ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – A sitting St. Johns County judge who was reprimanded by the Florida Supreme Court last year for misleading social media users during an election campaign is now facing new legal troubles after she and her husband were accused of disseminating protected information about an alleged sexual assault victim who was also her political opponent.
According to a civil lawsuit filed by “Jane Doe” in federal court, Judge Casey Woolsey and her husband, Josh Woolsey, publicly defamed the alleged sexual assault victim, who at the time was also running against her to become a Seventh Judicial Circuit judge.
“They wrote something up and they sent out these little cards that you tend to get in the mail and political campaigns,” said the plaintiff’s attorney, Cindy Myers.
Myers said Judge Woolsey and her husband took political mudslinging to a new low in the run-up to the 2022 election.
In the lawsuit, attorneys allege that during the campaign, the Woolseys publicly accused Casey Woolsey’s political opponent, who said she was a sexual assault victim, of falsifying a sexual battery report in 2018.
According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff was “sexually battered” in 2018 and had a sexual assault exam. She also discussed the assault with her husband, mother, stepfather, close friend, and the nurse who conducted her examination. However, the plaintiff ultimately decided not to pursue criminal charges against her alleged assailant and requested the sheriff’s office to cease its investigation, according to the court filing.
The Woolseys are then accused of disseminating the false claims that she made up the allegations to thousands of St. Johns County voters on political campaign flyers.
“She was in a Halloween costume that they got off of her social media, I guess, where she was dressed like a hippie, and they put the case number of the confidential report of the confidential first proceeding with the injunction petition. They put the case number on there,” Myers said.
According to the lawsuit, former St. Johns County Undersheriff Matt Cline showed Josh Woolsey an unredacted copy of the sexual assault complaint filed by the woman. That complaint, according to lawyers, contained personal information that is protected under sexual assault victim’s laws. According to the lawsuit, sometime between April 2018 and June 2022, Cline spread rumors that the plaintiff falsely reported a sexual assault.
“This is the ultimate form of mudslinging,” Myers said.
Myers said the Woolseys then coordinated with a political action committee, and according to court documents, the plaintiffs accused the defendants of 20 various counts of wrongdoing.
The judge in the case ultimately found that some of the allegations regarding the intentional infliction of emotional distress were not warranted and dismissed them, but everything else was allowed to remain a part of the continuing lawsuit.
The lawsuit also names St. Johns County Sheriff Robert Hardwick, and a political action committee, Stop Domestic Violence Florida.
Lawyers for the plaintiff will begin depositions in the next few weeks and are expected to take statements from the current and former St. Johns County sheriff, a detective and the former St. Johns County undersheriff.
Lawyers for the Woolseys issued this statement on Tuesday to News4JAX, which reads in part:
“On behalf of Woolsey Law and Casey and Josh Woolsey, we are pleased that the majority of these politically motivated claims have been dismissed at this initial stage. To be certain, the Woolseys categorically deny the plaintiff’s false claims and are confident they will be vindicated in this proceeding as in the plaintiff’s prior three efforts.”
News4JAX emailed the sheriff’s office for comment, but it did not immediately respond.