{"id":13100,"date":"2025-10-20T23:20:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T23:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/13100\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T23:20:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T23:20:15","slug":"former-st-lucie-county-deputy-acquitted-of-sex-charges-6-years-after-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/13100\/","title":{"rendered":"Former St. Lucie County deputy acquitted of sex charges 6 years after arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">A jury has acquitted a former St. Lucie County sheriff&#8217;s deputy previously charged with sexual assault and battery while on duty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Thomas Johnson was <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wptv.com\/news\/region-st-lucie-county\/st-lucie-county-sheriff-to-hold-news-conference-wednesday\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">arrested in 2019.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">He had been out on bond and was on leave without pay from the sheriff&#8217;s office until he was let go by the department earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">A sheriff&#8217;s spokesman said Johnson was let go because he did not undertake mandatory retraining as required by state law.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Johnson&#8217;s attorney told WPTV that her client had always maintained his innocence and that the accuser had a reputation for untruthfulness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The former deputy&#8217;s acquittal occurred on Friday after a week-long trial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A jury has acquitted a former St. Lucie County sheriff&#8217;s deputy previously charged with sexual assault and battery&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":{"0":"post-13100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-port-st-lucie","9":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","10":"tag-port-st-lucie-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}