Lawyer Andrew Spark Used Jail for Porn Videos
DEC 31, 2017 | REPUBLISHED BY LIT; JAN 25, 2021
Summary: A Tampa lawyer used the Pinellas County Jail to solicit sex with female inmates and record their encounters for a pornographic video.
A Tampa lawyer was booked into the Pinellas County Jail after being accused of soliciting sex from a female inmate at the very same jail. Andrew B. Spark not only solicited sex from the inmate but offered to put money in her commissary account and claimed he was filming the acts for a porno called “Girls in Jail.”
The 54-year-old is charged with introduction or possession of contraband in a county detention facility, a felony charge, and solicitation for prostitution and exposure of sexual organs, misdemeanor charges.
Spark had sex with another inmate inside a private room reserved for attorneys to meet with their clients inside the jail several times.
Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri believes that Spark pulled these same antics with other women in county jails across the Tampa Bay and Central Florida regions. Gualtieri stated that Spark lied about his relations with the women, claiming he was representing them so he could get access to the private room.
The room does not have recording equipment and only a small window in the door.
The private room is supposed to be reserved for criminal defense lawyers to have privacy with their clients. Gualtieri said,
“He duped the system because he came in there representing himself as a lawyer. There’s something that is sacrosanct about that lawyer-client relationship, and that’s why we give great consideration and, frankly, deference to it.”
Referee Report (re Fl. Bar Complaint)
The first woman was introduced to Spark when he found her prostitution ad online and paid her for sex. The 28-year-old woman ended up in jail sometime after they first met on drug charges. He has visited her to engage in sexual acts at least six times between June and December. Investigators allege that Spark would film the woman when they were together, which started out as her narrating sexual fantasies. He would stand in front of the door’s window when she performed a sexual act so no one could see what was happening.
He would then put $30 to $40 in her commissary account each time. While the amounts were small, “those ridiculously nominal amounts add up,” according to Gualtieri.
Spark met the second woman, a 25-year-old, at a Tampa porn convention. The women are not facing any charges.
Visitors are not allowed to meet with inmates in-person and those entering the jail are not permitted to have electronics. Lawyers and very few professionals are given an exception. Spark was hit with the contraband charge because he did not give advance notice that he was going to be using an iPad, which is how he recorded the women, according to the arrest report.
Investigators received a tip about Spark’s scheme. In November, he visited the second woman who was in jail on federal charges of child pornography. The investigators learned he would be coming back to engage in sex acts with her. They wired the private room for sound and listened as Spark began the session. The moment Spark exposed himself, deputies busted into the room to arrest him. He was freed the same day on $5,300 bail.
The jail used to have a policy requiring deputies to check the court records to ensure inmates saw the lawyers affiliated with their case. The policy was tossed after lawyers complained because they would visit inmates as consultants or other matters not in court documents. Gualtieri plans to reenact the policy.
Spark was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1991. He has his own firm, Spark Law. He has worked for the Florida Attorney General’s Office as an assistant attorney general but left that job in 2011 after publishing a memo about problems in how the office handles economic crimes like foreclosure cases. He noted that two former staffers left to work for companies being investigated.
The Attorney General dismissed the memo, countering that Spark was the subject of an internal investigation regarding his use of a work computer and “repeatedly failing to meet performance standards.”
When Spark quit, the internal investigation was closed.
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