Former Mondex Man Convicted of Unlawful Sex Returns to Ask for a New Trial, Arguing More Bizarre Claims

Four and a half years ago Tonda Royal, 54 at the time, testified in his defense that he’d never had sex with a 16-year-old girl in his camper in the Mondex, or Daytona North, even though his DNA was found in her. He claimed it was a conspiracy, that another girl had gotten hold of his sperm and passed it to the alleged victim, who then inserted it in her to incriminate him. He claimed that racial motives were behind the conspiracy.

The jury didn’t buy it. Royal was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison. The Fifth District Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment. (See: “Jury Doesn’t Buy “Outlandish” Conspiracy Theory and Convicts 54 Year Old Mondex Man of Sex With Minor.”)




Royal was back in court today, arguing that he was owed a new trial because his defense attorney, Regina Nunnally, had been ineffective. She had not introduced evidence favorable to him, such as certain text messages. She had not called up certain witnesses who might have helped his case, even though one of them would have been hostile to him. She had improperly questioned a witness. And she had allowed a charge of statutory rape to go forward, after the girl had accused him of rape.

He claims he never admitted to having sex with the girl, consensual or otherwise, even though he was fixated on arguing that he could not be charged with rape one day–as he was in the original charging affidavit–only to be charged with unlawful sex the next, as he in fact was. The contradiction, to him, is evidence of “corruption,” a word he used in mail to FlaglerLive after his conviction. How that was relevant to his case, if he continued to insist that he never had sex with the girl in the first place, was never clear, other than that he was going beyond the elements of the case to put in question the manner in which he was charged by the State Attorney’s Office.

But he did not seem to understand that the State Attorney’s Office routinely opts for whatever charge it can be surer to prove at trial. “I filed motions to explain it to him that ultimately, it’s a state attorney’s prerogative as to what charges are pressed in a case based upon the evidence in the case,” Clark said this morning. “With unlawful sexual activity with a minor, the state only has to prove two things: sex happened and the ages, that’s it. It takes out any issue with respect to consent, which is why I went forward on that. There was no conspiracy. It was my decision. I looked at the case, and it’s much easier to prove to a jury the sex happened and the ages than it is to get into the muddy waters of, was it consensual? Was it not consensual? Whether it was rape or consensual is, frankly, irrelevant. It’s still sex, and that’s exactly what I argued to the jury.”




Circuit Judge Terence Perkins had presided over the trial in 2020 and was on the bench this morning when, with almost two hours’ patience, he listened to Royal repeat his claims and sometimes read them at length from the motion he’d written. Royal was representing himself, Perkins having denied his motion to have representation.

Perkins didn’t make a ruling at the end of the hearing. He wants to go over some notes before writing an order. But it is all but certain that the judge will deny Royal’s motion for a new trial.

It isn’t just that Royal’s claims lacked evidence or continued to be “outlandish,” as Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark had described his testimony at trial. But Perkins didn’t have a single question for Clark, who was back today for the state, this time arguing in favor of Nunnally, her former opponent who’d been an assistant public defender for over 20 years. (Nunnally some months ago resigned that position to become a staff attorney at Community Legal Services in Daytona Beach.)

It was a confusing hearing about confusing allegations, not least among them Royal’s continuing contention that consensual sex, not being rape, could not be unlawful. Royal continues to argue that he was framed. But he seemed to think that since the girl had consented (even though he says he did not have sex with her), and had lied about being raped, the state had mischaracterized the charge to the jury, and Nunnally had not properly objected.




As Nunnally put it to him today, that’s not the law. A minor cannot consent to sex with an adult of his age even if the sex was not forcible. Not knowing the minor’s age is not a defense. Nunnally said she did not object to the state changing the charge from rape to unlawful sex because it’s not up to the defense to make those calls. “I explained to him, this is the prosecutor’s role, they can charge anything they want, I don’t have any control over that,” Nunnally said.

Royal did not accept the explanation. He claimed the evidence Nunnally allowed to be presented was prejudicial, such as when Clark told the jury that he used to give cigarettes and alcohol to minors. “All evidence is prejudicial. The issue is, is it unfairly prejudicial” in a way that would mislead the jury,” Nunnally told him. “Those are two separate standards.” The state had merely presented facts to the jury.

Royal also wanted Nunnally to introduce text messages that the state said were between him and the victim, while Royal claims they were from Duane Weeks Jr.–the son of Kimberle Weeks, the disgraced supervisor of elections–a resident of west Flagler who had a feud with Royal, and who Royal said was racially prejudiced against him. Royal has accused Weeks of wanting to frame him, though there was no evidence of that. The conspiratorial element about the texts aside (“You literally have the defendant’s semen in the victim’s vagina,” Clark had said at trial), the texts were hearsay, Nunnally told him. She could not introduce them. Well then, Royal said, Nunnally should have called Weeks as a witness, thus enabling the texts to be introduced. (See: “Charged With Statutory Rape, Man’s Defense Invokes Racial Allusions and Lies, But DNA Says Otherwise.”)

“you don’t call the witness that’s hostile about you to call upon your witness. Alright? One. Two, if this man doesn’t like you, he’s not going to get up here and say anything likable about you. And three, he will not admit and acknowledge that he don’t like Black people. He’s not going to get up here and say he don’t like Black men. He he’s not going to say that. Those things are not going to come out of his mouth. He’s really not a party to this. He’s not a witness. You bring him up, but he’s not really a integral party in this particular case.”

Royal, now 58, is due to be released in 2030.