Viral video shows woman performing sex act in Duval County Courthouse hallway
Police are investigating a video posted to social media showing a man receiving oral sex from a woman in front of what appears to be a courtroom at the Duval County Courthouse.
The 34-second video has been copied to numerous Twitter accounts, although it appears to have been removed from the woman’s account.
The 26-year-old woman seen in the video was scheduled in Courtroom 401 for a 9 a.m. arraignment on her Jan. 19 arrest for a charge of possession of drug paraphernalia, according to court records. Pleading no contest, she was sentenced to time served, which was two days in jail. Then she was fined and released, records show.
She has not been charged in the latest incident, so the Times-Union is not identifying her or showing an image of her from the video.
A screen grab from her Twitter account taken by Action News before the video was deleted has her comment above the link stating, “HAD SO MUCH FUN IN COURT TODAY. FOUND A WAY TO GET MY CHARGES DROPPED….Ssssssh Don’t Tell.”
Trial Court Administrator Joseph Stelma Jr. said nothing like this has occurred in the courthouse in recent memory and does not believe the man was a courthouse or Clerk of Courts employee.
“We turned it over to the Sheriff’s Office,” Stelma said.
Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Melissa Bujeda said the investigation has identified the man.
“He is not a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office employee. She does not work for JSO either,” Bujeda said.
The smartphone video shot of the incident opens showing a woman in a white dress performing the sexual act on a man seated on a courthouse hallway bench wearing khaki pants and a dark T-shirt with some kind of logo on the left side of his chest. Not a word is said, then the woman stops when what sounds like a door closing is heard and she looks around.
The woman then smiles and combs her hair before the camera pans around what appears to be the courthouse corridor and Courtroom 401’s entrance. Courtroom 401 is on the fourth floor of the courthouse, publicly accessible for hearings and trials after visitors undergo a standard security check in the lobby.
The woman’s Twitter account, which includes some sexually explicit images and videos, has a claimed 26,000-plus followers.
The incident also was captured on a courthouse security camera. The information report on the incident said it consisted of “a male and female engaging in what appeared to be inappropriate behavior.”
A check of the woman’s jail record shows six arrests since 2008. Those include a 2009 charge of aggravated battery, followed by battery on an inmate two months later when she was in jail. She also has a domestic battery charge in July 2015, as well as written threats to kill or do bodily harm, and was released Jan. 22, 2016, after spending six months in jail, records show. Her Jan. 19 arrest also included charges of violation of probation and smuggling contraband into jail, but she was only charged with the possession count in court this week.
Dan Scanlan: (904) 359-4549
