WEST PALM BEACH - A former guard at the Florida Institute for Girls was sentenced to five years' probation after accepting a plea deal on charges of having sex with two teenage inmates.
Larry Curry would have faced up to 60 years in prison if convicted by a Palm Beach County jury on all charges. The plea bargain does not prohibit him from returning to work in a similar position.
Assistant State Attorney Cheryl Caracuzzo said she extended the plea offer partly because she wanted to protect the victims from testifying in court. Curry was one of several problem employees whose conduct prompted the State Attorney's Office to investigate Florida's only maximum-security prison for girls, in suburban West Palm Beach.
Curry, 31, was arrested in March 2002 after an 18-year-old girl said he took her into the staff bathroom and had sex with her. The girl said it was consensual.
A 14-year-old girl also claimed she had sex with Curry.
Another former Florida Institute for Girls employee, Jason Crawford, pleaded guilty in May 2002 to attempted lewd and lascivious molestation after a 15-year-old inmate said he fondled her. He received 18 months' probation.
Second Manatee shootout suspect held in New York
BRADENTON - Police in New York City arrested a second man Wednesday in a shootout in a southern Manatee County supermarket parking lot.
Raymond "Ray" Malara III, 20, picked up about 1 p.m. in a hotel near Queens, faces a murder charge, said Manatee County sheriff's spokesman Dave Bristow.
Bullets flew between two cars Friday in an Albertson's parking lot, killing Kerry Ducre, 25, and wounding Jabbarey Bryant, 20, who was hit twice in the back, and Clayton Dowling, 20, who suffered a minor wound to the hip.
The getaway car was later seized in Bradenton, about 14 miles away.
Manatee deputies arrested Carlos Alonso, 20, the night after the shooting. Alonso also faces a murder charge, Bristow said.
