Over the span of a year, Nicole Free used a debit card belonging to the Tarpon Springs Little League to fund a lavish lifestyle. Purchases at JC Penney in Ohio. Manicures and pedicures. Monster Jam Tickets. Bar tabs.
As the league’s president from 2023 to 2024, she stole roughly $23,000. She faced up to 15 years in prison.
On Friday, Pinellas Judge Joseph Bulone sentenced her to four months in county jail followed by three years of probation.
Bulone did not give a reason for the departure, but Assistant State Attorney Jack Morris had asked him to impose a sentence of one year in prison.
Free was arrested in March 2025 on a felony charge of grand theft. After she pleaded guilty in June, the prosecution and defense agreed that Free would pay the league $12,000 in restitution.
Throughout the hourlong hearing Friday, Free, 51, sat teary-eyed at the defense desk. Two rows of her family members and friends filled the gallery.
Defense attorney Jack Keith Hilliard called Free’s husband to testify.
John Free called his wife “hardworking” and a “productive member of society.”
“This is an incident or mistake that was made, but this doesn’t define who she is. She has been nothing but regretful and sorrowful since then,” John Free said. “She’s the best person I know. This is an anomaly; she shouldn’t be defined by it.”
Danielle Damalos, her boss at S&D Industrial Painting in Tarpon Springs, told the court she doesn’t think Free ever will steal again. Free has worked as the company’s secretary for 11 years.
“Her character doesn’t amount to what she’s being charged for,” she said. “She has the key to our office; she’s always had it. She’s very trustworthy.”
For the defense’s final witness, Hilliard called Free to the stand.
“I take full responsibility and would like to apologize for my actions,” she said.
What did she learn from the experience, Hilliard asked?
“Not to touch something that doesn’t belong to you,” Free said.
Free said she has four children and three grandchildren who depend on her. She suffers from “severe anxiety and depression” and has health conditions including a compromised immune system and chronic migraines, she said.
Morris called Brian Buck, the league’s former treasurer, to speak of the financial state of the organization upon Free’s exit.
“There was very little cash in the bank — less than $3,000 or so. We very quickly had to adjust the situation,” he said. “There were many questions about the integrity of the league.”
Tarpon Springs Little League serves over 100 kids between its baseball and softball teams, Buck said.
“I think the biggest impact I saw was the trust that was broken,” he said.
Jessica Newkirk, sponsorship and fundraising manager for the league, sat in the gallery next to Buck. She wrote a letter that Morris read aloud to the judge.
Because of Free’s “financial misconduct,” Buck wrote, the league has had difficulties getting donations.
“The effects of the theft continue long after the money was taken,” she wrote.
In his final argument, Hilliard said that “some of the transactions are not legitimate.”
“Some of those charges were for pizza for a group, things like that. It’s hard to identify each individual transaction,” he said. “Ms. Free took steps to try to give restitution to the Little League and put some money back in the bank account.”
He asked the judge for a sentence of probation.
After reviewing letters of support from Free’s family, Bulone announced his ruling.
Free is the second Tarpon Springs Little League president accused of stealing from the organization in the last decade.
In 2016, then-president John Farrar was arrested after police said he transferred almost $13,000 from the league’s account to his business account. It’s unclear how Farrar’s case was resolved.
