacoochee man didn't go anywhere.

He's still in jail, facing a federal charge of violation of probation. A conviction on the dismissed third-degree felony could have resulted in a 10-year federal sentence, he told his lawyer.

The son pleaded no contest that morning while dad watched in the courtroom, wearing jail coveralls and shackles, waiting for his evidence suppression hearing.

The son said he'd be back to watch dad's hearing but never returned.

Both list the same Lacoochee address, and both have long criminal records, the father's starting in 1976, the son's in 1994.

In May 1998 Knight Sr. and wife, Deborah, were indicted on a federal charge of conspiracy to distribute narcotics.

A Pasco sheriff's deputy arrested him on April 29 on a U.S. Marshals Service warrant. The deputy searched the father's red Ford F-150, according to a sheriff's report, and found methamphetamine inside. That search was ruled improper Monday, and without the evidence the state dropped the charge.

It was the same charge the son was arrested on the day before. During a warrant search of a Lacoochee home, deputies said they found the son hiding underneath a bed, under which was also less than a quarter ounce of the drug in a small plastic bag.

"I remember seeing the name twice on the jail list," Focht said. "Then one day I realized: that's two different people."

The judge had a message for one of them.

"What do you have to say?" Beach asked.

"Leave ... drugs alone? Knight Jr. mumbled.

"Leave the drugs alone, absolutely. Because the next time you get caught, you want to know what'll happen?" the judge said.

"Jail ... prison?" Knight Jr. said.

"Prison," the judge said, later adding:

"Don't come back."

[Last modified September 27, 2005, 02:45:31]