PANAMA CITY — A man convicted of harassing an undercover narcotics investigator has pleaded no contest to impersonating a bail bond agent, according to court records.
Christopher Robert Smith, 31, pleaded no contest Thursday to charges he acted as a bail bondsman, which included allegedly capturing fugitives and taking them to jail, but prosecutors dismissed charges of false imprisonment. Smith was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, and that time will be served concurrently with a five-year sentence he received after a jury found him guilty of harassing an undercover officer with ties to his arrest.
“That’s how he wanted it, because it will probably take about three years to appeal the court’s decision,” said defense attorney Lisa Ann Anderson.
Anderson represented Smith in the case of impersonating a bail bond agent, but she said Smith is going to appeal the jury’s decision to convict him of harassment on First Amendment grounds. Anderson said the charges against Smith for harassing an officer had been inflated from a charge of assault, of which Smith was acquitted.
“This boils down to, basically, you don’t have a freedom of speech right when you’re out on bond,” Anderson said.
Smith, of Panama City, was convicted Feb. 10 of yelling obscenities at a Bay County investigator in a local convenience store. The officer, who had arrested Smith previously, was there with his 4-year-old daughter. As they were trying to drive away, Smith boxed in their car with his own and took a picture of the officer and his daughter. Smith then posted the picture on Facebook and identified him as an undercover officer.
Smith was convicted of tampering with a witness, and Circuit Judge Brantley Clark handed down a five-year sentence for that charge.
Smith knew the BCSO investigator from a 2012 narcotics investigation. During that investigation, BCSO was called in to assist the Florida Department of Financial Services Division of Insurance Fraud in a search of Smith’s home. Smith was arrested for allegedly impersonating a bail bondsman, which entailed apprehending two individuals and transporting them to jail, and a variety of drug-related charges, according to court documents.
BCSO said Smith also obtained some narcotics by posing as the bail bond agent and shaking down strippers and others who he knew to have active warrants.
However, the possession of controlled substances and firearms charges were dropped after Smith’s attorney, Anderson, demonstrated BCSO gathered the evidence during what Judge Clark ruled an “illegal search.”
Anderson argued BCSO requested information on firearms after the search of Smith’s home and vehicle began, indicating they had been seized before the time they received a search warrant.
Clark ruled the officers “conducted an illegal search of (Smith’s) home and vehicle prior to obtaining a consent to search.”
BCSO has since said Smith gave verbal and written consent to the search prior to requesting the search warrant.
Smith also claimed BCSO obtained statements from himself and his father, a Panama City police officer, by allegedly implying that criminal consequences would not follow those statements. However, Clark would have allowed those statements to be admitted as evidence during Smith’s trial before Thursday when he pleaded out.
Smith has been adjudicated guilty of three counts of acting as a bail bond agent without license and burglary of a dwelling. Three counts of false imprisonment were dismissed.