Man who drew gun on kids gets 5 years

PANAMA CITY — A man who held six children at gunpoint after they tried to turn a golf cart around in his driveway pleaded no contest to several felonies Thursday and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Attorneys on both sides agreed it was “totally and completely” a departure from Jerry Fulcher’s character when he pulled a gun on six children on a cart who had used his driveway to turn around. Fulcher had never been in trouble and was the head of the local homebuilders association before he retired.

Fulcher entered his plea to two counts of false imprisonment with a firearm, a count of aggravated assault with a firearm and misdemeanor count of battery. He had been scheduled for a jury trial that would have started Monday.

Now, Fulcher, 68, will spend the first three years of his prison term ineligible for gain time — a sentence reduction for good behavior — because the aggravated assault with a firearm charge carries a minimum mandatory sentence. He received credit for the two days he spent in jail after his arrest June 13, 2010.

Waylon Graham, Fulcher’s attorney, said Fulcher had been having problems with trespassers when, armed with a loaded revolver, he stopped the children, forced them off the cart and onto the ground, and threatened to shoot them. He forced one of the children to go inside his home, where the child called a parent to pick them up. Fulcher was still armed when the parent arrived a few minutes later and hurried the children away.

Graham said Fulcher was in a bad place because his wife recently had died after a long and difficult illness.

“It had really done a number on him and put him in a pit of depression,” Graham said.

Prosecutor Megan Teeple said the deal was made after the parents of all the victims agreed it was best to spare the children from having to testify in a trial. Teeple said the victims, who are now between the ages of 5 and 17, were traumatized.

“They’re having nightmares,” she said.

Fulcher will not be on probation after his prison sentence, but Teeple did insist on a condition that he not return to the Southport neighborhood, though only one family involved still lives there.

“We made it a part of the deal that he can’t move back to that street,” Teeple said.

She said she believed Fulcher planned to sell his home and live with his sister after his prison term.