![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/mienert-mug-11.3.jpg\")
article <\/p>\n article <\/p>\n
Courtesy: Pinellas County \u00a0Sheriff’s Office\u00a0 <\/p>\n
WEST LEALMAN, Fla. – A man was arrested after Pinellas County deputies say he posted a Facebook comment calling for Pinellas County Commissioner Brian Scott to lose his head following Scott\u2019s vote approving a mosque expansion.<\/p>\n
Facebook threat sparks arrest\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The backstory:<\/p>\n
Rodolfo Mienert, 68, was arrested Monday, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.<\/p>\n
PCSO says detectives began investigating after receiving a report about a threatening comment posted Sunday on a local media outlet’s Facebook page.<\/p>\n
The original post criticized Scott’s vote approving the mosque expansion. In response, a user commented: “But Scott’s WAS, and he’s a Republican’ turncoat,…off with his head!”<\/p>\n
Commission meeting and motive <\/p>\n
Dig deeper:<\/p>\n
Through their investigation, detectives linked the IP address associated with the account to Mienert, the sheriff’s office said.<\/p>\n
Detectives contacted Mienert at his home, where he confirmed the account belonged to him.<\/p>\n
Mienert told investigators he had attended a recent Board of County Commissioners meeting where a woman wearing full Islamic attire appeared and was escorted out of the meeting.<\/p>\n
He described himself as “very vocal and not afraid to share his opinion,” particularly about political issues. Mienert said he called Scott a “turncoat” because the commissioner identifies as a Republican but voted in favor of the mosque expansion, according to investigators.<\/p>\n
Mienert was arrested and taken to the Pinellas County Jail.<\/p>\n
Sheriff responds to threat <\/p>\n
What they’re saying:<\/p>\n
“Threatening to cut off the head of a county commissioner because of his vote on a land issue is intolerable, and we will strictly enforce the law against anyone who makes threats of this nature,” Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.<\/p>\n
According to the sheriff’s office, Mienert previously served as a sergeant with the New York City Police Department before retiring after 22 years.<\/p>\n
Anyone with information about threats can contact PCSO at 727-582-6200 or submit information through FortifyFL<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Source: The information in this story was gathered from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, as well as statements from Sheriff Bob Gualtieri.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pinellas County<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article Courtesy: Pinellas County \u00a0Sheriff’s Office\u00a0 WEST LEALMAN, Fla. – A man was arrested after Pinellas County deputies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[630,47,115,1157,202,204,203,199,201,200,628],"class_list":["post-446386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fl","tag-news","tag-pinellas","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446386","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=446386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}