Cory Joseph Coddington — the Boca Raton man BSO says crashed into a tree on East Hillsboro, carjacked a passerby, ditched the ride at a fast-food joint, and then got combative with deputies at a gas station on June 6 — has lawyered up and picked a fight.
Through defense attorney Russell J. Williams, Coddington filed a written plea on July 22 that does three things: he stands mute, he demands a trial by jury, and he waives formal arraignment while asking for fifteen days to file defensive motions.
First, what an arraignment even is
An arraignment is the courtroom moment where a defendant is formally read the charges against him and asked to answer them — guilty, not guilty, or no contest. It’s the official start of the adversarial part of a criminal case. Coddington’s is set for Monday, July 27 at 8:30 a.m. in Room 4750 before Judge Frank Ledee.
Except Williams already told the Court, in writing, that his client won’t be showing up to do that dance. That’s what “waiving formal arraignment” means — the defense skips the in-person reading of the charges and lets the process move straight ahead. Florida lets defendants do this precisely so nobody has to haul a jailed defendant into a courtroom just to hear a clerk recite counts everyone can already read on the docket. So the July 27 date is on the calendar, but the paperwork Williams filed on the 22nd likely turns it into a formality — the arraignment happens on paper, not at the podium.
And instead of standing there and saying “not guilty,” Coddington stands mute. That’s lawyer-speak for refusing to enter a plea out loud — at which point the Court simply enters a not-guilty plea on his behalf. It’s not a concession. It’s a posture: we’re not dignifying this, make the State prove it. Paired with the demand for a jury trial, the message is that this one isn’t headed for a quiet plea-at-arraignment resolution.
The discovery demand — watch Paragraph 10
Same day, same filing number, Williams also dropped a Notice of Discovery — the standard thirteen-paragraph demand that the State cough up everything: witness lists, statements, the arrest and booking reports, any confidential-informant material, any search-and-seizure paperwork. The one worth circling is Paragraph 10, reports of physical or mental examinations. Keep it in your back pocket. It’s the hook the pending psychiatric evaluation will hang on.
The charge count keeps shrinking
Here’s the part the press-release readers won’t catch. When BSO’s PIO first put this out, Cory Coddington “faced nine charges.” Nine — including three separate counts of Battery on Officer, Firefighter, EMT, Etc., and a Possession of More Than 10 Grams MDMA count.
Go to the Broward Clerk docket today and count again. Six. The three battery-on-officer counts are gone from the felony information. What survives:
- Carjacking Without Firearm (F1)
- Possession of More Than [10 grams] (F1)
- Aggravated Assault w/ Deadly Weapon (F3)
- Resist Officer–Obstruct w/ Violence (F3)
- Petit Theft–2nd Degree (M2)
- Leave Scene Crash Involving [damage] (TCX)
The battery counts didn’t vanish into thin air, though. A capias issued July 16, reason listed as “Change of Charge,” and the June 6 booking paperwork shows Coddington getting recommitted on Charge 5 — Battery on Fire Fighter (statute 784.07-2b) — held with NO BOND on a magistrate hold, plus a leave-scene count carrying a $5,000 bond. So the State appears to be reshuffling the deck rather than folding the hand: some counts pulled from the main information, at least one battery count re-teed through a change-of-charge capias. This is a live, moving charging picture — not a settled one.
He’s got a Palm Beach problem too
Worth remembering for context: this isn’t Coddington’s first dance with the courthouse this cycle. There’s a separate Palm Beach County matter — a Robbery by Sudden Snatching allegation out of Boca Raton (his wife’s blue iPhone 16, per the sworn Boca PD affidavit) — where the State Attorney’s Office declined to file the felony in December 2025 and kicked it down to misdemeanor charges. There’s also a domestic-violence injunction violation arrest out of Port Everglades in March 2026, aboard the Radiance of the Seas. Pattern, meet paper trail.
Where this goes
The written plea buys fifteen days for motions. The discovery demand arms the defense. And that Paragraph 10 mental-examination language lines up neatly with the court-ordered psych evaluation that’s still pending — the single biggest fork in this whole timeline. If competency proceedings open up, the plea-in-6-to-12-months math goes out the window and everyone settles in for a longer haul.
We’ve got a records request in for the body-worn camera footage of the June 6 arrest. When BSO produces — or doesn’t — you’ll read about it here.
Deerfield-beach.news will keep watching the docket.
