Courtesy photo. Volusia County Judge Dawn Fields ruled in December that former City Commissioner and mayoral candidate Mike Shallow had a right of privacy when he was behind a closed bathroom stall in the Volusia Mall and because of that right, the accusation of lewd behavior was not found credible, and therefore, the case against him dismissed.
DAYTONA BEACH -- Former Daytona Beach City Commissioner Mike Shallow, who made two unsuccessful runs for mayor, was acquitted Dec. 16. of lewd and lascivious behavior amid accusations he was masturbating in a bathroom stall at Sears in the Volusia Mall.
The 58-year-old Shallow was one of nine men nabbed in a sting by undercover police Nov. 1, 2007. In her ruling for acquittal Volusia County Judge Dawn Fields, citing a previous ruling by the 5th District Court of Appeal, determined a closed bathroom is a place for privacy and that masturbation, in and of itself is not a crime. She ruled that Capt. Rich Gardner of the Volusia County Beach Patrol, who participated in the sting, made an illegal search by peeking into the closed stall because there was no probable cause to do so. "However disturbing the defendant's actions may have been, the act of masturbation in the stall of a public bathroom is not a crime, provided it is not done in public view," the judge wrote in her order of acquittal for Shallow, who was represented by prominent defense attorney Michael Lambert. "And neither are the sounds of masturbation." Shallow, one of three men in the sting to win acquittal, had maintained his innocence from the beginning.