Four arrested following alcohol-feuled argument at local bar
MIDDLEBURG – Four people were arrested on June 5 following a couple distrubances at the Southern Social Whiskey Bar and Lounge on County Road 220.
William Gunnar Westberry, 22, of Orange Park, was charged with disorderly intoxication and trespassing; Rachael Lynn Walton, 30, of Martinsville, Indiana, was charged with driving under the influence; Joshua Vincent Walton, 29, of Jacksonville, was charged with resisting law enforcement with violence and resisting, obstructing or opposing law enforcement; and Dawson Robert Ewing, 23, was charged with resisting, obstructing or opposing law enforcement after a Clay County Sheriff’s Office deputy called for backup when onlookers became rowdy while they were dealing with a suspected impaired driver.
According to the arrest report, deputies noticed a car parked in the service alley at the bar with its emergency lights blinking. When they approached the car, they found Rachael and Joshua Walton asleep with the car running.
Deputies eventually were able to wake the couple up. After smelling alcohol and noticing both seemed incoherent, they attempted to give the driver, Rachael Walton, a field sobriety test, but she “continued to interrupt the intructions and was being belligerent.” She then was arrested. At the jail, her blood alcohol measured at .185 or .193. The legal limit in Florida is .08.
While deputies dealt with her, her brother, Joshua Walton, became “enraged” watching his sister go through a field sobriety test. Joshua Walton “threw his elbows to the rear of him in an attempt to strike” the deputy. Joshua Walton then was tripped by the deputy so he could be restrained.
As that happened, Westberry and Ewing started yelling at deputies from the front door of the bar. As Westberry passed the deputies in the car, they noticed he seemed to be “heavily intoxicated.” They told Westberry not to drive home.
The staff at the bar said they wanted Westberry removed from the property and asked he be giving a no trespass warning to prevent him from returning to the bar.
After being ordered to leave five times, Westberry was arrested.

Green Cove Springs man busted for watching child pornography

GREEN COVE SPRINGS – A man was arrested with more than 100 photographs of children having sex after the Clay County Sheriff’s Office’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit and Homeland Securities Investigations got a CyberTip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
David Wayne Copeland, 54, of Green Cove Springs, was charged with 10 counts of possessing files with at least 10 photographs of sexual performance by a child after Google discovered the images on Copeland’s account.
The files were downloaded into Copeland’s account between Nov. 24-26, 2020, according to CCSO. The case was investigated for more than a year before Copeland was taken into custody.
Copeland told investigators he viewed the photographs “maybe a hundred times, I guess.” He said the youngest child was about 10. According to the arrest warrant, he also told investigators, “I feel so horrible.”
Copeland’s bond was set at $750,030. His next court appearance is scheduled for June 28.

Pair arrested for squatting at vacant Middleburg house

MIDDLEBURG – A pair of squatters were arrested on June 1 on Myrtle Street after a short standoff with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team.
Nathan Ray Morris, 44, of Hilliard, and Lauren Nicole Bowman, 36, of Middleburg, were charged with burglary and resisting arrest after they spent two days in a vacant house. Deputies were able to charge the couple because they used electricity without the permission of the house’s owner.
According to the arrest report, a neighbor became suspicious after she noticed cars parked in the driveway. She knew the house had been vacant for a year, and she asked the man why he was at the home when he was in the driveway. He told her he was there to “clean up the property for a friend.”
The woman called the sheriff’s office and the couple refused to leave the house once it was surrounded. The SWAT team eventually made entry into the house and found them barricaded in the master bedroom.
Morris’ bond was set t $35,005; Bowman’s bond was set at $60,005.

JSO officer indicted for asking boys to share sexually explicit photos

JACKSONVILLE – U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg announced the return of an federal indictment against Alejandro Carmona-Fonseca, 47, of Green Cove Springs, charging him with one count of using a minor child to produce sexually explicit images, two counts of attempting to use a minor child to produce sexually explicit images and one count of attempted online enticement of a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity.
For each of the first three counts, Carmona-Fonseca faces a mandatory minimum penalty of 15 years and up to a maximum of 30 years in federal prison. For the fourth count, Carmona-Fonseca faces a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years and up to a maximum of life in federal prison. In addition, he faces up to a $1 million fine and a potential life term of supervised release. Carmona made his initial appearance in federal court on June 2 and was ordered detained without bond pending trial.
According to public records, Carmona-Fonseca is currently employed as an officer with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.
According to the indictment, between April 2021 and March 2022, Carmona-Fonseca used a minor to produce or attempt to produce sexually explicit images. The indictment also alleges that in March 2022, Carmona-Fonseca attempted to entice an individual he met at a fitness center in Lake Asbury who was believed to be a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, that is, to produce sexually explicit images.
An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty.
The case was investigated by the Clay County Sheriff’s Office and Homeland Security Investigations. It is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley Washington.
This is another case brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims
For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”