Prosecutors in Florida have dropped misdemeanor charges against a Florida pastor who defied the state’s stay-at-home order to continue church services.
Evangelical megachurch leader Rodney Howard-Browne of the River at Tampa Bay Church had the charges of unlawful assembly and violating quarantine orders during a public health emergency dropped Friday. Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said the arrest was appropriate that it only came “after repeated efforts to gain cooperation in other ways were not successful.”
“In deciding whether to criminally prosecute violations of stay-at-home orders, compliance is our North Star,” Warren said, according to the Tampa Bay Times. “Each case is unique, and each one will be assessed based on the facts and the law. But, in general, if the person who was arrested poses no ongoing threat to public health, then our tendency will be not to prosecute the case beyond the arrest.”
Warren said that since the pastor was arrested, he has “maintained responsible social distancing” and has engaged with community leaders about how to move forward during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Our office has determined that further prosecution or punishment would not provide increased protections for our community and is not needed to achieve any additional change in Pastor Howard-Browne’s behavior,” he said.
Howard-Browne was arrested in late March after he repeatedly flouted Florida’s social distancing restrictions and continued to hold crowded church services.
“His reckless disregard for human life put hundreds of people in his congregation at risk and thousands of residents who may interact with them this week in danger,” said Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister at the time.
The pastor has stoked controversy in the past. Earlier this year, Howard-Browne reacted to a tweet that former Trump national security adviser John Bolton had posted with the parents of Otto Warmbier, an American student arrested in North Korea who was allegedly tortured by his captors and rendered brain dead while in custody of the authoritarian regime.
The pastor said Jesus would have “beat the crap out of” Bolton for being “disloyal to the President.”
