BUREAUCRATIC GLITCH LEAVES SEX OFFENDER FREE FOR 3 YEARS
Frederick Wade, 69, never entered prison despite losing appeal.
WEST PALM BEACH — Four years after he was convicted of multiple counts of soliciting a minor for sex and sentenced to three years in prison, Frederick Wade is still free, apparently living in a comfortable house with a pool along a manicured golf course in Wellington.
Through no fault of his own, the 69-year-old businessman won the criminal justice system’s unintended version of the lottery.
Even though an appeals court in 2016 rejected his appeal, Wade was never summoned back into court where he would have been ordered to begin serving his prison sentence and register as a sex offender.
His undetected fall through a bureaucratic crack in the court system meant he won an extra two years of freedom and didn’t have the sex offender blot on his record. He’s been able to go to work at his plumbing supply store near West Palm Beach, take vacations, go out to eat, go to movies or just hang out with his wife and three kids.
His attorney, Glenn Mitchell, said Wade has been living “an exemplary life.” While others might have fled, Mitchell said Wade has stayed put.
However, Wade’s workaday life could come to an abrupt halt today. A court hearing has been scheduled before Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Joseph Marx to decide Wade’s long-delayed fate.
“Frankly, we can’t figure it out,” Clerk of Courts Sharon Bock said on Wednesday when The Palm Beach Post brought Wade’s strange case to her attention.
The newspaper received a tip on Monday that Wade was never incarcerated after a jury in 2014 convicted him of eight charges for sending sexually explicit messages to a 13-year-old girl. He was arrested in 2011 after suggesting the two meet to have sex. When he arrived for the rendezvous, he learned the 13-year-old girl was really an undercover cop.
“He’s still living the life of luxury. Without paying his debt to society. Our court systems are a joke,” the tipster wrote in an email.
While Wade was jailed for roughly two months after his conviction, he was released on bond in July 2014 while he appealed.
Bock said her office followed its normal procedures after being alerted that the 4th District Court of Appeal rejected Wade’s appeal in December 2016. It alerted the judge, the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office and the Florida Attorney General’s Office, which represents the prosecution in appeals.
For some unknown reason, no action was taken and Wade was allowed to remain free on bond.
Bock said she suspects Wade’s case was forgotten because many of the players had changed. Attorney Scott Suskauer, who represented Wade during the trial, had been appointed to the bench and was replaced with Mitchell. Assistant State Attorney Greg Schiller had moved to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. County Judge Barry Cohen, who had presided over Wade’s trial, had retired.
“It’s an odd thing,” Bock said. “You had all kinds of reshuffling.”
Mike Edmondson, a spokesman for State Attorney Dave Aronberg, agreed.
“This is something that’s being addressed by the office and it seems to be a transition between the attorneys,” he said.
Since 2016, the notification system has changed, he said. Now, the attorney who prosecutes a case, along with his or her boss, is alerted when an appeal has been rejected so it is less likely a case will be lost amid the thousands the office juggles each year.
Mitchell said the situation is rare but not unheard of. “I have another one,” he said, adding that it is a very old case.
He said he will ask today that Wade be allowed to turn himself in. Further, he will file papers asking that Wade be allowed to remain free.
“He has health issues. He’s led an exemplary life,” Mitchell said. “I don’t see where it serves any useful purpose to put him in prison.”
During the trial, defense attorney Suskauer argued that Wade was the victim of entrapment. Police, he said, set him up. For his part, Wade testified that he knew he was communicating with an undercover cop. The exchanges were “an interesting game of minds,” he said. The meeting he requested was just part of the ruse.
“I was traveling to end the game and blow him or her off,” Wade testified.
Cohen struggled with what would be an appropriate punishment. After hearing from Wade’s priest and of Wade’s otherwise crime-free life, he settled on a threeyear sentence — far less than the 10-year minimum Schiller sought.
Still, the West Palm Beachbased appeals court upheld the sentence along with the jury verdict. The problem, only discovered this week, was that no one was alerted of its decision.