Man denies witness tampering; State wants court to revoke bond

News-Press, The (Fort Myers, FL)

Dateline: Lee County

By JEFF CULL and AMY WILLIAMS

jcull@news-press.com awilliams@news-press.com

Robert Jackson will be back in court Friday to answer charges he and his wife helped scurry a 17-year-old Guatemalan girl — his foster child and the alleged victim of a sexual attack — out of the country.

"He's not permitted to have contact with this witness," State Attorney Francine Donnorummo told Circuit Court Judge James Thompson at a hearing Wednesday. "Not only was there contact, but (Jackson and his wife Janie) facilitated and actively had the victim leave the country without the possibility of her returning legally."

The state wants Jackson's bond revoked for tampering with a witness. But Thompson said there wasn't enough time Wednesday to hear the case and rescheduled it for Friday. Janie Jackson has not been charged with a crime.

Donnorummo told the court the Jacksons purchased the girl's plane ticket, got her a passport not hers, and Janie Jackson drove her to Miami to catch a flight to Guatemala. The girl stayed there with her family in the remote, mountainous state of Huehuetenango.

This all happened in August, just before Robert Jackson, 56, of south Fort Myers, was set to go to trial.

And because the passport was fake, the girl could not return to the U.S., Donnorummo said.

Jackson's attorney, Joe Viacava, disputed the state's claims.

Viacava said he believed "witness tampering" was an exaggerated term.

"It's not like (the victim) was 12 or 13 — she's going to be 18 in a year and it's very clear that this woman had her own intentions of leaving the country," Viacava said. "Plus, I was informed — secondhand — that it was more of his wife's actions than his. He's done nothing to violate the terms of his release."

The girl has since returned to Lee County.

The state attorney, working with a number of government and social-service agencies, helped social workers Mary Lewis and Anna Rodriguez fly to Guatemala to retrieve the girl.

She was in court Wednesday to testify but was not called because the hearing was rescheduled.

She said she was very happy to be back in the U.S.

Jackson was arrested Jan. 3 after his wife reported finding him engaged in sex with the girl, who at the time was 16.

He was released from the Lee County Jail in May after posting $150,000 bail.

At the same hearing, Jackson pleaded not guilty to new charges of sexual battery by a person of familial or custodial authority.

He was originally charged with unlawful sexual activity and battery, both second-degree felonies punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Jackson faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of the new charge.