MOTHER INSISTS THEY WERE BIBLE VERSES, NOT PLOT TO KILL FLORIDA JUDGE

Inmate is accused of trying to hire a partially blind elderly man dubbed 'the Rabbi' to kill judge who sentenced him to 20 years for child pornography

By Snejana Farberov

Daily Mail
January 31, 2018

A Florida inmate is accused of attempting to hire a partially blind 75-year-old man nicknamed ‘the Rabbi’ to kill the judge presiding over his child-pornography case.

A report from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office says 56-year-old Robert Anthony O’Hare has been charged with solicitation to commit murder during a phone call from jail on January 7, the day before Judge Don F. Briggs handed the lengthy sentence.

Speaking to WKMG, sheriff's Lt John Herrell described the botched murder-for-hire plot involving O'Hare's widowed mother and a secret cipher scribbled on a piece of paper as 'off the charts' weird.

Investigators say O’Hare called his mother from the Lake County Jail and gave her a coded message consisting of a series of numbers that translated to ‘kill Briggs.’ He asked her to give it to a family friend named Albert Bowman, whom he called ‘the Rabbi.’

The arrest affidavit said Virginia O’Hare, of Fort Lauderdale, called her son back, saying Bowman ‘knows what you want ... but he can’t do it because he’s just a “Rabbi.”’

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Virginia said she never gave Bowman a note and two never met to discuss the matter. She further claimed that the numbers in the message were not a cipher but Bible verses.

Bowman, of Mount Dora, Florida, also dismissed the suggestion that there was a plot to kill the judge.

‘I’m 75 years old, blind in one eye and have a cataract in the other,’ he told the paper. ‘I don’t think I’d hire me as a killer.’

Bowman also said he didn’t get any money.

‘I hope someone would look at my bank account. It’s pretty drained right now,’ he said. ‘This whole thing right from the get-go is something that doesn’t make any sense.’

Virginia O’Hare, who is a widowed real estate agent and a devout Christian, judging by the contents of her Facebook page, called the allegations against her son ‘bogus charges’ and 'a bunch of lies.'

‘My son never, ever in a million years would do something like that,’ she said, adding that the sheriff’s office is out to get him.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement found more than 50 images and videos of underage girls on O’Hare’s computer in 2015, the arrest affidavit said.

Agents said O’Hare used an ‘elaborate telescope and camera system’ to videotape a girl who lived next door while she was undressing.

In 2016, he was accused of putting hidden cameras inside miniature jukeboxes, which were then delivered to children so that he could record them in their homes.

O’Hare’s mother said he pleaded no contest to possession of child porn and video voyeurism so he could appeal the case.

Lt Herrell, with the Sheriff's Office, said investigators are looking into Virginia's involvement in the failed assassination plot. Meanwhile, her son could be looking at a life sentence, if convicted of solicitation to commit murder.