Burck was arrested by Daytona Beach police officers on Saturday afternoon near the 800 block of Main Street, where he had been posing for pictures with Bike Week visitors and bystanders. It’s a shtick that he has been presenting at Bike Week, virtually without incident, for 21 years, he said.
On Saturday, however, Burck was charged with violating the city s new ordinance on panhandling and resisting an officer without violence. In making the arrest, officers broke the headstock of the performer’s red, white and blue acoustic guitar.
The ordinance, among other things, make it illegal for anyone to panhandle within 10 feet of the door of any commercial business. But Burck insists he doesn t panhandle; rather, he s a street entertainer.
Earlier during the now-yearlong coronavirus pandemic, Circuit Judge Dennis Craig was conducting hearings via Zoom in the courtroom at the Volusia County Branch Jail recently when one of the attorneys told him there was a woman in the video conference who shouldn’t be there.
But the computer monitor screen was not facing Craig. It was facing the defendants, attorneys and bailiffs.
Craig could not see the Zoom screen of the woman wearing what could be considered only the mandatory minimum of fabric over her body. She was lying in bed wrapped in a white towel.
“Everybody was being too polite because they were waiting for me to do something about it, probably not realizing that I don’t see what they are seeing, Craig said in a phone interview.
An appeals court has upheld the conviction of a former college professor who was released on bond while he appealed his case, a release that sparked outrage from Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood and the family of the young victim.
Mark Fugler, 63, was convicted on June 6, 2019, of three counts each of lewd and lascivious exhibition; lewd and lascivious conduct; and showing obscene materials to a minor.
Senior Judge R. Michael Hutcheson sentenced Fugler to 15 years in prison, but later released him on a $200,000 bond while he appealed his conviction. Hutcheson revoked bond and sent Fugler back to jail after community outrage.