FL- Sex offender free after court throws out his probation violation sentence

Old case, but shows how ridiculous laws are applied to sex offenders!

11-18-2006 Florida:

A state appeal court ordered the release Friday of an 80-year-old convicted sex offender serving almost 10 years in prison for violating his probation by having lunch near children playing at an open house in East Naples.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal ordered Collier Circuit Judge Cynthia Ellis to reinstate probation for Donald Conhagen, who has been in prison for almost nine months.

Conhagen pleaded guilty in 2002 to attempted capital sexual battery of a child under 12 and lewd and lascivious assault on a child under 16. He was sentenced to a year in the Collier County jail followed by five years of probation.

One of the terms of sex offender probation is a prohibition of unsupervised contactwith children under 18. He was arrested and charged with violating that after he had lunch at a picnic bench near where children were playing in an inflatable bounce house.

The appeal court, based in Lakeland, ruled there was no evidence Conhagen had actual contact with any of the children and overturned the prison sentence.

“This was just a horrible prosecution,” Conhagen’s attorney, Steve Grogoza, said Friday.

According to court records, Conhagen, a pilot who kept his plane at Naples Municipal Airport, was invited to an open house by another airport tenant, European American Aviation, on Dec. 3, 2005. The company is a supplier of aircraft equipment, and it planned the open house, which featured seminars, as an advertising promotion.

The company provided lunch for those attending and set up several picnic tables in the parking lot. It also set up a bounce house “to entertain any children who might accompany their parents to the open house,” according to the appeal court decision.

Parents were supposed to supervise their children if they brought them.

“Conhagen had no reason to anticipate the presence of children at this event. He did attend, and during the lunch break he joined other attendees at the picnic tables to eat the lunch provided by EAA,” according to the higher court.

The officer manager for the company knew Conhagen was a registered sex offender. She called the Collier County Sheriff’s Office to get advice on what to do if Conhagen attended the open house. A deputy told her to contact him if Conhagen “noticed the children and didn’t leave,” according to the appeal court.

When Conhagen sat at one the tables, the officer manager called the Sheriff’s Office. A deputy arrived and took pictures surreptitiously of Conhagen as he ate lunch near the children.

“Conhagen did not leave the table and did not make any contact with a child. Following lunch, Conhagen returned to the seminars,” according to the decision.

Conhagen later was charged with violating his probation. In court, prosecutor Steve Maresca argued Conhagen’s activities constituted unsupervised contact with children.

“He was staring at children in a bounce house for 45 minutes,” Maresca said Friday.

Ellis found Conhagen in violation of his probation and sentenced him to nine years and 11 months in state prison.

Grogoza, who handled the appeal, argued that was a death sentence because Conhagen is almost 81 years old. Conhagen has been in Okeechobee Correctional Institution since Feb. 24.

“This case answers the question I’m asked all the time — are there innocent people in prison,” Grogoza said.

Conhagen is originally accused of sexual contact with two victims around 10 years old. He had faced an automatic life sentence but pleaded to a lesser charge because the family of the victim in the more serious case was uncooperative, Maresca said. ..News Source.. by Chris W. Colby