{"id":26722,"date":"2025-10-30T16:15:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T16:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/26722\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T16:15:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T16:15:09","slug":"sheriff-fires-five-jail-deputies-for-abusing-inmates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/26722\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheriff fires five jail deputies for abusing inmates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri has fired five corrections officers for abusing inmates at the jail<\/a>, including one who was on a suicide watch.<\/p>\n

One incident included high-ranking officers who took and shared pictures of an intoxicated woman\u2019s \u201cbuttocks and genitals\u201d as she struggled to urinate while handcuffed in a cell without a toilet. Another involved a deputy who sprayed a man undergoing psychiatric observation in the face with Lysol.<\/p>\n

Gualtieri announced the terminations Wednesday afternoon. He said the five deputies \u201cforfeited their right\u201d to work for the sheriff\u2019s office<\/a> with their \u201creprehensible conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m disgusted and let down,\u201d Gualtieri said. \u201cIt\u2019s awful that people would treat other human beings like this. Both of these people were in vulnerable positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lt. Jason Franjesevic, Sgt. Keri-Lyn Colosimo, Cpl. Emmanuel Nomikos and Deputy Katherin Cantrell lost their jobs Tuesday over an incident that occurred May 15. The saga began after a woman was arrested at a Seminole bar for disorderly intoxication.<\/p>\n

The woman, whom Gualtieri did not name \u201cdue to the nature of what happened here,\u201d had a \u201cfew drinks too many\u201d and \u201cgot a little loud\u201d at the bar. \u201cThat could be anybody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

She sat in a van outside of the jail\u2019s processing area for over three hours due to an influx of new inmates. Deputies deemed her uncooperative, which contradicted video evidence, and placed her in a cell without a toilet, despite her pleas for a restroom.<\/p>\n

The cell did have a camera that recorded and transmitted video to the front desk. Gualtieri said the woman eventually pulled her jail-issued pants down to urinate into a floor drain \u201cbecause she was placed in the cell without a toilet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman, still handcuffed and shackled, urinated into the drain several times over the next 40 minutes. Nomikos watched as she moved to a bench, lay on her belly, struggled to readjust her pants and exposed her bare buttocks and genitals.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of that is a really, really nice way of saying that she was on the bench, her butt was in the air and she was showing everything,\u201d Gualtieri said. \u201cBecause she was trying to pull her pants up, not because she\u2019s doing anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nomikos, rather than help the woman, allowed Cantrell to photograph the exposed woman from the video monitor with her personal cell phone. He also made \u201cvery disrespectful and degrading\u201d remarks that Gualtieri did not want to repeat.<\/p>\n

Cantrell showed the picture to Colosimo, who joined in the ridicule instead of reprimanding her subordinate. Cantrell also sent the photo to a Facebook group chat with fellow officers and her husband, who is not a sheriff\u2019s office employee.<\/p>\n

\u201cNomikos then retrieved the stored video of the woman in the compromised position, showing her buttocks and genitals, and he freeze-framed that on a \u2026 larger computer monitor on the booking desk, in an area that could be easily seen by deputies, inmates and anybody else passing by,\u201d Gualtieri said.<\/p>\n

He noted that a female supervisor and deputy made \u201cderogatory remarks about the woman\u2019s female anatomy and what they were seeing with her genitals.\u201d Cantrell continued sharing the photo with other deputies, including a lieutenant, while a large monitor displayed the screen grab for over an hour.<\/p>\n

Gualtieri noted that Franjesevic, the highest-ranking officer on duty at the time, \u201cresponded \u2018Oh God,\u2019 and he turned away, taking absolutely no action regarding Deputy Cantrell\u2019s misconduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franjesevic also instructed Cantrell to print her photograph so he could show it to several other subordinates. Gualtieri said Franjesevic \u201ctotally dismissed the inmate\u2019s explanation, which was truthful and accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sheriff reiterated that the deputies \u201ccreated this whole mess\u201d by forcing the woman to remain in a van without a restroom for over three hours, falsely deeming her uncooperative and not removing her handcuffs and shackles. \u201cAnd Deputy Cantrell said she found the situation humorous,\u201d Gualtieri added.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, all this speaks for itself. It\u2019s horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Pinellas County Jail has faced overcrowding issues and no longer allows in-person visits.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Deputy Jovan Hardwick, assigned to an area of the jail that houses inmates with mental health issues, was fired Monday following an incident that occurred Aug. 11. Gualtieri said an unnamed inmate was kneeling inside his cell with his arms protruding from a food tray slot in the door.<\/p>\n

The inmate refused to move his hands as he tried to talk with other jail workers. Hardwick retrieved a can of Lysol out of his personal backpack and sprayed the inmate in the face through the open \u201cfood trap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hardwick then slammed the can onto the still-noncompliant inmate\u2019s hands. He ordered another deputy to open the door, and the man, \u201cwho was then agitated,\u201d tried to rush past Hardwick.<\/p>\n

Gualtieri said Hardwick then \u201cused force\u201d and \u201cplaced the inmate on the ground.\u201d Hardwick subsequently told his supervisors that he dumped water on the man.<\/p>\n

Hardwick also lied in a report and submitted false documents. Gualtieri said he attached a photo labeled \u201cwater bottle,\u201d which \u201cactually showed the bottom of a Lysol can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hardwick continued lying to supervisors and sent one a photo of a water bottle he found on the internet. He eventually confessed to spraying the inmate\u2019s face with Lysol and fabricating \u201cthis whole cover-up\u201d during an Administrative Review Board hearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve looked at some criminal charges in this case, and for a whole lot of reasons, we\u2019re not going to pursue any criminal charges,\u201d Gualtieri said. \u201cThere are some considerations with it, and some barriers to that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri has fired five corrections officers for abusing inmates at the jail, including one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-26722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26722","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=26722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}