Prosecutors dropped all charges against a former Pinellas County Sheriff's Office deputy who ran hundreds of license-plate-reader searches on a woman after she rejected his romantic advances.

Karl Gwynne, 57, had been charged with official misconduct and four counts of accessing a computer network or electronic device without authority. The State Attorney's Office for the Sixth Judicial Circuit filed a No Information on Oct. 30, saying current Florida statutes do not address Gwynne's reported conduct, WFLA reported.

No criminal prosecution will move forward under existing law.

At a September press conference, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said Gwynne used the agency's automated license plate reader (ALPR) database to run 381 searches on a single license plate. Of those, 207 were made while Gwynne was off duty, according to WFLA.

The vehicle was registered to a 35-year-old woman whom Gwynne had arrested in 2010. He reconnected with her through social media in 2024, WFLA reported. Gwynne initially told detectives he searched her plate repeatedly for official purposes. He later admitted she had rejected his romantic advances.

Why charges couldn't stick

Florida Statute 815.06 makes it a crime to access a computer, computer system or electronic device "willfully, knowingly, and without authorization or exceeding authorization."

The same statute exempts a person who "acts within the scope of his or her lawful employment."

The State Attorney's Office determined that the statute's provisions do not cover Gwynne's reported conduct.