Judge drops challenge to jury's report

Robert Bonanno decides to stop fighting the release of a grand jury report about him.

By DAVID KARP

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 15, 2001

TAMPA -- After working for six months to keep a critical grand jury report about him secret, Circuit Judge Robert Bonanno has decided to give up his fight.

Bonanno filed a motion with the 2nd District Court of Appeal on Thursday asking that the court drop his challenge to the grand jury report.

The decision means that the report, which reportedly calls on Bonanno to resign, could become public as soon as next week.

Many of its details have already been reported in the press, but Bonanno's lawyer, Ralph Fernandez, fought the report's disclosure and asked Pinellas-Pasco Chief Judge Susan Schaeffer to destroy or seal the report. She denied the request. Bonanno appealed her decision to the state appeals court.

But Thursday the judge changed course. Fernandez declined to explain why. "This is a carefully thought-out decision reached after consideration of a number of pending matters and the time constraints that we are governed by in these proceedings," Fernandez said. He promised to talk about the matter when the appeals court officially dismisses the case.

Fernandez also sent a copy of the dismissal request to an attorney working for the Judicial Qualifications Commission, the agency that regulates the conduct of state judges, which is also investigating Bonanno.

Both inquiries began last July when a bailiff found Bonanno in the darkened and locked office of Circuit Judge Gregory Holder at 5:20 p.m. one day while Holder was out of town. The bailiff said Bonanno appeared to be trying to conceal himself.

Jerry Hill, the state attorney for Polk County, convened a grand jury to look into the incident, and the inquiry quickly expanded into a wide probe of possible misconduct by other judges.

Hill said Thursday he wasn't surprised that Bonanno dropped his challenge to the grand jury's report. The law clearly was against Bonanno's effort to seal or destroy it, he said.

"It's a real shame when a lawyer and a judge don't understand the rules," Hill said. "If there was some legitimacy to (Bonanno's position), he would have prevailed in the formal proceedings."

Holder said he was stunned because "a great deal of judicial and state resources have been expended during this process, which now has been abandoned."

- David Karp can be reached at (813) 226-3376.

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