A Florida inmate is accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill the judge on his child-pornography case.
A sheriff's report says 56-year-old Robert Anthony O'Hare has been charged with solicitation to commit murder during a phone call from jail on Jan. 7, the day before Judge Don F. Briggs sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
Investigators say O'Hare called his mother from the Lake County Jail and gave her a coded message that translated to "kill Briggs." He asked her to give it to 75-year-old Albert Bowman, whom he called "the Rabbi."
The arrest affidavit said the mother called her son back, saying Bowman "knows what you want ... but he can't do it because he's just a 'Rabbi.' "
Bowman told police there was no plot to kill the judge. He also said he didn't receive any money.
"I'm 75 years old, blind in one eye and have a cataract in the other," said Bowman, of Mount Dora. "I don't think I'd hire me as a killer."
The mother says she numbers she and her son exchanged were Bible verses.
"These are absolutely bogus charges," she said, according to a report by NBC6. "My son never, ever in a million years would do something like that."
She said the Lake County Sheriff's Office is out to get her son.
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.