JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Three Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office officers have been disciplined for an incident where a 45-year-old man was strip-searched during an arrest on Phillips Highway in 2022.
According to a 119-page Internal Affairs report, a complaint was filed against Officers Joel Belgard, Nicholas Hackley and Mark Mazzone following the man’s arrest for selling cocaine on September 9, 2022.
News4JAX is not naming the man because the charge against him was dropped.
During the arrest, the man was strip-searched. The report said the officers pulled down his pants and underwear, leaving him fully exposed.
The report also included images from the body camera video of the incident. A complaint of violating JSO’s bodycam policy was sustained against Mazzone.
Belgard and Hackley received complaints of failure to conform to work standards and both received written reprimands. Mazzone was given formal counseling.
In an interview, Hackley said at the time of the search, it didn’t occur to him that a strip search was happening because he was not “up to date” with the JSO Orders on strip searches.
Hackley said if a “reasonable person” asked what a strip search was “they would say like fully removing someone’s clothes.”
Belgard said in his statement that he didn’t understand that “manipulating or arranging” constituted a strip search.
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