Hillsborough judge arrested for domestic violence ordered to have no contact with family

TAMPA — A judge has ordered Hillsborough County Judge Eric Myers to stay away from his wife and daughter temporarily, after he was arrested Saturday morning on a domestic violence charge.

The order came at the request of Myers' wife, Shirley Sanchez-Myers, 40, who petitioned the court for protection over the weekend. In her petition, she accused her husband of five years of beating her to the point of unconsciousness and leaving her in their shared home in Odessa with their 5-year-old daughter.

"Eric slapped & punched me on my face & head, as well as pulled my hair," she wrote in her petition for a domestic violence injunction. "All of the hits to my head caused me to black out & lose consciousness."

When she came to, her husband was gone. "I woke to my daughter screaming, "Daddy stop hitting mommy," she wrote in the petition.

According to Sanchez-Myers, the fight began around 9 p.m. Friday. Myers, 58, was not arrested until 2 a.m., when Hillsborough sheriff's deputies picked him up at the downtown Tampa courthouse where he works. Records show that Myers admitted to deputies that he grabbed his wife by her hair and hit her once in the face with his open palm.

"The officers took pictures of the marks on my face, neck & ears, as well as noted the bumps on the back of head along with the hair that was falling out," Sanchez-Myers wrote, adding that deputies confiscated two guns from her home. On the petition form, she checked the item asking if she would like the court to order her alleged attacker to participate in some type of treatment or intervention. She underlined the words "counseling services."

Reached by a reporter on Tuesday, she declined to comment on the case.

Records indicate that she is Myers' third wife. His previous marriages ended in divorce.

Myers, who did not return a reporter's call for comment, is a county judge who hears misdemeanor and traffic cases. He does not preside over domestic violence cases.

On Tuesday, Hillsborough Chief Judge Ronald Ficarrotta said he had not decided whether to reassign Myers while the case works its way through the system. As is typical of situations in which charges are brought against judges, Myers' case will likely be reassigned to a judge from a neighboring county, probably Pinellas, Ficarrotta said.

Myers was appointed to the bench in 2000 by former Gov. Jeb Bush. From 1983 until he became a judge, he was an assistant state attorney in Hillsborough where, at the peak of his career, he was chief of the felony drug division.

Contact Anna M. Phillips at aphillips@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3354. Follow @annamphillips.