All charges have been dropped against a Neptune Beach teen who made national headlines for allegedly intimidating Kamala Harris backers with a machete at a polling station in October.
According to court documents filed Jan. 23, prosecutors abandoned assault, weapon and voter suppression raps against Caleb Williams, 18, and closed the case.
The teen had faced up to 15 years in prison on the assault charge if convicted.
“After reviewing the evidence in the above-styled case, the undersigned Assistant State Attorney declines to prosecute this defendant for these charges and any civil charges,” reads a filing from prosecutor Octavius Holliday Jr.
Williams was arrested at the Beaches Library polling station on Oct. 29 after supporters of Harris and former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz accused him and his friends of menacing them.
Neptune Beach Police held a press conference to announce his arrest the night of the incident.
Police Chief MIchael Key Jr. told reporters that Williams had waved a machete at a pair of female blue backers — ages 65 and 71 — in an intimidating fashion.
The complainants reported that Williams and his friends had gone to the polling station with the intent to harass them.
“Saying your piece is your First Amendment right, but that goes out the window the second that you raise a machete,” Key said at the time.
Williams and his supporters pushed back on the accusations, asserting that he had only brought the machete because he had affixed a pro-Trump sign to it that fell off.
Williams and his friends “were holding tools and loudly supporting their presidential candidate near a voter polling location,” prosecutors said in a filing. “Police were called as a precaution. No voters left the poll due to intimidation.’
While stating that Williams’ actions were “ill advised and perhaps zealous” they wrote that they didn’t rise to the level of voter intimidation.
The teen’s friends contended after the incident that both sides were jawing at each other, and that Williams’ actions did not warrant the charges again him.
The teen’s face rocketed across the internet after his pre-election bust, with stories appearing everywhere from CNN to CBS.
