Flint: Article about arrest has impacted son’s well-being

Letter to the editor

Dear Editor:

Recently your paper featured information apparently gleaned from certain police reports regarding Louis Flint’s having been arrested and charged with certain sex crimes. I am happy to report that after a long and exhaustive investigation, with which my son cooperated fully, the State Attorney’s Office dismissed those initial charges against him.

Unfortunately, due to those allegations, my son was dismissed from the University of Florida and evicted from Student Housing. The personal stress and public humiliation of the entire ordeal caused Louis to suffer a severe emotional breakdown resulting in his being hospitalized at Shands after having been arrested for an incident at a local retail establishment. After pleading to a criminal mischief that became a felony solely due to the value of damaged goods, my son completed a short sentence in the county jail and made full restitution to the affected business.

We are confident that Louis has turned his life around due to the progress he has made in therapy where he is getting past both the trauma of the original charges against him and his consequent meltdown. It is our hope that this letter will be published and that any reports of the false allegations against Louis will be corrected and taken down from your website.

Before the allegations were made against him, my son led an exemplary life: he was a European student with Level A qualifications, an accomplished soccer player, and a young man who regularly volunteered to help others, such as reading to sight-impaired students during the pandemic.

The continued reporting of the charges against Louis has directly impacted his emotional well-being and slowed his recovery. As a family, we request you remove his name as well as the details of the allegations against him so that he can finally put this tragic episode to rest. Like many young men, Louis has made mistakes which he acknowledged, but our family remains confident that Louis will become the man that everyone expected him to before these unfortunate events. My son has paid his debt and now, with your assistance, simply seeks to move forward. Surely that is what each of us would want from our justice system and for Louis. Your assistance in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Yours sincerely, Richard Flint (father)

Editor’s note: As is our practice, we updated the article about Louis Flint’s arrest with the disposition of the cases after an attorney hired by the family sent us an email.

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