PANAMA CITY — Prosecutors said Thursday they accomplished what they set out to do 10 months ago when they filed felony perjury charges against an expert witness who testified for a defendant they felt got off easy.
John Lloyd won’t be serving as an expert witness anytime soon after he entered a provisional plea of no contest to two felony counts of perjury Thursday, less than a week before attorneys were scheduled to select a jury to try his case. But the provisional plea means that if he completes his probation the charges ultimately will be dismissed.
The deal is described in a news release from the State Attorney’s Office as both a necessity and victory that came together after Judge Michael Overstreet dismissed three perjury counts charging Lloyd of falsely claiming to be a professor of medicine. The dismissal of those counts resulted in diminished optimism among prosecutors about the state’s ability to prove the remaining counts to a jury, according to the news release.
But prosecutors said they still got what they wanted: a prohibition against Lloyd testifying or consulting in criminal cases. One of the terms of Lloyd’s probation prohibits him from testifying until at least Christmas next year.
“Prohibiting the defendant from falsely testifying in future criminal matters was a high priority in this case; therefore the state successfully achieved this objective with the resolution,” the statement states.
Lloyd pleaded no contest to counts charging him with lying when he testified he had handled brains when he attended autopsies in other parts of the state and that he held an unpaid faculty appointment at a Florida college. All other charges against him were dismissed or consolidated.
Michael Grabner, an attorney representing Lloyd, was unavailable for comment Thursday afternoon.
Lloyd was arrested in February after he testified for the defense in the case of Timothy Foxworth, who was accused of aggravated child abuse, a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in prison. Foxworth, whose son was an infant when nearly died after suffering brain injuries that he is unlikely to ever fully recover from, was ultimately convicted of the less severe charge of child abuse and he was sentenced to four years.