A Florida man with a soft spot for Casey Anthony allegedly dove off a pier to out swim police after a drunken fistfight over last week's not-guilty verdict turned ugly, law enforcement officials told floridatoday.com .
Robert Aydin Hakimoglu, 42, was arrested early Sunday morning after allegedly punching a woman in the face and then leaping into the Indian River Lagoon in Melbourne Beach, Fla. to escape arrest, according to WKMG News-6's website clickorlando.com. After searching the lagoon for two hours, officers found Hakimoglu tucked in bed at his parents' house.
"We found him sleeping up in his bedroom," Melbourne Beach Police Sgt. Rick Dovale told floridatoday.com.
Police said a drunken Hakimoglu struck up a conversation about the controversial trial with a crowd of fisherman on the Melbourne Beach pier. Things turned violent after Hakimoglu began defending the jury's verdict, going so far as to say he might like to have children with Anthony, who was found not guilty of suffocating her two-year-old daughter Caylee last week.
"He agreed with the (jury's) decision and said anybody who didn't agree with it is not an American," Dovale said.
Police said Hakimoglu was drunk when he allegedly threw the punch that would land him in jail. Officers responding to calls of a fight saw him leap off the pier and swim out into the shallow lagoon before vanishing into the darkness, floridatoday reported.
"He disappeared pretty quick," Dovale told the site. "We didn't know if he was alive or dead."
Hakimoglu was booked at the Brevard County Jail on charges of battery, resisting an officer without violence and violation of an alcohol ordinance. He was later released on $1,250 bond.