Flint: Article about arrest has impacted son’s well-being
Letter to the editor
Dear Editor:
Recently your paper featured information apparently gleaned from certain police reports regarding Louis Flint’s having been arrested and charged with certain sex crimes. I am happy to report that after a long and exhaustive investigation, with which my son cooperated fully, the State Attorney’s Office dismissed those initial charges against him.
Unfortunately, due to those allegations, my son was dismissed from the University of Florida and evicted from Student Housing. The personal stress and public humiliation of the entire ordeal caused Louis to suffer a severe emotional breakdown resulting in his being hospitalized at Shands after having been arrested for an incident at a local retail establishment. After pleading to a criminal mischief that became a felony solely due to the value of damaged goods, my son completed a short sentence in the county jail and made full restitution to the affected business.
We are confident that Louis has turned his life around due to the progress he has made in therapy where he is getting past both the trauma of the original charges against him and his consequent meltdown. It is our hope that this letter will be published and that any reports of the false allegations against Louis will be corrected and taken down from your website.
Before the allegations were made against him, my son led an exemplary life: he was a European student with Level A qualifications, an accomplished soccer player, and a young man who regularly volunteered to help others, such as reading to sight-impaired students during the pandemic.
The continued reporting of the charges against Louis has directly impacted his emotional well-being and slowed his recovery. As a family, we request you remove his name as well as the details of the allegations against him so that he can finally put this tragic episode to rest. Like many young men, Louis has made mistakes which he acknowledged, but our family remains confident that Louis will become the man that everyone expected him to before these unfortunate events. My son has paid his debt and now, with your assistance, simply seeks to move forward. Surely that is what each of us would want from our justice system and for Louis. Your assistance in this matter would be greatly appreciated.
Yours sincerely, Richard Flint (father)
Editor’s note: As is our practice, we updated the article about Louis Flint’s arrest with the disposition of the cases after an attorney hired by the family sent us an email.
The opinions expressed by letter or opinion writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AlachuaChronicle.com. Assertions of facts in letters are similarly the responsibility of the author. Letters may be submitted to info@alachuachronicle.com and are published at the discretion of the editor.
I agree with the father. This guy had his life ruined and the AC should show compassion over policy. I witnessed a friend who was falsely accused and it ruined his college career. Give this guy the break he deserves, please.
If it was false, was the accuser arrested and charged for that, anyone know?
Just because charges are dropped does not mean nothing happened. Public lawyers are scummy peeps, remember.
I guess “Agree with dad” is a pseudonym for Richard, the real “Dad” because anyone who defends this malarkey is either a family member or is still in kindergarten. No doubt Richard loves his son, Louis, but he loves the idea of disassociation and this all going away even more; alas, no amount of evasiveness, justification, bail posting, or letter writing will work – unless you’re “Agree with dad”.
By the sound of your letter, your son is a European, not American. In the US, as long as accusations are made as ‘alleged’ no libel or slander has occurred. Just because charges were dropped or the person was found not guilty doesn’t mean honest and accurate news accounts should be changed. If your son is that concerned, maybe a new area, where he isn’t known would serve the same purpose.
Similar issue happened to a friend of mine who was accused of rape locally. His photo was put up for everyone to see (not here) but in the media.
All the charges were dropped. Everyone of them. It never happened. It was proven it never happened.
But it ended a job for him. He started over. But every once in a while has to explain it.
Google his name…and there was never any follow up by local media.
So, I’m glad to see this presented.
Did he sue the accuser, or cops charge accuser?
This young man is fortunate to have a supporting father that can see his potential. This young man’s behavior while intoxicated goes beyond normal behavior. I hope he is receiving psychological counseling and in a AA program. He has his life before him. Good luck to him and his family. If he doesn’t change, his parents are in for a rough ride.
No doubt Louis would greatly benefit from distancing himself from his father; specifically, it’s obvious there is a great deal of codependency in this relationship. Richard needs to consider his motivation for his so-called “assistance”.
Ok first your son committed criminal mischief and due the amount of damage it was a felony. He made restitution for the damages he caused and spent time in jail. He was charged prior to that incident with sexual battery that he allegedly committed. It sounds as if you are justifying your sons actions on the criminal mischief was due to him being arrested for the sex crime. Maybe a better solution to this matter is your son owns up to his issues, moves back home, and tries again. Not sure where your European country is but in the USA we have laws with consequences and being drunk is not an excuse. I would also say without seeing documentation from the SAO on the reasons why charges were dropped there is no reason to say sorry. He was still arrested and that is public record.
It does NOT sound to me that the father is trying to justify anything/everything and it sounds like the son HAS owned up to it and made restitutions. Circumstanses look like everyone needs to lighten up.
Father should sue the accuser if it’s an invalid matter.
There’s a fairly good chance that the father paid the accuser off.
“I am happy to report that after a long and exhaustive investigation, with which my son cooperated fully, the State Attorney’s Office dismissed those initial charges against him.
Unfortunately, due to those allegations, my son was dismissed from the University of Florida and evicted from Student Housing. The personal stress and public humiliation of the entire ordeal caused Louis to suffer a severe emotional breakdown resulting in his being hospitalized at Shands after having been arrested for an incident at a local retail establishment.”
First of all, dismissed charges doesn’t necessary = accused did not do it.
Secondly, dad wants us to believe that the personal stress and public humiliation of the entire ordeal caused his son to urinate on bottles at Total Wine & More, ask the manager if she wants to “suck it” and expose himself again at Shands? In other words, the urination and etc wasn’t his SON’S fault. It was UF’s fault for kicking him out of school after the initial sexual assault accusation.
Dad and his money managed to get his son out of trouble after these incidents and this probably isn’t the first time.
Hey dad, if you are reading this? The best thing you can do for your son is let him pay the price(s) for his next crime. You are not helping him.
ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON! We’ll said Alachua Moderate!
Reading the events in the referenced article, I don’t think this man, that his father is telling us about, is reformed. His behavior is not acceptable and he needs more time to grow up.
Betting this is not the first time he has been in trouble. You do get one expungement of a specific criminal charge/adjudication in your lifetime. Use it wisely son.
Agree with some other posters that father Richard appears to be part of son Louis’s problem. A legal adult needs to address his own faults, not depend on his father to play defense for him (sort of like Hunter and Joe, no?). Anyway, going back to the original article, Total Wine says that Louis “intentionally urinated on about 192 bottles of alcohol, forcing the business to throw out the merchandise, for a loss of about $1,400.” $1400/192 = $7.29 each! Louis, baby, if you’re gonna get arrested for peeing on wine, make it Château Lafite Rothschild, not Boone’s Farm! I understand now why they keep the expensive stuff in the top racks.
Ole poor daddy coming to his sorry excuse for a son’s defense! Charges dropped in the democratic run shyt hole mean nothing, hell they are dropping charges for everybody in the name of equality and with the things that ARE documented by total wine and the nurse at the hospital i’ll put my money on the fact your son was guilty of raping that woman! Let’s not forget to mention your looney bin of a son likes to stroke and show his wee wee to poor nurses after he’s consumed his alcohol. I’d have a picture of this loser in EVERY bar in town letting everyone know this guy can’t hold his liquor and isn’t a responsible drinker and likes to pee on things when he’s drunk.
Let’s actually do this..
he thinks his reputation was ruined before lol.
Is this the same kid that was walking down University naked? Prior to being arrested? He was spiraling long before. #Barstoolsports
I would have a little compassion if son had written letter of apology to society for his childish behavior. Many times in the first charge the victim just wants everything to go away, and drops allegations. Dad seems likes you are the problem. Good try though. Send him to Florida State.
If the first charges were dropped, was the accuser arrested for making a false sex assault claim?
That’s all we need to know. I’ll wait for an answer 🦗🦗🦗🦗
Should not have written this letter Dad because it’s over & forgotten and you brought it all up again.
There is not enough information in his answer to make a decision. You really have to come clean if you want us to understand.
What the son is accused of doing is troubling.
Ask any psychologist and exposing himself and the rape accusations mean that he is on a very dark path indeed.
Instead of trying to cover up what his son did, he needs to get his son some serious mental health treatment and for much more than just abusing alcohol.
It looks to me like the charges were dropped because Flint was incarcerated and the state didn’t timely file an information against him. If I had to guess, the victim in the rape case probably decided not to testify. Without the victim, the state doesn’t have much evidence to prove the case.
If this father really believes his son is innocent, then I agree with many of the posters that he needs to take his head out of the sand and get some real mental help for his “kid”.
Looks like someone can’t handle his alachol and should quit drinking
Pops… found guilty or not this police report seems 100% accurate and embarrassing none the less.
Son is a total clown show of a citizen if you ask me…
Continuing to bring up this issue is not going to help bring it out of the spotlight…
Send him back overseas
Dick Flint: your moron son intentionally urinated on a line of alcoholic beverages in a liquor store and stole two bottles on the way out. You don’t hit 192 bottles unless you are actively walking around, intentionally doing it. He was also caught using a fake ID, and numerous unrelated witnesses, including a security guard, reported him exposing himself and urinating in public.
Your boorish, spoiled son was easily able to post the $132k bail and then immediately proceeded to violate the terms of his pre-trial release by violating the GPS ankle monitor policies, a behavior that you, Dick Flint, were also complicit in by not responding.
Your lout of a son spent 81 days in jail as a result of his crimes. All this alone is enough for anyone to see the gutter-tier morals of your son and your abject failures as a father.
The Alachua Chronicle, like any professional news organization, merely reported that he was alleged to commit sexual assault. Those charges were obviously dropped because there is no proof, just her word against his. Whether or not it happened we will never know. Based on your son’s crude behavior (no doubt a result of his low-brow upbringing), I would bet that he probably did, but that’s not how our justice system works.
Paying off the liquor store only fulfills his legal obligation. Society will still continue to rightly judge him by the content of his character, and in my opinion based on the poor moral foundation you have given him I doubt that he will ever do enough positive work for society to see him as anything other than a spoiled, loutish oaf.
The fact that he has his daddy writing this letter instead of standing up himself like a man is further proof that he has learned nothing and has not made any changes.
Knew this guy when he was 18 and attending University of California, Davis, from which it appears he has been dismissed since. Probably one of the worst guys I’ve ever met, and to see him continuously doubling down on his bad choices is indicative of how he was raised and shows the type of person he is. Please focus on your other kids, and instead of making excuses for your son, think about many have been left scarred by your consistent enabling of him. These articles being shown are not the first time he faced consequences for inappropriate behavior.