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First: the Taylor Cadle story at-a-glance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The ongoing atrocity that Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd\u2019s office committed against Taylor Cadle, beginning as a 12-year-old child, is a massive, nearly decade-long story; but it boils down to the brief paragraph that follows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nPolk County Sheriff\u2019s Office Det. Melissa Turnage<\/strong><\/em> and her supervisors belligerently disbelieved<\/strong><\/em> 12-year-old Taylor Cadle of Lakeland when she reported her multiple, very real incest\/rapes by Henry Cadle \u2014 her uncle-turned-adopted father \u2014 in 2016. They charged<\/strong><\/em> her with fabricating her own very real incest rapes. They hauled<\/strong><\/em> her in front of a judge and forced her to apologize in writing<\/strong><\/em> to her incest rapist. Then they sent her right back<\/strong><\/em> to her incest rapist to be incest-raped again. The extraordinarily brave and self-possessed Cadle Cadle documented on her phone<\/strong><\/em> her next incest rape as it happened<\/strong><\/em> by side of the road in 2017 in an unbelievable act of composure and courage. She caught an image of incest rapist \u201cdad\u201ds exposed penis on camera just before her raped her with it \u2014 again. Only then would Grady Judd\u2019s agency do its job. And the detective who abused Cadle<\/strong><\/em>, Melissa Turnage, remains employed by Grady Judd and on track to make sergeant, despite a record of incompetence and failure beyond the Cadle case.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Polk Sheriff Grady Judd has not contested a single reported fact of Cadle\u2019s story; and the endlessly trash-talking Judd still refuses to publicly address it at all<\/strong><\/em>, as if it\u2019s not his<\/strong><\/em> responsibility to run his own<\/strong><\/em> agency, rather than just sell merch to fanboys. Judd refuses to publicly apologize to Cadle and refuses to deal with Turnage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here is how the Sheriff\u2019s Office responded to the Rachel DeLeon and Julia Lurie, the reporters who broke the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nTurnage didn\u2019t respond to our attempts to reach her, and Judd\u2019s office declined an interview. When we showed up at the sheriff\u2019s office in August and asked to speak with Judd, we were told that a public information officer would come down to talk. Minutes later, we were told, she had been pulled into a meeting and didn\u2019t know when she would be available. (A spokesperson told the Lakeland Ledger<\/a><\/em> that the sheriff\u2019s office wouldn\u2019t speak to us because it \u201cbecame clear they were not interested in accurately reporting an investigation that occurred in 2016.\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
You can read the full DeLeon and Lurie story here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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- \u201cThe unflinching courage of Taylor Cadle<\/a>\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
You can read my takes here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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- \u201cWhen reporting rape\/incest to Grady Judd is a crime …\u201d<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
- \u201cGrady Judd’s office *still* belligerently disbelieves heroic rape\/incest survivor who did Grady’s job for him<\/a>\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- \u201cGrady Judd must write his own public apology letter to Taylor Cadle<\/a>\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
- MAGA elected official calls on Grady Judd to account to Taylor Cadle<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nWhat\u2019s a \u201cdeath letter\u201d?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A little more than a decade ago, former 10th Circuit State Attorney Jerry Hill (the ongoing villain of the ongoing <\/a>Leo Schofield<\/a><\/strong><\/em> atrocity<\/a>, a whole other<\/strong><\/em> Polk County legal atrocity) aggressively, publicly sought to blow up the Lakeland Police Department. At the time, LPD was led by Chief Lisa Womack, the agency\u2019s first female chief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hill actually had a good reason for his action: a cadre of male officers had taken turns having sex with an LPD employee (sometimes on the clock) who was a survivor of chronic childhood sexual abuse. And there were multiple other agency problems that Womack would not or could not address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw Womack as a bad, us-against-them type chief, who let the worst parts of the agency run amuck in multiple ways, even beyond the gross sexual power scandal. I was publicly supportive of Hill\u2019s extremely confrontational public work.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
A showy cornerstone of Hill\u2019s effort was a so-called \u201cdeath letter\u201d to an LPD sergeant Hill accused of being dishonest about the LPD scandal. The death letter stated that prosecutors would no longer use this officer as a witness in any case. As <\/a>The Ledger<\/a><\/em> reported at the time, this would essentially kill any frontline cop\u2019s career:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n“What they’ve basically done is destroyed his viability as a police officer to investigate crime,” said Charles Rose, a instructor at Stetson University College of Law. “The state has identified him as a liar.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
What specific circumstances prompted the death letter? The woman at the center of the LPD scandal accused of this officer of making unwanted advances. The officer was the only officer \u2014 of more than 20 \u2014 to deny the woman\u2019s accusations of either sex or sexual advances, Hill said. And the officer wouldn\u2019t take a polygraph. That was enough for Hill to kill his career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Compare that to Melissa Turnage<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Just three years later \u2014 with the full, ongoing backing of Grady Judd and the Polk Sheriff\u2019s Office \u2014 Melissa Turnage mentally and legally traumatized a 12-year-old child of foster care who accurately and honestly reported her own incest rape by her uncle-turned-adoptive father. Note the parts in bold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nTurnage\u2019s investigation came to a head after five months, in December 2016. She spoke with Taylor on the porch outside the Cadles\u2019 home to deliver the news: The final results from the rape kit had come back, and there was no evidence of Henry\u2019s DNA. \u201cI\u2019m not saying you\u2019re lying,\u201d Turnage told Taylor. \u201cI just want to know why, if everything you said is true, why am I not finding anything?\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taylor\u2019s voice came out as a whimper. \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she said. \u201cI swear on my life it happened.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, rape kits often don\u2019t show evidence of abusers\u2019 DNA, especially when more than 24 hours have passed since the abuse occurred, or when a condom was used\u2014both of which applied in Taylor\u2019s case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf it happened, there would be\u2014there would be DNA found,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> Turnage said. \u201cAnd we didn\u2019t find anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If Taylor lived in another county, perhaps her case would have ended there: allegations made, no corroborating evidence found, no charge against the alleged abuser. But in Polk County, no wrongdoing is too small for a consequence. Sheriff Judd often quotes a phrase he learned from his late father: \u201cRight is right, and wrong is never right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPolk County has a very pro-arrest outlook,\u201d said Joel Dempsey, a detective with the office until 2018. \u201cIf charges are deemed justifiable, then [suspects] are likely going to be charged.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inside the house, Turnage told Lisa that the sheriff\u2019s office planned to move forward with a criminal charge against Taylor for lying to a law enforcement officer about a felony. Lisa was on board. \u201cWe know she\u2019s mouthy, and she tries to act older than what she is,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterward, Turnage spoke with Taylor\u2019s adoptive sister about what Taylor\u2019s life would look like if she were sent to the juvenile detention center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019re in your pretty little blue jumpsuit, with your little flip flops, and you\u2019re housed with everybody else,\u201d said Turnage. \u201cShe would come in and look like the pretty girl.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hearing bits and pieces of the conversation through the sliding porch door, Taylor had the distinct feeling that she was drowning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two days after meeting with Taylor at the Cadles\u2019 home, Turnage filed an affidavit. The real crime wasn\u2019t the alleged sexual abuse\u2014it was that Taylor had given false information to a law enforcement officer, a first-degree misdemeanor. The victim of this crime, according to the affidavit, was the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
To avoid prosecution and sentencing for accurately reporting her own incest rape<\/strong><\/em> by her adopted father (who implied to Turnage during her investigation that he masturbated about 12-year-old Cadle, to which Turnage and her bosses went \u00af\\_(\u30c4)_\/\u00af), the Polk court system made Cadle write an apology letter<\/strong><\/em> to her incest rapist \u201cdad.\u201d By that time, she was 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
See Cadle\u2019s little apology letter below, along with disgusted commentary from very MAGA Polk County Commissioner Neil Combee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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