A civil rights lawsuit against the Polk County Sheriff’s Office in Florida overcame a tricky and nuanced legal hurdle this week in federal court.
As Mother Jones originally reported, Taylor Cadle was 12 years old in 2016 when she told a sheriff’s deputy that she had been sexually abused by her adoptive father, Henry Cadle. Instead of arresting the abuser, Deputy Melissa Turnage charged Taylor with filing a false police report. According to Taylor, her adoptive mother pushed her to plead guilty. As part of her probation, she was required to write apology letters to a sheriff’s deputy and her abuser.
After returning to her adoptive father’s care, Taylor was raped again. But this time, she recorded the assault with her phone and collected key physical evidence.
After reporting the abuse for a second time, Taylor’s adoptive father was arrested and sentenced to 17 years in prison for sexual battery of a child.
Taylor had never shared her story publicly until Mother Jones reporters connected with her in late 2023. After the story was published and was picked up by other outlets, including Rolling Stone and People, Taylor said no one from the Sheriff’s Office ever reached out to apologize. The absence of a reaction didn’t seem to align with a sheriff who has said that he would “go to the ends of the Earth” to arrest child sex abusers and that if his office makes a mistake, he would “dress up, ’fess up, and fix it up.”
Now 22, Taylor filed the suit last fall alleging that the sheriff and his deputies violated her civil rights by conducting a biased investigation, falsely arresting her, and leaving her abuser free to rape her again. The suit was filed against Sheriff Grady Judd in his individual and official capacity, two detectives involved in the investigation, and her adoptive father.
Judd’s office directly responded to Taylor’s claims, calling her lawsuit “frivolous.”