CRESTVIEW — Protesting outside the Okaloosa County Courthouse is Tina Gough’s last resort to help her husband, who is on probation for a domestic violence charge.
On Monday, Tina tied herself to the stair rail outside the courthouse’s north entrance. She later moved to a park bench, where she spent the night.
Today, the Jackson County woman stayed on the bench and wrote a letter to Judge Michael A. Flowers, who sentenced her husband in court.
Tina hopes the judge will reconsider his stance. She is also searching for an attorney to represent her husband, pro bono.
“I just pray to God that there is an attorney out there that has a heart,” she said.
Her husband, 52-year-old Richard Gough is serving a five-year probation in Jackson County. The couple was living in Crestview when he was charged at the time with battery by strangulation, aggravated assault and two counts of kidnapping and false imprisonment of a child younger than 13, according to Crestview Police Department arrest reports.
Tina said her husband did attack her but the incident was out of character.
Now, the couple’s lives have become more difficult due to Richard’s 2012 diagnosis with lung cancer and mounting medical bills and Richard’s criminal record keeps him from finding a job.
“We’ve been struggling ever since,” she said. “. . . we can’t get no help.”
Tina said she is prepared to stay outside the courthouse, for as long as it takes, until some action in her husband’s case come about, she said.
But she has given up on tying herself to the bench.
No one is apparently trying to remove her, as long as she doesn’t impede traffic into and out of the building.
“I’ve tried everything else … I’m running out of options,” she said. “I don’t know what else to do.”
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Matthew Brown, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Woman protests husband's sentence outside courthouse; seeks lawyer that 'has a heart'