![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/ACEVEDO-CANCELA-EDGARDO-jpg.webp\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nEdgardo Acevedo Cancela and his ex-wife, Cassandra Escobar, filed a civil lawsuit last month in Circuit Court for the 10th Judicial Circuit, based in Bartow. The suit, naming Judd and former Polk County sheriff\u2019s Deputy Sean Jones as defendants, seeks damages of more than $50,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cancela and Escobar filed a similar lawsuit in federal court last year, but a judge rejected parts of the suit and dismissed others while allowing them to be refiled in local court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lawsuit claims that Jones lacked probable cause for arresting Cancela in 2020 at his home in Davenport. Judd held a news conference to announce the arrests of Cancela and 15 other men as part of an operation based on tips from the National Center for Missing and Endangered Children about suspects downloading and sharing images of child pornography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a deviant and he\u2019s dangerous,\u201d Judd said of Cancela at the news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The State Attorney\u2019s Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit eventually filed a pair of \u201cno bill\u201d orders, dropping all charges against Cancela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSubsequent to the filing of the information, the State obtained additional evidence and determined that the charge cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt,\u201d read a notice from October 2022. \u201cTherefore, the State cannot proceed with prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A spokesperson for the State Attorney’s Office said he could not comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The complaint lists six counts, including false arrest, malicious prosecution, defamation and libel and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office in 2020 found evidence that a Facebook account using an internet service at the home of Cancela and Escobar sent at least five files containing images of child pornography to other Facebook users, according to court records. A deputy spoke to Escobar and determined that the Facebook account was associated with a cell phone number previously belonging to Cancela, records show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the complaint, Cancela claims that the Polk Sheriff\u2019s Office failed to discover that he had abandoned the phone number after moving from Puerto Rico to Florida in 2018. The suit suggests that Jones failed to consider that a \u201cbad actor\u201d could have gained access to the Facebook account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The suit states that deputies found no evidence of child pornography during a search of the home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cancela and Escobar had children ages 10 and 13 at the time of the arrest. The complaint says that Jones lied by implying that the children appeared in the videos because they were apparently the same age as the children depicted in the pornography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After being released from jail on bond, Cancela was barred from contact with his son and step-daughter, the suit says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cancela and Escobar have suffered emotional distress and damage to their reputations because of the arrest and news conference, the complaint says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In dismissing the federal suit, U.S. District Judge Mary Scriven of the Middle District of Florida ruled that the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office had probable cause to arrest Cancela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In her order, Scriven quoted a federal ruling that probable cause requires \u201conly a probability or substantial chance of criminal activity, not an actual showing of such activity.\u201d She wrote that the subsequent dismissal of a charge does not negate the existence of probable cause at the time of the arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA reasonable officer could have relied on the \u2018CyberTipline\u2019 reports, the records from the internet service provider, the motor vehicle records, and the records from Yahoo to conclude that there was a substantial chance that Acevedo Cancela used the Facebook account, connected to the IP address registered at his home address, to send and receive child pornography,\u201d Scriven wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The judge dismissed two counts with prejudice for failing to state a claim. That means that those counts, alleging a violation of federal rights through false arrest and malicious prosecution, cannot be refiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scriven dismissed five counts without prejudice, allowing the plaintiffs to seek relief in state court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The civil case has been assigned to Circuit Judge Michael McDaniel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two former Davenport residents are suing Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and a former deputy over a 2020 arrest for the alleged possession of child pornography. Edgardo Acevedo Cancela and his ex-wife, Cassandra Escobar,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51807,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":51807,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/ACEVEDO-CANCELA-EDGARDO-jpg.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[10305],"class_list":["post-51806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-man-arrested-in-2020-on-child-pornography-charge-files-new-suit-against-polk-sheriff-judd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51806","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=51806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51808,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51806\/revisions\/51808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}