It’s an Aquaticat-fight — and the claws, and the fins, are out.
Three women who work at a mermaid burlesque show at the Wreck Bar in Fort Lauderdale are taking a local cop to federal court, saying he stalked and harassed them at the behest of his wife, who was also a mermaid before she was fired — as well as a self-styled Celtic witch on TikTok.
Mermaid burlesque performers Whitney Fair, Janelle Smiley and Wendy Anderson filed a civil suit last year alleging that sheriff’s lieutenant Jeffrey Mellies violated their privacy when he looked up sensitive information on law enforcement databases about driver and vehicle information, known as DAVID, and the Florida Crime Information Center, known as FCIC.
Mellies allegedly used the Broward Sheriff’s Office computer system to run checks on Fair, Smiley and Anderson in 2018 when they were working with his wife, Mia, who performed as “Mermaid Mia”, at the Wreck Bar mermaid bar, in an apparent attempt to dig up dirt on them.
He and his wife are accused of smearing one of the rival mermaids on social media by calling her a drug-dealing felon, an apparent reference to a 24-year-old arrest for minor marijuana possession which, the mermaid claims, Mellies could only have known about by abusing law-enforcement databases.
Mellies’ lawyer told The Post Wednesday that the 23-year veteran of the department had done nothing wrong.
But Mellies admitted to an Internal Affairs investigator in 2021 that he ran confidential police database checks on the three women, claiming they were part of a “criminal investigation,” a transcript of his interview shows.
Asked if there were any “official” reasons to do so he responded: “Anything I do is official. I’m a police officer 24-7.” After the IA investigation, Mellies was suspended for five days without pay for misusing the DAVID system, and for “conduct unbecoming.”
Before the sanctions, he was issued with an “administrative directive” by the sheriff’s department on April 8, 2021,telling him to “cease and desist” from “harassment, annoyance, threats, telephone calls or intimidation to Whitney Fair or any party related to this matter.” The order also covered texting and social media, the document shows.
The Florida State Attorney’s office is now examining if what Mellies did was criminal. The criminal investigation into the deputy is holding up the mermaids’ case against him, with a federal judge putting their lawsuit on hold until the state attorney’s office ends the probe.
The saga started, according to interviews with Fair, Smiley and Kollin, in 2018 with a “squabble” between Fair and Mia Mellies, around the pool at Wreck Bar when they were both in their mermaid fins. “Mermaid Mia” had joined the show in 2015, two years before Fair.
The women performed in both “family friendly” shows at the Wreck Bar, as well as “burlesque” performances where the mermaids strip down to pasties and fins. The Wreck Bar claims to offer America’s only underwater burlesque.
Fair said Mia is “very captivating. She has a look. If she walks in somewhere you’re going to look at her even if she’s not your cup of tea.”
But before the dispute, “tension had been building up,” Fair, 42, told The Post. Mellies had a reputation among the other mermaids as having a strong personality and wanting others to go along with her. “It was like a heated workplace exchange.” Fair said.
In 2018, not long after the argument, Mellies was fired.
But, said Fair, Mellies and her husband then started a campaign of harassment. “Mermaid Mia” trashed fair in a series of TikTok videos about her, and cast spells and spoke about “baneful magic” on TikTok that Fair believes were directed at her and the other mermaids.
“I will drink from the skulls of my enemies!” Mia Mellies posted on Facebook, alongside a photo of herself appearing to drink from a skull.
Both Jeff and Mia Mellies alleged on social media that Fair dealt drugs, an apparent reference to her 1999 arrest involving a small amount of marijuana in Oklahoma, Fair said.
That record, which had been expunged from public records, tipped off Fair that Mellies had probably improperly used law enforcement databases to search for information about her.
Things took a turn for the worse when the Mellies moved in next door to Fair in November 2019.
Ring video footage shows the deputy appearing to climb a ladder on one side of her house and tamper with the camera. Another clip appears to show the couple at the foot of her driveway, where Mia Mellies is later heard screaming, “I hope you f–king die.”
Mia Mellies said in one TikTok video that the couple resented the cameras as they were sometimes outside “sky-clad,” a neo-Pagan term for ritual nudity.
“We are two practicing pagans, so we do ritual work and practice and celebrate holidays back there,” Mia said. “Sometimes skyclad — you know what I mean.”
Fair called the police twice about the Mellies’ alleged harassment after they moved next door.
“It’s been five years of my life and it’s really been terrifying,” Fair said. “They would talk online about how I’m a drug-dealing felon. I think she (Mia) was very upset about being let go from the show.”
Janelle Smiley told The Post that she believes Jeff Mellies started doing background checks on her six months before Whitney and Mia had their poolside altercation.
“It’s really scary,” Smiley said. “Every time I see a Broward County Sheriff’s department car I think, are they following me? Mia went on TikTok personally calling me out. I feel like once this is all over will I have to leave Florida?”
“This case is about a law enforcement officer who has abused his power and authority to investigate and harass innocent women,” the mermaids’ lawyer Gary Kollin told The Post. Fair came to Kollin for help after the BSO closed out the case, Kollin said.
Jeff Mellies and his lawyer, criminal defense attorney Stephen Melnick, told The Post they disagree with the characterization of the couple in the federal lawsuit.
“What you’ve been told so far is a distortion and lie,” an irate Jeff Mellies told The Post. “Everything is a lie and bull—t. The bottom line is that you’re going to twist this no matter what. They’re all just looking for money.”
Mellies refused to say more and abruptly hung up. He called back a few minutes later and hurled an invective at a Post reporter.
Melnick then called The Post to apologize on Mellies’ behalf. “He did not do anything wrong,” Melnick said. Melnick also said that Fair moved next door to the Mellies after the couple was already in residence.
When asked about Mellies’ alleged accessing of the DAVID records, Melnick said that there are many ways to interpret a law enforcement officer using DAVID records and it “may not have been an improper use.”
A 2022 Miami New Times story about the mermaid court battle cited what it called numerous cases of Florida police officers abusing the DAVID system. In an effort to increase the penalties for offending cops and other officials, the state legislature last year passed a bill to raise the civil fine for misusing the state’s driver database from $500 to $2,000 per instance, the outlet reported.
