Two State College of Florida students alleged to be having sex on the beach have been charged with possessing alcohol and they face more charges.
According to the police report, Austin M. Acklin, 21, and Lucille M. Buffaline, 20, were observed engaging in sexual intercourse at about 6 p.m. Nov. 29 near the 78th Street beach access, first by a witness and then by Holmes Beach police officers.
A witness called police about the couple engaging in sex in public view, but the caller declined to sign a police complaint.
Officers Alan Bores and Michael Walker approached the couple 50 feet from the beach access and observed Buffaline, bent over a beach chair, and Acklin, behind her, according to the HBPD report.
The report states the two continued engaging in sexual activity until the officers were 4 feet away, ordering them to stop.
Acklin responded, “What, there’s nobody around,” according to the police report.
Police also reported several cans of Budweiser were on a towel near the couple.
Acklin allegedly told one of the officers he and Buffaline had been drinking and smoking marijuana before police arrived.
HBPD Chief Bill Tokajer said Dec. 4 he sent a request to the 12th Judicial Circuit Office of the State Attorney for the Bradenton couple to be charged with indecent exposure of sex organs.
According to state law, an indecent exposure charge is a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by a maximum of a year in prison and $5,000 fine.
Tokajer said the HBPD requested a misdemeanor exposure charge rather than a felony lewd and lascivious charge because the activity wasn’t conducted in front of a child and there was no complainant.
In another Anna Maria Island case, a Bradenton couple, Elissa Alvarez and Jose Caballero, faced 15 years in state prison for a lewd and lascivious exhibition in view of a child. The July 2014 romp on Cortez Beach was caught on camera by Bradenton Beach visitors and, in May 2015, a Manatee County jury found Alvarez and Caballero guilty of the felony.
At Alvarez’s sentencing hearing in June, the court withheld her felony conviction and sentenced her to the 24 days she’d already spent in jail.
Caballero, a state prison releasee, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in state prison.
Under state law, both were designated as sex offenders. Their case is pending in the 2nd District Court of Appeal.