Lt. Dale Couch has resigned his job at the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, just hours after a judge set his bond on charges of child molestation. Couch was arrested last Thursday after being accused of molesting two children. Couch was held on no bond over the weekend, on a courtesy hold in the Sarasota County Jail. Bond was set at $100,000 for each of the two counts of lewd and lascivious molestation of a child under age 12. The victim was 9 years old at the time of the allegations last summer and the two counts carry a potential life sentence. Bond for the third charge, a second-degree felony of lewd and lascivious molestation against a child who was then 12, was set at $7,500.
