Sheriff two-months too late to arrest deputy for molestation

Despite charges of lewd and lascivious molestation to a person between 12 and 16-years-of-age, former deputy sheriff Jeffrey Lewis Cook will not be prosecuted — even though he was fired by St Johns County Sheriff David B Shoar on January 11, 2019 and arrested for the crime.

When the victim came forward and reported to Shoar that Cook had inappropriately touched her “numerous times” over the course of 6-years, while she was still a juvenile, the alleged molestation occurred between August 2004 and May 2010, according to the victim’s affidavit.

State Attorney R. J. Larizza released a statement yesterday saying the State is prohibited from prosecuting Cook because State law places a three-year statute of limitations on second-degree felonies.

Shoar attempted to invoke a 2014 “retroactive exception” to extend the statute of limitations and made the arrest anyway.  The exception only applies “if the offense was not otherwise barred for prosecution on or before October 1, 2014.”  In Cook’s case it was barred, but only by about two months.

Shoar would have had to bring the case against Cook before August 2014, according to a memorandum from the 7th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office explaining the decision to not file charges in the case.  The memo says that, given the timeline and the age of the victim, prosecutors cannot move forward.

There was no statement from Shoar or the department indicating if Cook will be reinstated, since these charges have been dropped. Currently, Florida law allows prosecution of such cases at any time when a defendant is over 18-years-old and the victim is under 16-years-old.