THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW: What’s in a name? For the wrong Cody Williams, 35 days in jail. If you made a mistake of similar magnitude, you’d probably be looking at jail time yourself. And note the involvement of perennial legal disaster lady, Angela Corey:
The Clay County, Fla., Sheriff’s Office punished a deputy Tuesday for the wrongful arrest of 18-year-old Cody Lee Williams, who didn’t even share the same middle name as a man accused of having sex with a young girl.
“Other than the name, there’s no other similarities,” Kris Nowicki, Cody Lee Williams’ attorney, told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday. “Cody Williams had never met this girl and didn’t know anything about her.”
According to the Florida Times-Union, which first reported on the story, a girl younger than 12 told investigators that she had sex with an older boy named Cody Williams on Halloween in 2012.
Williams was arrested on Aug. 30 and languished in jail until Oct. 4, the day his mother pleaded with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office to release her son, according to investigators’ records, which the Sheriff’s Office provided to The Times.
“Not only did they not do a photo lineup, but further … they put him directly into adult court, filing an affidavit that not only is it this guy, but he did something” so serious that he should be charged as an adult, Nowicki said. (Williams, the wrongly arrested, would have been 17 at the time of the crime.)
State Attorney Angela Corey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Tar. Feathers.