Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols this morning scheduled three men for trials on unrelated sex-assault charges after each man declined to plead out, opting instead to risk facing 55 years to life in prison if convicted.
The men are former Flagler County Fire Rescue paramedic James Melady, whose alleged victim was a patient he is accused of raping in an ambulance; Kristopher Henriqson, who is accused of raping his prepubescent stepdaughter for years; and Jose Valerio-Rodriguez, a homeless man accused of statutorily raping a minor.
Melady goes on trial Monday before Nichols. He will mark his 39th birthday on Dec. 14, the Sunday after the expected verdict, either as a free man for the first time since his arrest 15 months ago, or as the start of what could be a prison sentence of up to 55 years, his maximum sentence if convicted, not counting voyeurism and burglary charges in Volusia County, which would push his maximum sentence to the equivalent of life in prison. (He had allegedly installed a video camera in his ex-wife’s apartment, without her knowledge.)
He turned down a plea deal of 20 years in prison followed by 10 years on sex-offender probation.
Flagler County Fire Rescue hired Melady, a former Navy corpsman, in 2018. He resigned shortly after he was placed on administrative leave last May 8 for failing a drug test. The incident that led to the sex-assault accusations took place in October 2021, when he was caring for a non-responsive patient who may have been suffering a drug overdose.
Police found video clips on his phone showing him setting up his phone for a good view, and digitally penetrating the woman’s vagina. Melady, through his attorney, Charles Fletcher, has revealed his defense in pre-trials: he was conducting a legitimate medical exam.
“It should be very straightforward, just from an evidentiary perspective,” Nichols said. Jury selection may take all day Monday, from a pool of 50 jurors.
In Flagler County, Melady faces a rape-or sex battery-charge, a first degree felony, a video voyeurism charge, a third degree felony, the unlawful possession of a credit card, a third degree felony, and the fraudulent use of an ID belonging to a person older than 60, a second degree felony.
He is accused of having stolen the information from patients, including a Palm Coast woman he was caring for in his ambulance after she’d fallen and required transport to a local hospital in June 2023. He allegedly used her credit card to buy $715 worth of goods from Sam’s Club, five days after he transported the woman. She had given him her purse for safekeeping while she was being initially seen at the hospital. Melady has not so far suggested that using the woman’s credit card at Sam’s Club was part of a legitimate medical procedure.
Kristopher Henriqson, a state and federal convicted felon, faces 11 felonies, two of them capital felonies, one of them a life felony, and seven of them first-degree felonies. A conviction would all but certainly result in a life sentence. He is turning 48 next week (his birthday is a day before Melady’s). He is accused of sexually assaulting his step-daughter, or former step-daughter, since she was 9. She is now 12 or 13. She initially revealed the alleged assaults to a teacher at her middle school.
Henriqson last month opted to represent himself, rejecting the representation of Assistant Public Defender Spencer O’Neal, which does not improve his chances at trial. O’Neal is still available to him as an adviser, but not as second chair: O’Neal will not depose or cross-examine witnesses. Nichols, the judge, implored him to rethink his decision. He did not.
“Whether or not I agree with it, that’s besides the fact,” the judge told Henriqson today, “because I’m always concerned when someone represents themselves. But you have the right to do that.”
At a pre-trial last month Henriqson had suggested that he wanted to depose the alleged victim. That did not come up today, strongly implying that is no longer a possibility. Had it been so, the prosecution would have prepared a battery of motions to minimize or avoid the potential damage of such a deposition to the alleged victim, who will, at any rate, be testifying–and will be cross-examined by her alleged rapist.
The judge set a trial date of Jan. 12, with another docket sounding on Jan. 7. Henriqson asked for a 90-day extension, claiming he had filed motions that would need to be argued. There were no motions filed as of today, though Nichols did not doubt that he had filed them. She denied the extension, but set Dec. 15 at 1:45 p.m. to hear his motions.
Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark also has a motion to argue, “based upon some of the pleadings the defendant had filed regarding some recording that I’ve never seen that’s purportedly in the house of the victim, without the victim’s knowledge,” Clark said. She filed the motion “to keep that out” of the trial.
Jose Valerio-Rodriguez is a 70-year-old homeless man who used to live in a tent behind the Circle K on Palm Coast Parkway. He was arrested last March on charges of human trafficking and unlawful sexual activity with a minor. The State Attorney’s Office did not file the human trafficking charge, frequently mistakenly charged as such by police agencies (trafficking is narrowly defined), but added three charges, including two molestation charges and a child abuse charge, the lot totaling a maximum possible penalty of 75 years.
Clark offered to settle the case for 15 years in prison, to be served day for day (that is, without the possibility of early release after serving 85 percent of the sentence, as is possible for most offenses, but not sex offenses). Valerio-Rodriguez declined. The judge threw him a lifeline: would he counter-offer with 10 years?
“No, he doesn’t want to offer 10 years,” O’Neal, who is representing him, told the judge. Nichols set trial for Feb. 9.
All three defendants are awaiting trial at the Flagler County jail.
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