Just after midnight Sunday, 911 got a call from a 12-year-old boy at 3 Richland Lane in Palm Coast, claiming that his father, Scott Cadek, had hit him and his mother, Margie Cadek. On their Facebook and other online postings, Scott and Margie Cadek, his wife since 2009, are featured in numerous and loving portraits. On his page, Scott sums himself up this way: “Im married to a beautiful woman n have 3 children n I love them with all my heart,”
But the Richland Lane address is known to local authorities.
Scott Cadek, 29, was booked into the Flagler County jail five previous times going back to August 2008, when he was charged with fleeing and eluding police and possessing a small amount of marijuana. He’s also violated probation, and in 2010 was held on a fugitive-from-justice charge. That year he was arrested in St. Johns County on a marijuana-selling charge. He’s been sentenced to state prison three times, serving three years from 2002 to 2005 on a series of charges (among them grand theft, armed burglary, trafficking in stolen property). He served two years, from 2006 to 2008, and again from September 2009 to August 8 this year.
That Sunday around midnight, Margie and her son were outside the house, at the intersection of Richland Lane and Richmond Drive, when a cop responding to the call spotted them. The boy told the deputy that his eye hurt and that Scott had punched him. The deputy noticed a small laceration above the left eyebrow. Margie told the deputy that the boy was talking back to Scott, and that the boy was overreacting. She and Scott had been drinking, but she’d put her husband to bed “because he was intoxicated,” the police report states, and she insisted that no one needed medical attention. She denied that her husband had struck or pushed her.
As Margie described it to a deputy, the 12-year-old boy asked Scott what was wrong with his voice, and questioned him about his drinking. Scott got upset and the two began to argue, prodding the boy to go to his room. Scott followed him, and the argument continued. Margie was trying to separate the two when Scott hit the boy in the left eye “with an open hand,” according to the report. Margie told the deputy that her son “was attempting to kick at Mr. Cadek while this was happening. Mrs. Cadek stated she then told Mr. Cadek to go to bed and he exited the room. When Mr. Cadek exited [the boy’s] room, he punched two holes in the walls. At this point, [the boy] exited the room through a window and called the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office.”
The boy had apparently been terrified. When the deputy walked into the house, Scott was standing in the kitchen. He told the deputy that the boy was trying to “act like an adult,” and that he was trying to tell him to act instead like a 12 year old. Cadek, the report states, “appeared to be intoxicated and began to repeat himself. Mr. Cadek stated nothing was physical between him and” the boy.
While examining the victim again, the deputy noticed a cut above his eyebrow and another below the eyebrow, and minor swelling above and to the left side of his eye. The boy corroborated Scott’s version of events, with one exception: that he was punched, rather than slapped, and that at one point Scott had allegedly punched him in the body as well. He repeated the allegation that Scott had pushed and hit his mother, too.
Flagler County Fire Rescue paramedics responded to the scene and examined the boy. Scott Cadek was arrested for child abuse, and later released on $1,000 bond.
In a separate domestic incident on Monday (Nov. 12), Thomas Lee Bernardini, 18, and his grandfather, John Robert Stacy Jr., got into a verbal argument over rent and bills at their home at 19 Plainview Drive in Palm Coast when matters got severely out of hand.
Bernardini claims his grandfather threw a table at him, forcing him to retreat to his bedroom. Stacy, 56, allegedly followed him into the bedroom, “grabbed him by the shirt, and struck him in the left side of the face with a closed fist,” a police report states, “at which time [Bernardini] shoved and punched [Stacy] in order to create distance and escape.”
Both men are around 6 feet tall, but Bernardini is 170 pounds. His grandfather is 285. Bernardini had been booked into the Flagler County jail just days earlier (on Nov. 1) on a battery charge. Matters went differently on Plain View Drive Monday.
According to Bernardini, Stacy left his room and grabbed a 16-inch curved bladed knife with a serrated edge and proceeded to chase him from the house, down the street, threatening to “chop him up” and kill him, according to Stacy’s arrest report. Stacy told Bernardini that he was also going to “run his ass over.” Bernardini then saw Stacy go back to the house to grab the keys to the vehicle.
At least three witnesses told deputies they saw Stacy chase Bernardini with the large knife. A deputy detected minor injuries on the left side of Bernardini’s face, but none on Stacy, who was arrested and charged with domestic violence battery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He remained in jail Tuesday evening on $6,000 bond. He was booked into the jail twice previously, on a probation violation charge in January, and on three counts of aggravated assault in September 2010.
Geezer says
I’m glad that Scott Cadek doesn’t have the boogie fever considering the angle of that mugshot.
You can almost see into his brain through his nose! (or the empty space)
And just look at the defiant image. Wow, a tough guy that beats his son.
Two things here that should make his neighbors nauseous:
-Adult male physically abuses twelve-year-old son
-$1000 Bond! OMG! That’s child abuse on the cheap!
So with a thousand dollars you can bloody your pre-teen son in Flagler County,
and enjoy dinner at home later that day. TRULY REVOLTING.
Why is this ne’er-do-well-punk free on 1k bond?!!
He’s no stranger to the back seat of a patrol car!
Dadgum says
Now! Multiply this scene a thousand fold throughout this country on a daily basis and you get a good idea of the cost to not only our criminal justice system but, to this nation.
Is rehabilitation, job training, counseling, and diversionary programs worth investing in an individual to become a productive member of the community as opposed to jail?
Some citizens think that incarcerating such above incidents is best but we see the recidivist completed three (3) separate sentences. People think that prison can some how reform people. It doesn’t, only a small fraction. What reforms people is that they grow out of crime as they age not necessarily through maturity, if they ever get to live into their 30’s and 40’s.
Which is cheaper, jail or diversion programs? You be the judge.
Elana Lee says
Wow, Dadgum, well-spoken. The “lock’em up ‘n throw away the key” mentality is the same as that of a lynch mob. It’s that of people who have neither insight nor wisdom nor desire to think through the challenging issues that plague society today. Simple solutions do not always exist. There is no material benefit (in most cases) to simply caging a human being like an aminal. And providing tv, recreation, etc. Agree there should be consequences, but meaningful ones with the opportunity to learn and better oneself, counseling, diversion. Diversion is cheaper to taxpayers than jail in most cases.
IMO, locking up able-bodied young men and women – behind bars – doing nothing productive for months, years on end, accomplishes nothing. I’d be in favor of productive hard labor, which would produce a savings for tax payers, something like the chain gang, but that doesn’t even happen anymore that I know of. People need a meanigful purpose, such as a legal job, in order to live a meaningful, legal life, and without one, what are they to do? What do they end up doing? They end up incarcerated, for one reason or the other. Bring jobs back from Mexico, Tawian, China, Malaisa, Vietnam, etc., and we’ll see a drop in the jail/prison population.
costablue says
People behind bars have every opportunity to get an education or training as anyone else, however the majority choose not to do so. Yes, we do need jobs but not sure if we really want the jobs that were shipped overseas…they are low paying, low skilled jobs. Yes, diversion is cheaper but from experience it does not work. I don’t believe that these men can ever be rehabilitated. They should never be around children just like a sex offender. The have such deep rooted emotional & psychological just like molesters and should never be trusted.
The mother is the one that needs help to have the courage to gather her children and get away from this man. Unfortunately, I doubt that she will get the help or the resouces to leave but I do pray for the best. If she gets back with this man, he will definitely make sure this child pays, albeit after he gets out of the court system (diversion, counseling & probation).
Elana Lee says
Agree that the mother needs to do what she needs to do what she needs to do in order to protect her son and herself.
Disagree that the jobs shipped overseas are not wanted or needed in this country. They are “low-paying” because they are outsourced off-shore. No compliance regs, no OSHA, etc., cheap labor. When American’s demand American Made Products only, jobs might start to return. I’ll gladly pay more for products made in America than for something made in other countries.