Bollea wants out of solitary

Nick Bollea is unhappy with conditions at the Pinellas County Jail and has filed a motion asking for a different sentence, his lawyer said Monday.

Kevin Hayslett, Bollea's attorney, said his 17-year-old client is being kept in solitary confinement in the jail's medical ward because he is not old enough to join the general population.

Hayslett filed the motion for reconsideration and plans to ask the judge to consider placing Bollea under house arrest until he turns 18 on July 27.

Bollea pleaded no contest to a charge of reckless driving with serious bodily injury last month. He was sentenced to eight months in jail.

The charge stems from an Aug. 26 car crash where Bollea smashed into a palm tree near downtown Clearwater. His friend and passenger, John Graziano, 23, was critically injured in the accident and remains in a semi-conscious state at James A. Haley Medical Center in Tampa.

Read the Times' ongoing coverage of this story here.

[Jim Damaske, Times files]