The ruling that decides many Florida sex crime trials comes before a single juror is sworn: whether the jury will hear about other accusations. I saw that play out again and again in the Major Crimes Unit, defending homicide, sex crime, and child abuse cases, and over more than 150 jury trials to verdict. Today I am the founder of The Brancato Law Firm, P.A., a Tampa criminal defense firm, where our attorneys answer a Williams rule notice with depositions, an independent investigation of the prior accuser, and a targeted motion to exclude.

What is the Williams rule in Florida?

The Williams rule is Florida’s name for the law that controls when a jury may hear about crimes or bad acts other than the one charged. The general version, in section 90.404(2)(a), admits “similar fact evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts” only when it proves a material fact such as motive, opportunity, intent, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake. The same paragraph bars that evidence when it is relevant solely to prove bad character or propensity.

The rule takes its name from Williams v. State, 110 So. 2d 654 (Fla. 1959), a rape prosecution that began in a parking lot near Webb’s City in St. Petersburg. About six weeks before the charged attack, a 16-year-old found Ralph Williams hiding in the back of her car in the same lot at about the same hour. The Florida Supreme Court held that the earlier incident was admissible because it showed a plan, helped identify Williams, and answered his expected consent defense. The court also set the limit that still applies today: evidence whose only relevance is the accused’s character or propensity stays out.

The rule carries the most weight in sex crime prosecutions, where Florida law relaxes it, which is why our Tampa sex crimes lawyer team treats a Williams rule notice as one of the most important filings in the case.

How are sex crime cases different under Florida’s Williams rule?

Sex crime cases are different because Florida law relaxes the propensity ban when the charge is child molestation or a listed sexual offense. Two paragraphs of section 90.404 create that exception, and together they cover sexual battery, lewd or lascivious offenses involving children, and several related crimes.

• Paragraph (2)(b), child molestation. When the defendant is charged with child molestation, evidence of the defendant’s other acts of child molestation “is admissible and may be considered for its bearing on any matter to which it is relevant.” The statute defines child molestation by a list of offenses committed against a person 16 years of age or younger.
• Paragraph (2)(c), sexual offenses. When the defendant is charged with a listed sexual offense, such as sexual battery under section 794.011, evidence of the defendant’s other sexual offenses is admissible on the same terms. The Legislature added this paragraph in 2011, extending the child molestation approach to sexual offenses against victims of any age.

The Florida Supreme Court explained the reach of the child molestation paragraph in McLean v. State, 934 So. 2d 1248 (Fla. 2006), a Second District case in which the State offered testimony about earlier molestation to corroborate a child’s account. The court held that paragraph (2)(b) admits other acts regardless of whether they share any similarity or occurred within the family, and upheld the statute where identity was not disputed. The same opinion warned that section 90.403 keeps the statute from opening “the door to introduction of any and all propensity evidence in sexual molestation cases.” The court also left open whether the statute is constitutional when identity is disputed, an open question that matters whenever a case turns on who committed the act.

The exposure is wide. In October 2024, 1,999 registered sex offenders lived in Hillsborough County communities, with 1,579 in Pinellas and 872 in Pasco, according to the Florida Legislature’s OPPAGA Report 24-11 (December 2024). For anyone in that group who faces a new sex charge, the prior conviction is a likely candidate for a Williams rule notice.

What must the State prove before a jury hears about another accusation?

The State must clear five safeguards before a jury hears about a collateral act in a sex crime case. The first comes from the statute’s notice provision, and the rest come from McLean and section 90.403.

1. Written notice. Under section 90.404(2)(d), the State must serve the defense, no fewer than 10 days before trial, a written statement of the other acts it intends to offer, described with the particularity required of an indictment or information. No notice is required for evidence used only to impeach or in rebuttal.
2. Clear and convincing proof. Before considering admission, the judge must find that the other act was proved by clear and convincing evidence. A rumor, a hunch, or an unsworn complaint should not meet that standard.
3. A prejudice balancing test. Under section 90.403, relevant evidence is inadmissible when the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion, misleading the jury, or needless cumulative evidence substantially outweighs its probative value. McLean told judges to weigh similarity, closeness in time, frequency, and intervening circumstances, plus any factor unique to the case.
4. No feature of the trial. The judge must keep the collateral act from becoming a feature of the trial. When necessary, the court should exclude the evidence or substantially limit how much of it the jury hears.
5. A limiting instruction. When the evidence comes in, the court must, if asked, tell jurors the limited purpose for which they may consider it. At the close of the evidence, the jury must again be told that limited purpose and that the defendant cannot be convicted of a charge not in the information.

Can an accusation that never led to charges be used against you?

Yes. A prior accusation does not need an arrest, a charge, or a conviction to qualify as Williams rule evidence, as long as the State can prove the act by clear and convincing evidence and the evidence survives the balancing test. Florida law draws one firm line, however, and it depends on how the earlier accusation ended.

In State v. Perkins, 349 So. 2d 161 (Fla. 1977), the Florida Supreme Court held that evidence of a crime for which the defendant was acquitted is not admissible in a later trial, calling it fundamentally unfair to make a defendant defend the same accusation twice. By contrast, in Holland v. State, 466 So. 2d 207 (Fla. 1985), the court refused to extend that protection to a robbery charge the State had dropped, because a nolle prosequi (a prosecutor’s decision to abandon a charge) may have nothing to do with the strength of the evidence.

What happens when propensity evidence takes over a trial?

When evidence that proves only character takes over a trial, an appellate court can reverse the conviction even without a defense objection. Two lessons follow: jurors struggle to set that evidence aside, and judges know it.

Research supports that concern. In a mock-jury study of 160 adults published in Law and Human Behavior in 1985, R. L. Wissler and M. J. Saks found that conviction rates were highest when the defendant’s prior conviction was for a crime similar to the one charged, and that jurors did not limit their use of the record as the judge’s instruction directed (NCJRS abstract). For that reason, a limiting instruction should be the last safeguard, after the judge has already screened the evidence.

Green v. State, No. 2D2024-1803 (Fla. 2d DCA Sept. 4, 2026), a Pinellas County sexual battery case, shows the danger. The State introduced a steak knife found in a recessed area of Gregory Green’s van and two sealed, unused condoms, although no evidence connected either item to the crimes. Prosecutors returned to the items through a crime scene technician and a detective, and then told jurors in closing that the knife and condoms were “odd things” they should consider. The Second District held that the items’ only possible relevance was bad character or propensity. Because defense counsel never objected, the court applied fundamental error review, and it found the error, combined with improper prosecutorial comments, required reversal of the sexual battery and battery convictions and a new trial.

Can the defense use someone else’s prior acts? Torbit v. State (2026)

Yes, but only under the general Williams rule, and only with close similarity. A July 2026 First District decision shows how narrow that path is in sex crime cases.

What happened in Torbit

Torbit v. State, No. 1D2024-1393 (Fla. 1st DCA July 29, 2026), arose from a Leon County trial for sexual battery on a victim who was physically helpless to resist. The complainant, T.B., ranged from highly intoxicated to barely conscious during a night of sexual activity in 2018 involving Logan Torbit, another man named Pasinski, and a 17-year-old girl. Pasinski, T.B., and the 17-year-old all testified for the State. Torbit’s defense was that Pasinski, not Torbit, assaulted T.B.

To support that theory, Torbit sought to introduce evidence that Pasinski allegedly sexually battered a different woman, B.B., in May 2019, more than ten months later. Officers found B.B. in a towel because Pasinski had told her to shower. Torbit argued the shower instruction matched how Pasinski and the 17-year-old had bathed T.B. on the night in question, suggesting Pasinski had learned to remove DNA. He offered it as “reverse Williams rule” evidence under paragraph (2)(c), relied on bodycam footage, and specifically disclaimed paragraph (2)(a). The trial court excluded the evidence, and the jury convicted. Torbit faced up to 30 years but received a downward departure of three years in prison followed by three years of sex offender probation.

What the First District held

The First District affirmed on two grounds:

• Paragraph (2)(c) covers only the defendant. By its terms, the paragraph admits evidence of “the defendant’s commission” of other sexual offenses, so it does not reach a collateral offense committed by someone else.
• No proffer, no review. Even if the paragraph applied, Torbit never proffered B.B.’s testimony, so the appellate court had no record to judge what she would have said or how the trial court applied the McLean factors.

Judge Treadwell concurred to make the point sharper. He wrote that paragraph (2)(c) “creates an opportunity only for the prosecution,” so there is no reverse rule to be found in its text. He also explained that Torbit never raised a due process or Confrontation Clause argument in the trial court, which left any constitutional claim unpreserved. The concurrence did not endorse a reverse rule under (2)(c), and it did not decide the constitutional question.

What the defense can still do

The defense still has the traditional reverse Williams rule under paragraph (2)(a). In State v. Savino, 567 So. 2d 892 (Fla. 1990), a defendant charged with killing his six-year-old stepson tried to show that his wife had killed her infant daughter years earlier. The Florida Supreme Court held that defense-offered similar fact evidence is judged by the same standard as the State’s, which for identity means “a close similarity of facts, a unique or ‘fingerprint’ type of information,” and it upheld the exclusion. Six weeks after Torbit, Wellons v. State, No. 4D2025-2340 (Fla. 4th DCA Sept. 9, 2026), added a useful counterweight: the Fourth District agreed that a prior shooting at the defendant’s home was too dissimilar to qualify as reverse Williams rule evidence, yet reversed a murder conviction because the same evidence was admissible for another purpose, to explain why the defendant ran.

Three lessons from these cases shape how our firm tries sex cases:

1. Choose the right paragraph. Offer third-party collateral acts under (2)(a) and build the fingerprint-level similarity Savino requires.
2. Proffer the witness. Put the collateral witness’s actual testimony on the record outside the jury’s presence, because an appellate court will not guess.
3. Raise every ground at trial. State the due process, confrontation, and right-to-present-a-defense arguments to the trial judge, and offer any alternative purpose for the evidence, as the defense did in Wellons. Our post on why your lawyer must object at trial explains why preservation decides so many appeals.

How do our attorneys fight Williams rule evidence?

Our attorneys fight Williams rule evidence by attacking the prior accusation on facts first and on law second. A collateral accuser who looks strong in a police report often looks very different after a deposition and an independent investigation.

1. Investigate the prior accuser. We depose the collateral witness, gather records and social media, interview third parties, and look for motive, delay in reporting, and contradictions.
2. Challenge the notice. We hold the State to the 10-day deadline and the particularity requirement, and we object when the notice is vague about dates, places, or acts.
3. Force the clear and convincing finding. We ask the court to hear live testimony at a pretrial hearing and to rule on the proof standard before any balancing.
4. Argue dissimilarity and remoteness. We line up the differences in age, relationship, location, manner, and timing that McLean tells judges to weigh.
5. Limit what the jury hears. If some evidence comes in, we ask the court to restrict the number of witnesses and exhibits and to keep the prosecutor from making the other act the centerpiece of closing argument.
6. Protect the record. We request limiting instructions at the moment of admission and in the final charge, and we object to every improper use so the issue survives for appeal.

Losing the pretrial hearing does not end the issue. The defense can still limit how the evidence is used at trial, object when it starts to dominate the case, and raise the ruling on appeal.

Related rules often work alongside this one. Florida’s rape shield law limits evidence of the complainant’s sexual history, the child hearsay exception controls a child’s out-of-court statements, and a motion to sever can keep unrelated counts from being tried together. When the defense is that the encounter was consensual, our guide to the consent defense explains how prior-act evidence can shape that strategy.

When should you talk to a lawyer about a prior accusation?

You should talk to a lawyer as soon as you learn that detectives are investigating a sex crime allegation, before any charge is filed if possible. The 10-day notice rule sets only the State’s minimum, and a proper investigation of a collateral accuser takes far longer.

The window before charges is often the most valuable. The State Attorney’s Office reviews every case before deciding to prosecute, and during that window our attorneys can present evidence and context directly to the assigned prosecutor. Our page on representation before charges are filed explains how that process works.

For more about our defense strategies, visit our Sex Crimes page.

Frequently asked questions

Can the State use a sex charge I was acquitted of in Florida?

No. Under State v. Perkins, evidence of a crime for which a jury acquitted you is not admissible against you in a later trial, although a charge the State simply dropped can still be offered if it meets the other requirements. The Brancato Law Firm checks the disposition of every prior case listed in a Williams rule notice and moves to exclude any acquitted conduct before trial.

How old can a prior accusation be and still come in under the Williams rule?

Florida sets no fixed cutoff, but closeness in time is one of the factors a judge must weigh under McLean, and the presence or absence of intervening circumstances matters too. Our attorneys at The Brancato Law Firm build a timeline of the prior accusation and the charged act to show the court how remote and different the two events are. Our Tampa sex crime defense attorneys use that timeline at the pretrial hearing.

Does the prosecutor have to tell my lawyer before using prior accusations at trial?

Yes. Section 90.404(2)(d) requires written notice no fewer than 10 days before trial, describing the other acts with the particularity of a charging document, though no notice is needed for impeachment or rebuttal evidence. The Brancato Law Firm reviews every notice for timing and detail and objects when it falls short.

What should I do if detectives are contacting people from my past during a sex crime investigation?

Decline to give a statement and get a lawyer involved right away, because investigators often look for other accusers before a charging decision. The Brancato Law Firm can step in at that stage through pre-file advocacy, gathering our own evidence and presenting it to the prosecutor before charges are filed.

Is the Williams rule the same as Florida’s rape shield law?

No. The Williams rule governs evidence about the accused’s other acts, while the rape shield law in section 794.022 limits evidence about the complainant’s prior sexual conduct. The Brancato Law Firm litigates both rules when a case calls for it, and our post on Florida’s rape shield law covers its exceptions.

Can a Williams rule error get a sex crime conviction reversed on appeal?

Yes. Florida appellate courts reverse when collateral or propensity evidence was wrongly admitted and the error was not harmless, as the Second District did in Green v. State in 2026. At trial, The Brancato Law Firm makes a clear record with objections, proffers, and requests for limiting instructions so that any error can be reviewed on appeal.

Talk to a Tampa sex crimes defense team now

Before you talk to detectives, or to anyone from your past, about an accusation, call The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. at (813) 727-7159. Founded by Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Rocky Brancato, our firm starts investigating collateral accusers as soon as we are retained, because the State’s Williams rule notice can arrive as late as 10 days before trial and the work to answer it takes far longer. Call us at any hour.

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A.
620 E. Twiggs Street, Suite 205, Tampa, FL 33602
(813) 727-7159
Serving Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco Counties

The Brancato Law Firm, P.A. is a Tampa-based criminal defense practice. We are not affiliated with any other Brancato-named law firms.