The charge against a former city clerk in Bradenton Beach is changing.
Initially arrested for battery to a police officer, Gia Lancaster is now facing a charge of opposing an officer in connection with her Oct. 21 arrest.
Assistant State Attorney Keith Humphrey Dec. 8 reduced the third-degree felony charge to a first-degree misdemeanor.
“It’s not an uncommon decision in these kinds of cases when there’s minimal contact with the officer,” he said, adding he weighed the type of contact, the offender’s criminal history and the officer’s opinion.
Lancaster had no known prior criminal history, according to the court’s pretrial investigation office.
“In this case, the officer had no opposition actually,” Humphrey added.
Humphrey also recommended Lancaster as a candidate for probation in a pretrial intervention program.
Lancaster can either agree to the probation “or if she feels she’s not guilty, she can continue to fight it. The next step is up to her,” he said.
However, the dismissal of the felony charge does not moot her supervised release order, according to Humphrey.
Terms of her pretrial release require she not leave Manatee, Sarasota or contiguous counties, and allow a court officer to visit her work and home.
Lancaster’s request to modify the order to allow her move to Titusville and report by phone will likely be re-filed in the misdemeanor case, Humphrey said.
Lancaster’s run-in with the law began when Bradenton Police Officer Frank Coleman, misidentified in the Dec. 10 issue of The Islander as a sheriff’s deputy, responded to a call of a domestic dispute from her apartment on the 300 block of 26th Avenue West.
A witness — one of two people that Lancaster told police paid rent to share her apartment — allegedly told Coleman that Lancaster had been drinking all day, yelling and ordering them to leave the apartment.
According to Coleman’s probable cause affidavit, Lancaster became belligerent. yelled at him and her two roommates and then charged at him, pushing him in the chest, all after he advised her that eviction would require a civil court procedure.
Lancaster was fired by the city commission Oct. 23.
A unanimous vote terminated her in accordance with the city’s policy allowing for dismissal of any unsatisfactory employee during the first six months on the job.
In November, she filed a charge with the U.S. Equal Employment Commission against the city of Bradenton Beach and a notice of the charge was filed with the city.
City officials are not releasing the document, claiming it exempt from the disclosure requirements of Florida’s Sunshine laws.
Earlier this month, eviction papers were filed against Lancaster for possession of her 26th Avenue West apartment.
Lancaster’s arraignment on the misdemeanor charge is set for 8:25 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 30, before Judge Robert A. Farrance at the Manatee County Judicial Center, 1051 Manatee Ave. W., Bradenton.
I wonder who encouraged this woman to make this charge against the City of BB??