Jury Awards $1.65 to Neighbors - FOX 35 News Orlando

Jury Awards $1.65 to Neighbors

   GOODLAND, Fla. (AP) -- A southwest Florida jury awarded $1.65 million to neighbors of a man accused of taunting the neighborhood.
 
   Following a two-day trial last week, the Collier County jury agreed that 52-year-old Richard "Blinkie" Karnes had inflicted emotional distress and assaults and batteries on the five neighbors who sued him.
 
   The Naples Daily News (http://bit.ly/UTgeVO ) reports neighbors had obtained restraining orders to keep Karnes from harassing them. They say he antagonized children, cursed at them and threatened to toss them into a canal.
 
   Jurors awarded $1.1 million to Anna and Leo Popour, both 74. According to the newspaper, Karnes once sprayed Leo Popour with a chemical and threatened "to do something bad to his home."
 
   Karnes told the newspaper he denied the allegations in his answer to the lawsuit, filed in 2007.