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Case unearths deputy's history
By GRAHAM BRINK, Times Staff Writer
TAMPA -- Driving up on a car crash on Boyette Road last year, John Schnitzler looked to see what the Hillsborough Sheriff's deputy directing traffic wanted him to do. There is little agreement about what happened next. Deputy Sharon Stempowski said she could tell from 50 feet away that Schnitzler was enraged, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. She said he tried to run her down, then veered off to take a second pass. Schnitzler told his lawyer that the deputy appeared to wave him around the accident site. He said he drove at a very slow speed and then parked in a nearby Publix when he saw her chasing his car. The deputy overreacted, Schnitzler said. But now he faces a felony charge of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer. The case didn't make sense to Steve Romine, Schnitzler's attorney. State records showed that his client had no criminal record and no traffic tickets. Schnitzler, 47, is a longtime bank officer with a solid work record. "Why, as she agreed took place, would he pull over, park the car in a space and wait for her to come over if he had just tried to kill her?" Romine said. "Why wouldn't he just speed away?" Romine began digging through Stempowski's personnel records at the Sheriff's Office. What he found made him wonder why she was hired. As a juvenile, the records showed, she spent eight months in a mental institution. When she was 17, she was accused by a police officer of using a racial slur. Later the same year, she pleaded guilty to disobeying an officer. Two weeks ago, Stempowski was arrested on DUI charges. The case against Schnitzler is still pending. Stempowski, 27, could not be reached for comment. Sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter said the incidents in Stempowski's past occurred when she was a juvenile. She received good recommendations before she was hired and passed all the physical and psychological tests. "We do take into consideration a potential deputy's background, but we also consider their age at the time," Carter said. "She looked like a good candidate, and that's why we hired her." Court documents and Stempowski's personnel file paint a picture of a troubled youth and early adulthood in Fraser, Mich. She had problems at home that led her to run away on more than one occasion. In 1993, she and some friends had a run-in with a group of black women at a sandwich shop parking lot in Fraser, according to police reports. Stempowski told the investigating officer that she wanted to fight the girls because one made an obscene gesture toward them. A Fraser police officer wrote in his report that during a follow-up interview Stempowski did not want to sign the complaint and became upset by his questions. The officer wrote, "She stated that she was not prejudiced but those n------ had started the trouble and threw things at the car." She eventually slammed the door to her house in the officer's face, the report stated. The officer concluded that Stempowski and her friends had started the problems and closed the case. In a separate incident, Stempowski was arrested that same year on a charge of disobeying a lawful command from a police officer. An officer ordered Stempowski away from a scene where he was conducting an investigation. Stempowski left, but then returned to retrieve keys she left in a vehicle at the scene. The officer arrested her when he saw her return. Stempowski pleaded guilty and paid a fine. When asked about the incident in a deposition taken in the Schnitzler case six months ago, Stempowski said it "was justified for me to disobey." When she turned 18, Stempowski joined the Air Force. After a year, she asked to get out. She said she had orders to transfer to Iceland and did not want to go because she had just met the man who would become her first husband. The Air Force granted her an honorable discharge. In 1998, the Sheriff's Office hired her as a deputy. One of her written references said she had a "quick temper," but that she was able to control it. University of Florida criminology professor Fred Shenkman said a background like Stempowski's should "raise red flags." Law enforcement agencies are often very cautious about liability issues, in particular about hiring candidates whose backgrounds could come back to haunt them in legal proceedings. Also, large agencies usually have a sizable pool of candidates to choose from, even for female candidates, who can be harder to find, he said. Records indicate Stempowski's first few years on the job went by without incident. She garnered a handful of written thank-yous from residents and formal commendations from the sheriff. In 2000, Charles L. Burch Jr. made a formal complaint against Stempowski, stemming from an incident in which she held Burch and his stepson at gunpoint. Stempowski wrongly thought they had a gun and yelled a slew of profanities at them, said Burch, who has no criminal record, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Burch said he thought she was close to shooting them. Stempowski told an internal affairs investigator that she did not use profanities at the scene. A fellow deputy, however, said he heard her use profanities. The internal affairs investigation sustained a charge of using profanities but found that she had not been untruthful. She received a letter of counseling. Her DUI arrest happened Nov. 24 at 12:44 a.m., when she registered 0.196 and 0.202 on breath tests, reports show. Drivers are presumed impaired in Florida if their blood-alcohol level is 0.08 or higher. The Sheriff's Office placed her on administrative duties and began an internal affairs investigation. "The Sheriff's Office knew about her problems," Romine said, "but they issued her a gun and a badge." -- Graham Brink can be reached at (813) 226-3365 or brink@sptimes.com .
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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