It started when Lola, Vinnie and Blondie went missing. It ended with a jury finding that the First Amendment applies not only to cursing out your neighbor — but playing AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” to protest a neighborhood allegation of kidnapped cats.
“Of the more than 100 trials I’ve had, this was the most frustrating one and probably the most satisfying in terms of the First Amendment,” West Palm Beach attorney Valentin Rodriguez said.
Tracey F. Adams, a fire battalion chief with the Palm Beach County Fire Department, ended up charged with misdemeanor stalking after accusing her Wellington neighbor of abducting the felines and then abandoning them at some unknown location.
A pet trap with a can of tuna and a nearby pet cat collar was found at the neighbor’s home, Rodriguez said. Lola had an AirTag on her collar and the last ping was her neighbor’s yard, he said.
The sheriff’s report goes into detail of every word uttered by Adams — expletives, vicious insults — all of it uttered through the window of her own home, but recorded on the neighbor’s Ring cameras. “Bring Vinnie home,” she is recorded at one point yelling at her neighbor, Vanessa Gordon’s home.
Adams also directed the classic heavy mental song “Highway to Hell” toward her neighbor’s home from a Bluetooth speaker, singing along with the lyrics. The alleged victim, Rodriguez said, “was complaining about what she (Adams) was saying in the music.”
Adams’ adult son also picketed on the sidewalk with signs like “cat killer in the neighborhood or something of that nature,” said Rodriguez, who defended Adams with fellow attorney Bobby Gonzalez.
Rodriguez, who spoke for his client, said the victory at trial doesn’t take away from the trauma of Adams being charged with a crime, the sadness of losing her pets and the fallout with her next-door neighbor. Her job as fire battalion chief was in jeopardy if convicted, he said.
“This would have greatly affected her position,” Rodriguez said. Stalking is a first-degree misdemeanor that carries a maximum of up to a year in jail.
“Ms. Adams was advised by myself and two other deputies that she needs to stop yelling and playing music, harassing Ms. Gordon. This is a breach of peace,” Sheriff Deputy Charles Rhodes wrote in the 10-page probable cause affidavit.
Rhodes had previously been placed on leave in 2020 for a questionable arrest of a Wellington man who claimed he had “freedom of speech” on public property. “Not to us, you don’t,” according to a news report from West Palm Beach television station WBPF.
Adams also told Rhodes that she had the right to free speech. When it came to her cats, deputies told her to stop directing comments from her window to her neighbor and contact animal control.
What is the difference between harassment and free speech?
Gordon, the alleged victim and a Navy veteran, said her neighbor crossed the line from free speech to harassment — noting the music was a very minor part of it. “This case highlights a painful reality: the criminal legal system often struggles to address the full scope of sustained, calculated psychological abuse, and in this instance, it has completely failed to protect a citizen,” she said.
The alleged harassment by Adams went far beyond the scope of the criminal complaint, lasting for about a year, Gordon said. She said her animal pet trap was intended to catch racoons defecating in her garden and that she has no idea what happened to the fire battalion chief’s cats.
“Freedom of speech was never intended to be used as a weapon by powerful figures to intimidate and silence others. This ruling does not change the truth of what I lived through,” Gordon said
Deputies had visited the neighborhood multiple times to mediate the dispute, Rhodes said in the affidavit.
Rodriguez said his client was known within the fire department as “if there was a cat found or there was a fire, she was the lady who would always bring them back to health.”
The alleged cat abductions and subsequent neighbor conflict are detailed in Rhodes’ report in March 2025, but prosecutors didn’t formally file a criminal complaint until 10 months later. State Attorney Alexcia Cox’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
Can free speech be ‘harmful’ to other citizens?
Rodriguez is a passionate First Amendment advocate who has handled complicated criminal defenses in federal court. He pulled out all the stops in Adams’ misdemeanor case, filing lengthy motions to suppress evidence and to dismiss the case, citing numerous court precedents and conducting discovery.
“A prosecution for Adams’ speech violates the First Amendment because her speech was nothing more than offensive speech,” Rodriguez wrote in one pleading in the case. “There is no harm to the alleged victim. There is nothing more than discontent over the situation that initially arose between neighbors over the alleged victim trapping cats in her yard.”
Rodriguez, when selecting a jury, asked a unique question: Are you familiar with George Orwell’s novel, 1984? Jury instructions included a defense that Adams’ “behavior was protected by the First Amendment.”
The panel took a little more than 30 minutes to come back with a not guilty verdict, he said. “This was a classic speak your peace from within your house. I call it a castle protest,” Rodriguez said.
John Pacenti is the Government Impact Reporter for The USA TODAY NETWORK-FLORIDA. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday day by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY at https://palmbeachpost.com/newsletters.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Missing cats and AC/DC at center of weird Florida free speech ruling
Reporting by John Pacenti, USA Today Network-Florida / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By John Pacenti, USA Today Network-Florida | USA TODAY Network
