{"id":26445,"date":"2022-10-22T20:37:12","date_gmt":"2022-10-23T00:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=26445"},"modified":"2022-10-22T20:37:19","modified_gmt":"2022-10-23T00:37:19","slug":"former-lake-wales-commissioner-kris-fitzgerald-acquitted-of-all-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/10\/22\/former-lake-wales-commissioner-kris-fitzgerald-acquitted-of-all-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Lake Wales Commissioner Kris Fitzgerald Acquitted of All Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former&nbsp;Lake Wales&nbsp;city commissioner Kris Fitzgerald, who was removed from office after being charged with two felonies, has been found not guilty in a jury trial.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"283\" height=\"425\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 283px) 100vw, 283px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Kris-Fitzgerald.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-26446\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Kris-Fitzgerald.jpeg 283w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/Kris-Fitzgerald-200x300.jpeg 200w\" \/><figcaption>Former\u00a0Lake Wales\u00a0city commissioner Kris Fitzgerald<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fitzgerald was arrested on June 3, 2021, after being sworn into office in May on the two felony charges. She was released from the\u00a0Polk\u00a0County Jail after posting an $11,000 bond.\u00a0Polk\u00a0Sheriff Grady Judd boasted of the arrest at a press conference, claiming that he had taken a dangerous criminal off the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sw8X-uVRMOk\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Can you believe in 2021 that the lights haven&#8217;t come on for her yet that you can&#8217;t threaten an 11-year-old with a handgun?&#8221; Judd asked a gathering of Florida news media. &#8220;She literally petrified him, scared him,&#8221; Judd said. &#8220;His family is livid beyond all expectations as you would be if someone threatened your child.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/desantis-123-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-20522\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/desantis-123-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/desantis-123-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/desantis-123-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/desantis-123.jpg 1200w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Governor Ron DeSantis then removed her from office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A licensed mental health counselor, Fitzgerald, 41, had defeated an incumbent city commissioner in the April 6, 2021 city election. Weeks later Fitzgerald was accused of taking an 11-year-old boy for a drive to confront him about allegedly touching her 13-year-old daughter in a sexual manner in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The boy claimed that she was holding a handgun in her lap and threatening him while driving him home. Fitzgerald is a former military police officer, and according to witnesses, the child was very familiar with the fact that she had a concealed weapons permit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fitzgerald remains unhappy about the way she was vilified by Judd.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"287\" height=\"160\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 287px) 100vw, 287px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Sheriff-Judd.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15031\"\/><figcaption>Polk\u00a0Sheriff Grady Judd<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;He did say quite a number of things, and I believe in this country you are assumed innocent until proven guilty,&#8221; Fitzgerald said. &#8220;He did make a number of statements to national media that indicated that I was guilty. He&#8217;s leading people, leading by example. He asked &#8216;why did (the victim) wait a year to make the claim?&#8217; He doesn&#8217;t understand that many victims are afraid to come forward. My daughter was watching (the press conference on television) that night, and she gasped. It&#8217;s a shame that people are afraid.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After her removal city commissioners elected local pastor Jack&nbsp;Hilligoss&nbsp;to fill the vacant seat.&nbsp;Hilligoss&nbsp;subsequently vacated the seat to run successfully for mayor, allowing a church member, Danny Krueger, to be elected to fill the remainder of Fitzgerald&#8217;s three-year term, which expires in May of 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The arrest caused complete disruption of Fitzgerald&#8217;s life. She had worked for many years as a counselor at The Vanguard School in\u00a0Lake Wales and had resigned upon her election to begin re-establishing her own private practice as a mental health counselor. After her arrest, she was unable to proceed with her plans. &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t even work with anyone in a hospital or nursing home to work, either, they had restricted my license.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fitzgerald eventually intends to return to work in the mental health field. &#8220;Right now I just want to rest. The pretrial conditions were restrictive,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former&nbsp;Lake Wales&nbsp;city commissioner Kris Fitzgerald, who was removed from office after being charged with two felonies, has been found not guilty in a jury trial. Fitzgerald was arrested on June&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[3735],"class_list":["post-26445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-fitzgerald-acquitted-of-all-charges"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}