New Smyrna Beach mayor bails out police officer arrested on domestic battery charge
The mayor of New Smyrna Beach bailed out a city police officer who was locked up in jail on a felony domestic battery charge. The police officer was arrested after a fight with her fiancé who had confronted her about phone messages indicating she engaged in sex acts with her supervisor.
Mayor Fred Cleveland said he posted the $6,000 bail on March 6 to free Jessica Schuchardt from the Volusia County Branch Jail where she had been since her arrest a day earlier.
He said he has three daughters and just felt it was the right to do to help her out.
“I would want the right thing done if any of my daughters were in trouble or had done something and needed some help,” Cleveland said.
Schuchardt was charged with domestic battery by strangulation, a felony, and misdemeanor battery when she was arrested March 5 at the home she shared with her fiancé in New Smyrna Beach.
Schuchardt has entered a plea of not guilty and is represented by Michael Lambert.
Cleveland said he had never bailed anyone out from jail during the 14 months he has served as mayor of New Smyrna Beach. He stressed he was not acting in his official capacity as mayor.
Schuchardt arrest stems from a confrontation with her fiancé. He said she came home intoxicated, put her phone on the counter and went to sleep. The fiancé said he found messages in her phone regarding sex acts on a specific day from a Robert Claudio.
The fiancé said he believed the sex acts occurred while Schuchardt was at work.
Claudio was a sergeant and Schuchardt’s direct supervisor at the time of the incident, wrote Deputy Chief Chris Kirk in an email Thursday.
Kirk wrote that both Schuchardt and Claudio are on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal affairs investigation. He wrote that the leave is paid which is standard during internal affairs investigations.
When the fiancé confronted Schuchardt about the messages the situation escalated to her hitting and choking him, a charging affidavit stated.
Cleveland said in a phone interview that he and his wife first met Schuchardt before she became a police officer when she worked as a manager at a barbeque restaurant in New Smyrna Beach. He said the restaurant has since closed.
Schuchardt was hired as a recruit on March 8, 2021, and as a police officer on Aug. 6, 2021, according to Kirk.
Cleveland said Schuchardt reminded him of his middle daughter.
“She is exactly the spitting image of my middle daughter and exactly the same age,” he said.
Cleveland, 67, said he and his wife don’t socialize with Schuchardt.
"You got to understand she’s more than 30 years younger than me," Cleveland said.
He said his daughters are all far away, with the closest in Virginia and another in Omaha, Nebraska, and another in Wyoming.
“I look and I think what would I want done if it was my daughter,” Cleveland said.
He said Schuchardt was “very surprised” that he bailed her out.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: New Smyrna Beach mayor bails out policewoman jailed in domestic case
