Nohejl found guilty
BROOKSVILLE – The six jurors took less than an hour on Wednesday to find John Michael Nohejl guilty of possessing a controlled substance.
The charge carries with it a significantly lower penalty than the original charge sought by the State Attorney’s Office – trafficking in a controlled substance. The jury also found Nohejl guilty of the lesser charges of tampering with evidence and fleeing to elude law enforcement.
If the jury had found Nohejl guilty in trafficking, he faced a total of 40 years in the Florida Department of Corrections. Defense attorney Michael Kenny said that Nohejl still faces a maximum of 15 years in prison on the three third-degree felony charges, but thought it unlikely due to his lack of a criminal record and low criminal score sheet.
“The laws suggest he can’t even be sent to prison,” Kenny said Wednesday after the trial.
The court was prepared to sentence Nohejl following the verdict’s reading. When Kenny said friends and family wished to testify about Nohejl’s character, Assistant State Attorney Sonny McCathran asked for more time to gather evidence and research case law.
“If we’re going to start presenting testimony and they’re going to paint the picture he’s a saint, we need to defer this hearing,” McCathran said, adding Nohejl could get a longer sentence if the State is able to prove he is a danger to the community. Judge Anthony Tatti ruled Nohejl will be sentenced at 10:30 a.m. today.
During closing arguments, McCathran acknowledged that evidence was limited at times.
“No one saw him throw the pills,” McCathran said. “We work with what we have.”
McCathran said earlier in the trial that Nohejl was driving in the Spring Hill area of Hartley Road and Dolin Avenue when he was pulled over by a Hernando County detective and a Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent in an unmarked patrol car. Nohejl cracked his window open, McCathran said, and refused to produce his license, registration and proof of insurance.
Instead, Nohejl drove away, and tossed out a bag of hydrocodone pills that weighed 17.4 grams.
A search of his Kia SUV found a single pill near a floorboard, that matched the same color, size and markings as the pills recovered from a lawn on Hartley Road.
Chemical testing of the pills was a point of contention for the defense, who questioned why only half a pill from the bag of pills found outside the car was tested, and why the pill inside the car was not tested.
A FDLE chemist testified that company policy limits evidence testing to one item per case, and it usually takes about half an hour to perform the test needed to find ingredients in a pill.
McCathran said it would have taken analysts 13.5 hours if they tested all 27 pills recovered at the scene, and that it would have made the case’s state “almost perfect.”
McCathran added that just because not every pill was chemically tested, and because there was no video of the traffic stop, doesn’t mean reasonable doubt existed.
“This is real world, this is real life,” McCathran said.
During the defense’s closing remarks, Kenny said jurors couldn’t ignore the one pill in the car that was not chemically tested.
“No one can tell you what that pill contained, no one knows what that pill contained,” Kenny said, adding that the state hadn’t made a link between the pill in the car and the pills found on the Hartley Road lawn.
“The state wants to say we did most of the work, let’s wing it … but when the state wants to level a charge that has the potential of taking a person’s freedom, I submit to you winging it is not enough.”
Kenny later said Nohejl was not a “sprightly, svelte or very slimly built individual,” and questioned whether he would have even noticed a single pill lying in the “black hole” under a car’s seat due to his size. Kenny said it was possible the pill belonged to Nohejl’s sister, who had a pill problem, and had access to the vehicle.
After the courtroom had cleared, Kenny said the verdict was a relief to Nohejl and the results “could have gone so much worse.”
Nohejl, who worked as a New Port Richey police officer, was fired earlier this year.
wbiddlecombe@hernandotoday .com
(352) 544-5283
