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Brushes with law fuel candidacy

A County Commission candidate has a arrest record dating back 25 years, including a current fraud charge.

By BILL VARIAN
Published January 13, 2006

TAMPA - Addressing Hillsborough Republicans Tuesday, Julieann Goggans said she was running for County Commission because she wants to get government out of ordinary people's lives.

Government has been involved in Goggans' life many times in her 43 years.

The commission candidate from Riverview, who is challenging Republican Mark Sharpe for the District 7 at-large seat, is awaiting trial on an organized fraud charge. She also faces 10 counts of supplying false information to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

The charges are the latest in a string of Florida arrests spanning 25 years that range from battery to drug possession to leaving the scene of an accident involving injury. Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Hillsborough clerk of the circuit court records show about a dozen arrests.

In many of the cases, the charges were dismissed. In some of the others, Goggans' had adjudication withheld after pleading no contest to lesser charges. She served one year of probation after pleading no contest to leaving the scene of an accident in 1988.

Records also show she was convicted of reckless driving in 1991, in a case in which she was initially charged with driving under the influence, and of misdemeanor battery in 1996.

Goggans said she once worked for her brother in a car lot that paid cash for used vehicles, and she was the victim of driving newly acquired cars without realizing there was illegal contraband in them.

Some other incidents stemmed from altercations.

"Do make a note that it is mostly for fighting," Goggans said. "I've been fighting all my life, and this is a fight I just took on."

Goggans has several businesses, the main one called Brandon Tag & Title. She prepares title work when mobile homes change hands. She rents property. She said she also helps lenders find people who default on loans.

In the latest case, information supplied by sheriff's investigators to obtain a search warrant accuses her of reporting towed vehicles to the Sheriff's Office, claiming falsely to be from a towing company or giving the name of a fake company. She also is accused of using make-believe locations for where the vehicles were towed to and from.

By doing so, she was avoiding a charge to obtain restricted information she could use to either place liens on vehicles or to enable clients to repossess them, the warrant information claims.

Goggans said she would like to talk about the case but can't until it is resolved. Her attorney also declined comment.

She is slated for trial Feb. 27. Goggans said the case did play a part in motivating her to run for office.

"Call me after February 27th. I'll be more than glad to spill my guts," Goggans said. "Because I'm not happy."

Before her most recent troubles, Goggans was last arrested in July 1997 on a charge of battery. The charge was dismissed. She was found guilty on a misdemeanor battery charge the year before and adjudication was withheld on another misdemeanor battery charge in 1993 that came with a resisting an officer charge that was dropped.

Goggans was arrested on charges of amphetamine and narcotic equipment possession and driving under the influence in 1991 but was convicted of reckless driving. That same year, she pleaded no contest to firing a weapon at, within or into a building, a felony, but adjudication was withheld when she pleaded no contest. It was the same outcome when she faced a disorderly conduct charge in 1989.

An aggravated assault with a weapon charge was dismissed in 1984. The same year, separate charges of felony cocaine and misdemeanor marijuana possession were also dismissed. The court also dismissed a felony larceny charge in 1980, which was her first arrest listed in FDLE records.

Goggans is a divorced mother of two. The current allegations date from January to April of 2005. She filed to run for the commission in July. She loaned her campaign $2,000 but has raised no other money.

"I certainly would hope and wish her well in whatever she's facing," said Sharpe, who is seeking re-election. "But I'm concentrating on just trying to be a good county commissioner and working as hard as I can, and don't have any comment or knowledge of this at all."

Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report.

[Last modified January 13, 2006, 01:45:18]