Judge Dresses Down Ex-Palm Coast Physician John Cascone Over Probation Violation

Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols on Tuesday sharply rebuked John Cascone, the surgeon formerly of Palm Coast, after he pleaded to violating his probation less than a year after he was sentenced. The judge did not impose new penalties beyond reinstituting probation, which runs until June 2026. 

Cascone had been arrested in Palm Coast in 2019 on charges of felony battery and battery by strangulation, pleading to misdemeanor battery and getting sentenced to a year’s probation, which was terminated early. He was again arrested in November 2023 and charged with two felony battery counts (domestic violence) with one prior. 

He pleaded in June 2024 to two misdemeanor battery counts, was adjudicated guilty (adjudication had been withheld in the 2019 case), and was sentenced to 24 months’ probation, with two 12-month terms running consecutively. The probation conditions are extensive, including a no-contact order with the victim, directly or indirectly. He admitted to violating that condition in another plea tendered Tuesday. 

“Now I’m going to give you my ‘What does no contact mean’ speech, all right?” Nichols told Cascone as Cascone stood before her at a lectern, next to his attorney, John Hager. 

“No contact means ab-solutely no contact, even if she reaches out to you, even if she calls you, even if she texts you, you cannot respond,” the judge told Cascone. “You can’t even say, I can’t respond. No response, all right? if you’re at Walmart, you’ve got this really cool fishing pole in your cart, you’re going to be walking out and you’re going to pay for it, and she walks in. You leave the cart, and you quietly walk out of Walmart, and you leave. Nothing. No eye contact, nothing. You don’t have friends, you don’t have family, you don’t have anybody contact her, do you understand?”

Cascone said he did. Nichols didn’t stop. She said she’d previously been a divorce attorney for 20 years and understood those dynamics. She then veered surprisingly close to victim-blaming: “Unfortunately, the person that’s in this case is going to probably do anything she can to make you violate,” Nichols told Cascone. “Does that make sense?”

He said yes. No evidence had been entered, at least in the brief hearing, that the victim was doing that, and none to that effect was in the court file. The judge hadn’t asked Cascone to explain the details of the violation. 

“So you can’t give her that opportunity,” the judge said. “No Instagram, no Facebook, no nothing. Have I made myself clear?

“Absolutely,” Cascone said.  She asked him if he understood what would happen if he violated the order (he could serve out the probation term in jail). He understood that, too. 

Tara Libby, the assistant state attorney who prosecuted the case, said all the victim wants is a no-contact order. “That’s why we agreed to resolve it this way,” Libby said of a resolution that carries no further penalties. 

“I know that’s what she’s telling you, right?” the judge told the prosecutor. “So all prior conditions remain in full force and effect. I am reinstating his probation.” Addressing Cascone, the judge said: “I have no doubt that she will reach out to you to contact you, and it will drive her nuts when you don’t respond. Do not respond.”