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SUZANNAH GONZALESBoating magazine profiles Detective Corey Sharpe for recovering a boat in December 2000.
CRYSTAL RIVER - For those who had trouble finding a copy of this month's Boating magazine in Citrus County stores, there may have been a local reason why:
On page 88 starts a story that spotlights an almost 3-year-old Crystal River boat theft and the detective work of Corey Sharpe, who helped crack the case.
"It's not Fortune magazine or Playgirl, but it's the best I could do," Sharpe said.
Nothing like this ever had happened to Crystal River businessman Greg Damato. It was a scary thing to have his boat stolen, he said, to have someone interfere with his life like that.
And the Kiwi Klipper - a 31-foot Sea Ray Amberjack worth $150,000 - plays a big role in the Damato family life. Damato bought it in 1996 and has been restoring it.
With it, the family has cruised on Kings Bay, snorkeled, watched fireworks, gone deep-water grouper fishing and traveled to Clearwater and the Bahamas. With it, they just relax.
So in December 2000, after a mechanic who was supposed to work on it told him it wasn't there, Damato went to Pete's Pier to check for himself. He pulled up to the empty slip and felt his heart beating.
"I'm still thinking someone's playing a joke on me," he said.
It was no joke.
John E. Darlington, a man with a lengthy arrest record who had escaped from a Mississippi jail, was taking the boat to St. Petersburg, where he had family.
Sharpe said Darlington picked the wrong place to steal a boat.
While this was by far the most expensive boat theft he has worked, Sharpe, a 15-year veteran of the Crystal River Police Department, had worked with the Coast Guard on Florida's west coast. He had connections. And a tip.
Sharpe got a call from a friend of Darlington's who gave Darlington a ride to Pete's Pier. Darlington told his friend that the boat belonged to a relative, and he was going to take it to St. Petersburg for him, Sharpe recalled.
"It ended up being the same time frame the boat was missing, so I kind of put two and two together," he said.
Shortly after, Sharpe started to dig and found out Darlington's father lived on the water in St. Petersburg. Darlington's intentions were to ultimately take the boat to Miami and sell it there, Sharpe said.
He called his Coast Guard contacts. But during a training exercise near Tierra Verde, marine deputies from the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office spotted the missing boat and stopped Darlington, who had changed the name of the vessel to Gone Again.
Darlington was arrested days after the boat was reported missing and Damato got his boat back with $30,000 in damages. He was later convicted.
Damato hung a sign outside his business thanking Sharpe for his work.
While the magazine story was nice, Sharpe said he gets a lot more satisfaction working on a good case and when he helps someone out.
The national recognition hasn't fazed him. "I still get paid the same, do the same job," Sharpe said. "It doesn't really make no difference."
- Suzannah Gonzales can be reached at 860-7312 or sgonzales@sptimes.com