John Ring Jr., a Tampa politico with ties to the mayor and members of city council, pleads not guilty in sex offender case

For years, Giovanni “Gio” Fucarino was a prominent figure in the Tampa political world. Until recently he was the board chair at the Italian Club in Ybor City, and was known to frequent political fundraisers and financially support a number of local politicians, including multiple city council members and Mayor Jane Castor.

However, Fucarino’s bombshell arrest last month revealed that the 52-year-old politico had a decades-old sex offender conviction on his record, and that his real name is actually John Ring Jr.

On March 17, officers with the Tampa Police Department raided Ring’s Ybor City office and arrested him for failure to update his “electronic mail address or internet identifiers,” stemming from a 2008 sex offender conviction. Documents show that officers also confiscated Ring’s computer and his phone during the arrest.

According to court documents obtained by Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, Ring pleaded “not guilty” on March 30. The documents also show that two search warrants were filed and approved to search Ring’s phone and computer. A week later, on March 29, State Attorney Susan Lopez filed a “request to seal” the warrant, arguing in part that authorities believed “potential evidence suggesting public corruption within the City of Tampa was located.”

Ring has since hired Tampa criminal defense attorney Anthony Rickman, who has previously represented clients in high-profile local cases like the 2018 Bayshore Boulevard car crash that left a mother and her toddler dead, and the Lithia teen who was shot and killed at a Tampa Police Officer’s home in 2019.

CL was unable to reach Ring or his attorney for comment, but will update this story if they get back to us.

Reports from Ring’s 2008 arrest said he was a Memorial Middle School teacher’s assistant when he contacted a 17-year-old girl via text message and asked for sex and pornographic photos. Ring was later found guilty of “unlawful sexual activity with a minor,” which is a second degree felony, and served three years in prison until his release in 2014.

In the years that followed, Ring worked his way into the inner circles of Tampa politics. He hosted fundraisers, bocce ball tournaments, posed for photos with the mayor and most recently, supported local campaigns for council members Joe Citro and Lynn Hurtak.

Notably, Ring was also listed as a “host” for Tampa Mayor Jane Castor’s re-election campaign launch on Dec. 7.

Hurtak faces former State Sen. Janet Cruz—the mother of the mayor’s partner, Ana Cruz—in a runoff election for a City Council District 3 seat on April 25.

In a previous statement to CL, Hurtak said she was unaware of Ring’s past, and stated that she was introduced to him through the mayor.

“I was unaware of Gio Fucarino’s alias or criminal history until yesterday. Mayor Castor introduced me to Gio after her state of the city speech on May 11th, shortly after I was appointed to city council,” said Hurtak in a statement. “Mayor Castor told me he was a good friend of hers and a valuable resource to get input from Ybor City residents and business owners, and I took her advice. He has had no role in my campaign other than being a host for a single event; similarly, he was a host for Mayor Castor’s re-election launch event. Mayor Castor regularly talks about how people deserve second chances, and I applaud her for living out those words.”

In response, City of Tampa Communications Director Adam Smith told CL that “the mayor was unaware of his record, and there are no ties to sever.” Smith also added that Castor denies introducing Hurtak to Fucarino.

“Mayor Castor has zero recollection of introducing this person to Lynn Hurtak and certainly never encouraged her to make him an advisor,” said Smith.

CL submitted public records requests for police documents and body cam footage from Ring’s arrest at the Italian Club on March 17. Our requests were denied under Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes, with the City of Tampa saying the “case is still an open investigation therefore, it is not public record.”

Calls to Tampa Police ​​Detective Brian Campagnano, who’s listed on documents related to Ring’s arrest, have not been returned.

CL’s public records request for communications between Campagnano, Smith, Mayor Castor, and Castor’s Chief of Staff John Bennett were also denied under Chapter 119.

While the circumstances surrounding Ring’s recent arrest are still unclear, questions also remain regarding how exactly the story moved through Tampa’s media landscape.

CL first reported Ring’s arrest on March 22. But according to our research, the very first online mention of Ring’s March 17 arrest shows up in the Bayside West Nextdoor page, where a brand-new, days-old account with no profile picture attempted to connect Ring to Hurtak’s campaign.

“This man was arrested for not disclosing he was a sex offender,” said Sam Alvarez in his first post. “Isn’t he Lynn Hurtak’s campaign manager? He hosted fundraisers for her and they are friends.”

In over a dozen other posts that followed, Alvarez continued to attempt to link Hurtak to Ring (without mentioning any of his other political ties) and claimed he was banned by “Lynn supporters” trying to “suppress the truth.”

On March 24, shortly after the Alvarez posts on Nextdoor, La Gaceta publisher Patrick Manteiga asserted in his “As We Heard It Column” that “Ashley Bauman, who is helping run the campaigns of Janet Cruz and Mayor Jane Castor, was shopping a story with local news reporters hoping someone would write that Fucarino was associated with City Councilwoman Lynn Hurtak’s campaign.”

One outlet that did pick up the story was Florida Politics, which published shortly after CL’s story, but with the headline, “Does Lynn Hurtak campaign have ties to a registered sex offender?”

In the post, Florida Politics publisher Peter Schorsch failed to mention Ring’s connections to other local politicians, including Castor, who he has referred to as his “favorite mayor.”

When Twitter users, including former Florida Politics staff writer Daniel Figueroa and WMNF public affairs host Tom Scherberger, called him out for not including key details in his story, Schorsch replied, “Dan and Tom – I do not share your ultra progressive view of Tampa politics and I will die on that hill to protect what has been built. I see first hand what far left pols have done to Tally and other cities and I will work to stop that.”

As the Tampa Bay Times points out, “Schorsch has faced accusations that he provides favorable or negative coverage of politicians based on whether they advertise with him. An NPR/Floodlight investigation recently linked FlaPol to Matrix, a consulting firm that allegedly flowed to money news sites which attacked critics of its clients. In the story, Schorsch said “he doesn’t observe traditional journalistic practices.”

In a text message to CL, Bauman, Managing Director in the Tampa office of Mercury public relations, said, “I don’t read La Gaceta so I wouldn’t shop a story to them.”

She did not deny shopping the story to other outlets.

“There are certainly sufficient visuals of their friendship and connection and Fucarino has introduced himself as her senior advisor to multiple people,” Bauman added. Asked to name some of those multiple people, she said, “Do your due diligence.”

Bauman also claimed that Ring called Janet Cruz and asked her not to run against Hurtak; asked to provide the time and date of the phone call, Bauman said, “Janet doesn’t even have Gio’s number saved to pull it up.”

UPDATED 04/13/23 2:46 p.m. Updated to say Matrix is a consulting firm that allegedly flowed to money news sites which attacked critics of its clients—and that Bauman got a promotion to Managing Director at Mercury.

This article appears in Apr 6-12, 2023.