{"id":58720,"date":"2025-10-29T03:27:02","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T07:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=58720"},"modified":"2025-10-29T12:10:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T16:10:40","slug":"tara-johnson-executive-director-of-hope-house-in-bartow-has-been-charged-with-sexual-cyber-harassment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/10\/29\/tara-johnson-executive-director-of-hope-house-in-bartow-has-been-charged-with-sexual-cyber-harassment\/","title":{"rendered":"Tara Johnson, Executive Director of Hope House in Bartow, has been charged with sexual cyber harassment"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-default\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" data-dominant-color=\"817169\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"438\" height=\"326\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-100-19.webp?resize=438%2C326\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-58721 not-transparent\" style=\"--dominant-color: #817169; width:693px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-100-19.webp?w=438&amp;ssl=1 438w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-100-19.webp?resize=300%2C223&amp;ssl=1 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office detectives arrested two Lakeland women, Kristina Taylor, 36, and Tara Johnson, 36, on October 27, 2025, for sexual cyber harassment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-vivid-red-color has-text-color has-link-color has-medium-font-size wp-elements-1 wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Sexual cyber harassment is a First-degree misdemeanor &#8211; Up to 1 year in jail or probation, and\/or a fine of up to\u00a0$1,000<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The arrests followed an investigation that started on October 16, 2025, after the office received reports of the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Taylor, the victim\u2019s former girlfriend, shared sexually explicit photos and videos of the victim with Johnson without the victim\u2019s consent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Johnson then sent the images and video, depicting the victim and Taylor, to the victim\u2019s new girlfriend via Facebook and text messaging after learning of the new relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Both women were charged with sexual cyber harassment, a first-degree misdemeanor, for electronically disseminating the explicit images without the victim\u2019s consent and in violation of his privacy expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Taylor and Johnson were booked into the Sheriff\u2019s Processing Center. Taylor is a partner in Goosehead Insurance, and Johnson is the executive director of Hope House in Bartow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nothing further at this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-embed wp-block-embed-embed\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"HbtS4Umffx\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/04\/20\/hope-house-issues-lay-with-the-house\/\">Hope House issues lay with the house.<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Hope House issues lay with the house.&#8221; &#8212; \" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/04\/20\/hope-house-issues-lay-with-the-house\/embed\/#?secret=tb8pyt71hC#?secret=HbtS4Umffx\" data-secret=\"HbtS4Umffx\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-embed wp-block-embed-embed\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"Q3zMhYcLal\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/08\/24\/bartow-my-girl-house-reopens-as-hope-house-for-young-single-moms\/\">Bartow &#8216;My Girl&#8217; house reopens as Hope House for young single moms<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Bartow &#8216;My Girl&#8217; house reopens as Hope House for young single moms&#8221; &#8212; \" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/08\/24\/bartow-my-girl-house-reopens-as-hope-house-for-young-single-moms\/embed\/#?secret=mF3hLCgZck#?secret=Q3zMhYcLal\" data-secret=\"Q3zMhYcLal\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office detectives arrested two Lakeland women, Kristina Taylor, 36, and Tara Johnson, 36, on October 27, 2025, for sexual cyber harassment. Sexual cyber harassment is a First-degree&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMTBcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtMTAwLTE5LndlYnA_Zml0PTQzOCUyQzMyNiZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IlRhcmEgSm9obnNvbiwgRXhlY3V0aXZlIERpcmVjdG9yIG9mIEhvcGUgSG91c2UgaW4gQmFydG93LCBoYXMgYmVlbiBjaGFyZ2VkIHdpdGggc2V4dWFsIGN5YmVyIGhhcmFzc21lbnQiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.-mu02b4a4ncUsYYr15yBBzcoSsZvKbkXSj2v_8T2c14MQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":58721,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-100-19.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[12471,12472,12470],"class_list":["post-58720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-executive-director-of-hope-house-in-bartow","tag-has-been-charged-with-sexual-cyber-harassment","tag-tara-johnson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58720","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58720"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58725,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58720\/revisions\/58725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}