High Bail Set For Beating Case Suspect

BARTOW | County Judge Rob Griffin on Friday set bond for Mercades Nichols, one of three teenage girls suspected of beating a Mulberry High School cheerleader earlier this year, at $81,500 for three felony counts and two misdemeanors in a case unrelated to the beating.

Nichols had her first court appearance before Griffin on Friday. She has been charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, one count of aggravated stalking, both third-degree felonies, three counts of misdemeanor battery and one count of misdemeanor stalking against a former boyfriend.

The incident involving these charges occurred before Nichols was among a group of teens charged with beating Victoria Lindsay on March 30, a case that garnered international attention.

James Holz, Nichols’ lawyer, wondered aloud why the new charges had been filed now. Last month, Nichols’ mother, Christina Garcia, announced she was suing Polk Sheriff Grady Judd for defamatory comments he made about the beating case.

Holz said if the filing of the latest charges is not retaliatory, it certainly appears that way.

Holz said Nichols deserved a low bond because since being released from jail she has been watched closely by her mother and grandmother and had stayed out of trouble.

Nichols, 17, was booked into the Polk County Jail on Thursday evening. An arrest warrant filed by the State Attorney’s Office said Nichols “did willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follow, harass or cyberstalk (the ex-boyfriend), and did make a credible threat, with the intent to place (the ex-boyfriend) in reasonable fear of death or bodily injury…”

While the victim’s name was removed from official documents, a restraining order was issued by Nichols’ ex-boyfriend in November.

Nichols violated the injunction Feb. 14, after she sent numerous text messages to the ex-boyfriend’s phone and delivered a Valentine’s Day gift to him through friend Brittany Hardcastle, another suspect in the Mulberry beating, according to a sheriff’s office affidavit.