Zachary Cruz aims to start over
Documents: Accused shooter’s brother wants to move to Virginia.
Zachary Cruz, the brother of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School gunman Nikolas Cruz, wants to move to Virginia after he was kicked out of his home in Lantana, according to court documents filed Thursday in Broward County.
Cruz, 18, is serving six months of probation as the result of his arrest for trespassing on Stoneman Douglas’ campus March 19.
Nexus Services, a civil rights organization based in Virginia that is representing Cruz in a federal lawsuit, has offered Cruz a free home for one year and
employment as a maintenance mechanic in Staunton, Va., it said in court filings.
Arrangements have also been made so that Cruz can attend an online academy to obtain his high school diploma.
A hearing will be conducted Friday before Judge Melinda Brown to consider the request. Brown is the judge who set the terms of Cruz’s probation.
The motion filed Thursday by attorney Mark S. Lowry asks Brown to modify those terms so that he can relocate.
“Simply put, this is a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity for Mr. Cruz to have a fresh start in a new location where he will be given the opportunity and structure to succeed in the probationary period, and overall life,” according Lowry’s filing.
Cruz was arrested May 1 by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office for a probation violation after he was found driving without a license near Park Vista High School in suburban Boynton Beach.
Cruz pleaded guilty May 3 and was released from the Broward County Jail only to find out he was no longer welcome at the Lantana-area mobile home where he lived with Roxanne Deschamps, a longtime family friend, and her children.
Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 people and injured 17 others during the Valentine’s Day mass shooting, also once lived at the residence in the Lantana Cascade Mobile Home Park.
“... His previous caretaker will no longer allow him to reside at her residence here in South Florida,” according to the court filing.
Cruz, who wears an ankle monitor, has been living in an unidentified hotel.
No one answered the door Thursday afternoon at Deschamps’ home, west of Congress Avenue and south of Lantana Road.
Deschamps called the Broward County Sheriff ’s Office on April 27 and told them Cruz was driving without a license or insurance.
On May 3, the day Cruz was released from the Broward jail, Deschamps’ ex-husband wrote on his Facebook page that Cruz was “bullying” the 5-year-old child he shares with Deschamps.
“My son told me that he hides under the couch for protection when he is left alone with him,” Paul Gold posted.
Gold said he had issued Deschamps an “ultimatum,” warning that he would file to gain full custody of their son “if Zachary was not out of her home by the end of this week ...”
If his probation request is accepted, Cruz would live with Terry Ann Johnson, a Nexus director, in Virginia. He will be paid $13 an hour at his job as a mechanic following two weeks of training,
“Mr. Cruz thus has an incredible opportunity to restart his young life in a fresh location where the stigma of his brother’s alleged actions will not isolate him from the world,” Lowry writes in the court filing.
“Mr. Cruz is simply an 18-year-old man who is on probation for second-degree trespass, and thus deserves the opportunity to find happiness and direction in life.”
Nexus filed a federal lawsuit last week in Fort Lauderdale alleging that Cruz’s constitutional rights were violated after his arrest for trespassing.
Cruz spent 10 days in jail and was held in lieu of $500,000 bond for a second degree misdemeanor that typically brings a $25 bond.