Sheriff's Office defends release of Bollea tapes

The Pinellas Sheriff's Office has responded to a public records lawsuit filed last month by Nick Bollea.

In June, lawyers for Bollea filed suit to prevent the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office from releasing further tapes of the 17-year-old's jail telephone conversations with his family.

The suit asked a Pinellas judge to declare that the taped conversations were not public record and further asked that the Sheriff's Office take other measures to protect the privacy of the Pinellas jail's most famous inmate.

On Friday, the Sheriff's Office filed a response arguing that the tapes -- some 26 hours -- are "non-confidential" public records and Bollea is "not a member of any protected class of individuals for whom any exemption to the Public Record Act applies."

The response goes on to say that the inmate had no reasonable expectation of privacy while talking on the phone with his family and whatever infringement there may be of Bollea's privacy infringement is far outweighed by the public policy reasons for taping.

Bollea's voluminous conversations with his family took place in the first weeks of his imprisonment. In May, he pleaded no contest to a felony charge of reckless driving and was sentenced to 8 months in the Pinellas jail.

The tapes have been widely aired on television and the Internet. Bollea's lawyers argue that the aired excerpts have cast Bollea in a negative light, making it difficult for him and his family to defend themselves against a civil suit filed on the behalf of John Graziano, the passenger in Bollea's car who was injured during the Aug. 26 crash.

At points during the tape, Bollea is heard complaining about his cramped accommodations in the jail and second-guessing his decision to accept jail time.

His father, Terry Bollea -- better known as the wrestler Hulk Hogan -- can be heard disparaging the victim Graziano. Mother Linda Bollea claims that she was closer to Graziano than Graziano's own mother.

A hearing on the issue is scheduled for July 30 at 1:30 p.m.

Media General, which owns the Tampa Tribune and WFLA, has entered the lawsuit in favor of keeping the records public.

Complete coverage: Fame, fast cars & fate

--Jonathan Abel, Times staff writer