A Tampa police officer resigned last month after an internal investigation found he knew as early as 2021 that a local political player known as Giovanni “Gio” Fucarino was a convicted sex offender named John Ring Jr., but he didn’t don’t tell anyone what he said. he knew and was not truthful when questioned by investigators later, records show.
Senior Police Officer William B. “Brandon” Cain resigned on May 18 after an investigation found evidence that he violated department policies related to standard of conduct, truthfulness, attention to duty and cooperating with departmental investigations, according to documents obtained by Tampa Bay. Time through a public records request.
An attorney representing Cain in the matter, Rick Escobar, said his client denies the allegations and that the department is using him as a “scapegoat” to shift the blame to others.
Related: Who is Gio Fucarino? Or John Ring Jr.? A Tampa player with a hidden past
The investigation found that Cain knew Fucarino was a registered sex offender using an alias since December 2021, according to an internal department memo summarizing the findings. In the past two years, the man known as Fucarino had become active in Tampa politics and civic life, appearing at community and political events and becoming a board member of the Italian Club. He served as Tampa Mayor Jane Castor’s election kickoff presenter and contributed to City Hall campaigns.
“Senior Constable Cain was negligent in his duties as a police officer by failing to document his knowledge or even notify a supervisor that a sex offender was operating a business under a fictitious name , or even investigated why a sex offender uses a fictitious name to interact with the city and local community,” Capt. Jason Dillaha wrote to Interim Chief Lee Bercaw in the May 12 summary memo.
“Chief Police Officer Cain’s failure to disclose this information led to continued unintended contact by other law enforcement officers and city officials with a person they believed to be Gio and that didn’t know he was John Ring, a sex offender,” Dillaha wrote.
Tampa police launched the internal investigation into Cain as the department investigated a tip received on March 13 that Fucarino was actually Ring, who was convicted in 2010 of sending a text message to a 17-year-old girl asking for sex and pornographic photos and it worked. three years in prison.
Police arrested Ring on March 17 on charges of failing to give state officials an updated cell phone number, business address and Instagram account, all of which he is required to provide because of his felon status sexual He has pleaded not guilty.
Within days of Ring’s arrest, his ties to the campaigns of incumbent council member Lynn Hurtak and Mayor Jane Castor, the domestic partner of Hurtak’s opponent Janet Cruz’s daughter, become part of the acrita career. Hurtak won.
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Cain, who joined the department in 2009, was assigned in February 2020 to a team covering Ybor City and last July was assigned as the department’s Ybor liaison officer. Part of his duties included building relationships with businesses and residents in the area, according to the executive summary.
On Dec. 31, 2021, according to the investigation, Cain searched state databases for a vehicle owned by the man he knew as Gio Fucarino, who had an office at the Italian Club in Ybor City, and then searched for “John Ring” by name and driver’s license number. The way he conducted those searches, Dillaha wrote, “indicates that he knew Gio’s real identity at the time.”
Cain struck up a relationship with Ring, and the two men “had several off-the-job, non-work-related meetings,” including at least one lunch while Cain was off duty, the memo states. Cain told investigators that his last encounter with Ring was before Cain learned he was a registered sex offender. Cain claimed he learned this information about Thanksgiving 2022.
But in addition to the December 2021 searches, Cain conducted seven license plate checks on vehicles driven by Ring between April 2020 and March 7, 2023.
During a sworn interview with detectives, Cain initially claimed to have no knowledge of Ring’s alternate identity or criminal history, according to the memo. When asked during the interview, “Do you know him by any other name?” Cain answered several times, “I know him by no other name.”
It wasn’t until he faced off for the third time that Cain said he ran a tag search in front of the Italian club and the results showed the name John Robert Ring with a photo that resembled the known man like Gio Fucarino, the note states. .
In a statement released Monday along with the records, the department said the investigation “exposed Cain’s unwillingness to further investigate why this sex offender was using an alias to interact with the community.”
No senior municipal official has been implicated in any crime, according to the statement.
Bercaw said in the statement that it has turned the findings over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the FBI “for further review.”
“The Tampa Police Department holds officers to the highest standard of conduct, which includes a duty of truthfulness while on the job. That’s what our city expects and deserves,” Bercaw said.
Escobar, Cain’s attorney, said transcripts of the interviews do not show his client was deceptive. Escobar said he obtained records showing Tampa police interviewed Ring 23 times over the past decade and already knew Ring was using the name Gio Fucarino on Facebook.
“You’ve got a bunch of (department) brass and the mayor’s office who are embarrassed by the fact that they rubbed elbows with a registered sex offender and as a result they have to make somebody the fall guy, and the fall guy is my client,” Escobar said.
Escobar said he advised Cain to fight any disciplinary action, but that Cain decided to retire rather than risk losing accrued sick pay and other benefits and going months without pay while a case was pending. pending arbitration.
Personnel records show Cain was found to have violated the policy in four previous internal investigations related to overtime work, use of in-car recording equipment, failure to appear in court and use of his camera worn on the body
In his most recent performance evaluation in December, Cain’s supervisor called him “a committed and reliable employee as well as an outstanding community police officer” and noted that he was selected for the Ybor liaison job of new creation thanks to the support of the interested parties in the area. . Cain took on the role “with great enthusiasm and pride,” the assessment said.
After Ring’s arrest, state prosecutors asked a judge to seal two search warrants and related documents that police used to search his property. The state argued that the documents should remain confidential because they contain sensitive information related to an ongoing criminal investigation.
The searches also revealed “potential evidence suggesting public corruption in the city of Tampa,” Assistant State’s Attorney Courtney Derry wrote.
Hillsborough Circuit Judge Michael Williams ordered the documents to remain confidential until the state turns over evidence in the case to Ring’s defense, a legal process known as discovery. Ring’s attorney, Anthony Rickman, requested discovery on March 30, but the evidence has not yet been made public. Attorneys for the Times filed a motion to intervene in the Ring case on Monday, arguing that the records should be unsealed.
On May 2, the state formally charged Ring with three counts of failing to properly register as a sex offender. There have been few public developments in the case since then. In a brief hearing last week, the judge set a new court date for July 24.
Times writer Dan Sullivan contributed to this report.
