An inmate
at the Lake County Jail is arrested on a charge of solicitation to commit murder against Judge Don F. Briggs, who sentenced the man to 20 years in prison on childpornography charges.
An inmate at the Lake County Jail relayed, via a series of numerical codes to his mother on the phone, that he wanted to hire a man nicknamed “the Rabbi” to kill the judge on his case, according to an arrest affidavit.
Robert Anthony O’Hare, 56, was arrested Monday on a charge of solicitation to commit murder against Judge Don F. Briggs, who sentenced O’Hare to 20 years in prison on childpornography charges Jan. 8, Lake County deputies say.
But the man whom O’Hare allegedly hired said there was no such plot.
“I’m 75 years old, blind in one eye and have a cataract in the other,” said Albert Bowman of Mount Dora. “I don’t think I’d hire me as a killer.” He also denied getting paid. “I hope someone would look at my bank account. It’s pretty drained right now,” he said. “This whole thing right from the get-go is something that doesn’t make any sense.”
O’Hare’s mother, Virginia O’Hare of Fort Lauderdale, said the numbers she and her son exchanged were actually Bible verses.
“These are absolutely bogus charges,” she said. “My son never, ever in a million years would do something like that.”
Deputies say Robert O’Hare called his mother Jan. 7 to wish Bowman — whom he called “the Rabbi” — a happy birthday. He told her that “there is something he could do” and asked if she had a pencil, the affidavit says.
He told her the coded message that translated to “kill Briggs” and told her to give it to Bowman, according to the affidavit. Virginia O’Hare called back to tell her son that Bowman “knows what you want … but he can’t do it because he’s just a ‘Rabbi.’”
Virginia O’Hare said she never gave Bowman a note and the two never met to discuss the matter.
Bowman said he would never agree to hurt someone. He also said it doesn’t make sense that O’Hare would try to hatch a scheme like this.
“That just opens yourself up to [more charges],” he said.
Virginia O’Hare claimed the Lake County Sheriff’s Office is out to get her son and trying to make more charges stick.
Briggs sentenced Robert O’Hare to 20 years in prison after he pleaded no contest to possession of child pornography and video voyeurism.
In 2015, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found more than 50 images and videos of underage girls engaged in sex acts on O’Hare’s computer, according to an arrest affidavit.
FDLE agents also alleged that O’Hare used an “elaborate telescope and camera system” to videotape an underage girl who lived next door while she was undressing, according to the affidavit.
In 2016, O’Hare was accused of putting hidden cameras inside miniature jukeboxes, which were then delivered to children. The cameras allowed him to record those children in their homes, authorities said.
Virginia O’Hare said her son pleaded no contest so he could appeal the case.