TAMPA - An extra 6,500 fans turn out, no thanks to the matchup between the slumping Tampa Bay Lightning and the nondescript Buffalo Sabres.
It's Tampa Bay Fights Cancer Night, attorney C. Steven Yerrid's gift to the community.
Thousands of people with cancer, their relatives and their caretakers are treated to tickets, concessions and bright yellow Yerrid Foundation T-shirts. All 19,758 in the house get yellow ThunderStix, the plastic tubes that fans pound together to amp up the electricity in the arena.
Mayor Pam Iorio is here at Yerrid's invitation, and he squires her for the evening. As child after child hugs on his neck, Iorio can't help but notice they are friends with her host; he's not some rich lawyer doing obligatory charity at a distance.
For the between-periods ceremony, Yerrid introduces the mayor, who thanks him and everybody in the Tampa Bay area for giving hope to those who draw strength from it. Into the rising din of thousands of pounding yellow ThunderStix, Yerrid tosses a wave.
This is the Steve Yerrid that Steve Yerrid likes. The people's lawyer, part of the top-flight Florida legal talent that slew Big Tobacco, returning some devil money to his community.
If only life were as simple as we would have it.
* * *
From Yerrid's 39th-floor office above downtown Tampa, it's 90 miles up the Suncoast Parkway, over to U.S. 19, through Crystal River and on to the stoplight in Inglis.
On 27 wooded acres, George and Winnie White raised four kids: George and Bob, and a pair younger by more than a decade, Drew and Christi. Dad has his gun and electric business, there's a dirt-bike track Drew tractored through the woods and along the main drive, a 53-foot race-car hauler with White Motorsports on the side.
Owner-driver Drew White has qualified for races at Daytona, Talladega and more. But he hasn't conducted much racing business lately. Instead, he's poured most every fiber of his being into what might be termed his Dogging Steve Yerrid business.
It started Saturday morning Aug. 16, when Yerrid's son killed Drew's sister in a traffic accident. Five seconds before the crash, a device in Gable Yerrid's SUV recorded his speed at 78 mph.
For Drew, it's straightforward: His sister is dead; the kid was doing twice the speed limit. Do wrong, pay a price.
When he found out the 16-year-old's father is a big-name trial lawyer, Drew just knew that somehow, some way, the father would use his millions and his lawyer tricks to get his son out of paying a consequence.
He made himself a vow: No matter how many millions Yerrid has on him, no matter that Yerrid has him out-educated and outgunned, he would not let his sister's death go unpunished.
He said that Yerrid told the way things work right in the introduction to his book, When Justice Prevails, about his eight biggest wins.
"Unfortunately," Yerrid wrote, "the truth about life is that justice doesn't always prevail. Too often, the outcome of our most important struggles is influenced by money and power.
". . . The affluent have access to the best attorneys and the best resources, and as a result they also sometimes have the best chance of prevailing - regardless of whether or not that is justice."
More than four months after the accident, it has come to this: The office of Bernie McCabe, Pinellas-Pasco state attorney, has all but completed its investigation into whether Gable committed a crime. The coming announcement will sorely displease someone.
Meantime, they wait: the father, mourning the death of a stranger and brokenhearted for his son; the brother, desperate to avenge his sister's death.
The polished Steve Yerrid prefers handling things quietly; the decidedly unpolished Drew White is making all the racket he can.
* * *
Drew has qualified for ARCA and for NASCAR Busch Series races, which frequently run Saturday companion races at NASCAR tracks before the big boys run Sundays. His best finish: 15th place on June 7, 1997, at Pocono (Pa.) International Raceway.
By racing standards, his is a shoestring operation. Drivers for the million-dollar teams fly in for a race. Drew drives three days to, say, Phoenix, runs the race and hauls everything back three days to Inglis.
His cars always bear a religious message, including "Drew White In God I Trust" and the equation, "Man - God = HELL." After Christi had her baby, Drew raced with his niece's name, AERIEL, across his back bumper.
It wasn't until he lost Christi that Drew appreciated how much he and his sister paired off growing up. Younger than Drew by three years, she would pronounce which girls were right for him to date and which most definitely were not. She was proud of, and terrified by, his racing career.
In a recurring dream, Drew says, he would see himself laid out after a wreck at the track, his grieving family gathered round. The dream came true, but it was his sister laid out.
"It should have been me there, not her."
Christi, a licensed practical nurse, tended patients in their homes for Best Choice Home Health Care, a company that says "our mission is not merely home health care, but truly a work of God in touching people's lives."
Her co-workers were crazy for their "little blond dynamo," the one who always made sure everybody else was happy. Christi volunteered to come in extra that Saturday morning. She checked in by walkie-talkie with her nursing director about 8:40 and said she was about 10 minutes from her patient on Davis Islands.
About 8:45, driving her month-old Nissan Altima, Christi reached the dangerous intersection where Swann and Magnolia avenues come together at Bayshore in Tampa. She wanted to turn left across southbound Bayshore, against a no left turn sign, to join northbound traffic.
She edged out into the southbound lanes, apparently waiting for northbound traffic to clear. The right front of Gable Yerrid's southbound SUV hit flush in her door.
Doctors at Tampa General Hospital scored Christi the lowest possible on the Glasgow Coma Scale, a measure of brain injury. Neurosurgeons found no brain function.
Drew says he pulled back his sister's eyelids, shined a flashlight and could see for himself.
She was pronounced brain dead the next morning. She was 33.
Her family agreed to the surgery they said Christi would have wanted; that evening doctors took her corneas, kidneys and adrenal glands, her liver and her pancreas, her spleen and her gallbladder.
* * *
Christi White was more than Drew's sister. She was Nancy Christine White Bradley, wife and mother. She and Eric Bradley, a staff sergeant at MacDill Air Force Base, had just celebrated their 10th anniversary. Their daughter, Aeriel, was starting second grade.
A wrongful-death lawsuit on their behalf was inevitable. Bradley signed with Jim Souza, a 38-year-old solo practitioner. Bradley's supervisor is married to a woman who works for Souza.
Drew and his brother George did not consider him the lawyer for the job. "Souza didn't have any horsepower," George said. Like Drew, George is in the racing business: He develops driving controls for the disabled from NASCAR great Bobby Allison's shop in Hueytown, Ala.
"This other guy (Yerrid) is in the top 100 lawyers in the country," George said. "You need a major player to be on your side. Put it this way, would you rather have Sammy Sosa on your team, or some guy coming up from Triple A?"
George had his lawyer in Birmingham put together some big-league prospects for Bradley. Qualifications: practice outside the Tampa Bay area and have the reputation, the financial wherewithal and the guts to match Steve Yerrid.
They considered Willie Gary of Stuart, a.k.a. "the Giant Killer," who says he has won more than 150 $1-million-plus cases; and Christian Searcy of West Palm Beach, who says in 15 years his firm has won its clients more than $1-billion.
In the end it was Souza himself who got help. Yerrid moves in the "penthouse" of top Florida personal injury attorneys, Souza said. He knew he needed a player of that stature on his side. Finding someone else from the penthouse to take on Yerrid required "delicacy."
Souza landed Stuart Z. Grossman of Miami. His resume included a traffic accident case in which he asked for $10-million - and the jury gave him $37-million.
Bradley met Grossman in Souza's office and did not interview anybody else. Grossman would take charge; he and Souza would share the fee Bradley had signed up for. In other words, without costing himself a penny, Bradley had just hired himself a lawyer with exponentially more firepower.
Souza had told Drew his firm would do whatever it took to investigate the case properly, even if it meant mortgaging his home. Grossman would not sweat the expenses; his budget would be the envy of most any police agency.
The investigation would target more than Gable and the accident. Grossman said he would sue father and son alike for wrongful death, naming Steve Yerrid and Gable's mother, Vee Yerrid, under Florida's parental responsibility law.
"Whoever signed for a child to get his driver's license makes you responsible for any damages," Grossman said, noting that Gable was on Steve Yerrid's insurance policy and was driving a vehicle registered to his father.
State law makes a car a "dangerous instrumentality," which puts flipping the keys to a teenager on par with handing him a loaded gun. A parent is responsible for his child's negligence, even if that child always has been the perfect Boy Scout. When a parent already had reason not to trust his child, the law assigns more liability, called negligent entrustment.
Grossman's appearance on the scene dramatically altered the dynamics of the case. Late in September, Yerrid's side sent word: They wanted to talk settlement, now.
Make us an offer we can't refuse by Friday, Grossman answered. Otherwise, we file Monday.
* * *
In When Justice Prevails, Yerrid treats his defense of John Lerro - that an act of God, not the harbor pilot's negligence, was responsible for the Skyway Bridge disaster - and his part in the $13.6-billion tobacco settlement as bookend markers to a stellar legal career.
Here's how he described the tobacco fight:
"The legal case, which pitted the State of Florida against the entire tobacco industry, was extraordinary in the annals of American jurisprudence. It possessed the high drama that occurs only when good confronts evil. The three-year war of litigation that ensued took belief, courage, commitment, stamina, and almost every ounce of my being."
Yerrid's share of the attorney fees: $200-million.
Now a target of Grossman's developing wrongful-death case, Yerrid found himself in the awkward position of downplaying his success. He said he is not nearly as wealthy as people think.
What about the $200-million?
He said he is to be paid that money across two decades and it could be less, if the tobacco companies don't maintain profits. Yerrid made his comments early on; he chose not to be interviewed for this story.
He said he could not understand the inordinate attention to his wealth in a case that is a tragedy, no more, no less, for everyone. "This case is not about how much money I have."
* * *
To represent his son, Yerrid turned to Barry A. Cohen, a friend who, like Yerrid, makes various top-lawyers-in-America lists. Among his big wins, Cohen transformed Steve and Marlene Aisenberg from pariahs, who supposedly murdered their daughter Sabrina and faked her abduction to cover their tracks, into a couple so wronged by their government that they're entitled to millions of dollars in compensation.
Yerrid and Cohen flew to Miami to meet with Grossman about settling the not-yet-filed civil suit.
For Eric Bradley, now a single father, his mere signature could end a bruising, years-long fight before it even started. Aeriel wouldn't have to answer questions from lawyers; she wouldn't grow up with the on-again, off-again battles over how to assign a dollar value to her mother's life, or what percentage blame Christi should shoulder for the accident that took it.
There would be no trial, there would be no appeal. Financially, Aeriel would be set for life.
For Gable and Steve Yerrid, settling would eliminate the uncertainty that comes with leaving the outcome to six strangers, a risk heightened by the emotional wallop of a 7-year-old plaintiff who awoke one day and had no mother.
Settling also would short-circuit Grossman's investigation, which would have gone beyond Gable and the accident to Steve Yerrid. As well, settling might protect Gable: Prosecutors still deciding whether to charge him with a crime could use whatever Grossman might find.
The ongoing police investigation factored in another way. Insurance would not cover an accident connected to a crime. Settle now, however, and insurance would pay the coverage.
The parties met in Grossman's office Sept. 25. They made confidential the terms of the deal they ultimately struck.
Part of Drew's nightmare scenario had come true: Yerrid had dollars enough to pre-empt the civil suit. Only the criminal investigation remained.
In civil court, outcomes are measured in dollars and cents. In criminal court, where money is not supposed to matter, outcomes are measured in freedom or incarceration.
* * *
It drove Drew crazy that Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober did not immediately disqualify himself from the case.
A little more than two weeks before the accident, Ober stood in line at Borders in Tampa for his friend's When Justice Prevails book signing. Yerrid was active in Ober's re-election campaign.
The state attorney's friendship with Gable's mother goes back decades, to when he prosecuted homicides and Vee West worked as judicial assistant to Hillsborough County's chief judge.
Ober waited four weeks to disqualify himself, time Drew figures could only benefit the defense.
"Ober knew they were buds," Drew said. "Why did he wait so long?"
Ober said in an interview that he waited because he didn't have a case to withdraw from. He said police could have decided on their own that charging Gable Yerrid was not warranted and he asked to be removed promptly after detectives consulted him on whether they needed a search warrant.
Now somebody else would decide whether to prosecute. By the time the paperwork made it through the governor's office and Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe was appointed, Yerrid and Cohen had a six-week head start.
* * *
Barry Cohen and Pinellas-Pasco prosecutors, the echoes across the years were eerie. It was William A. LaTorre all over.
Memorial Day weekend 1989: near the Indian Rocks Bridge, four teenagers were killed when their 17-foot boat cut across the channel and collided with a 35-foot Cigarette boat.
At the wheel of the muscle boat, Dr. William LaTorre, a chiropractor. His attorney, Barry A. Cohen, said the accident was unavoidable, a tragedy for the teens and for LaTorre.
Aug. 16, 2003: Christi was killed when she made an improper left turn in front of an SUV that outweighed her car by more than a ton.
At the wheel of the muscle vehicle, Gable Yerrid. His attorney, Barry A. Cohen, said the accident was unavoidable, a tragedy for Christi's family and for Gable.
In LaTorre's case, Cohen accused prosecutors of bringing the charges to sate a vengeful public, which stereotyped his client as an arrogant man of privilege. Jurors not only acquitted LaTorre of every charge, some joined his celebration afterward.
Now it had fallen to Pinellas prosecutors to decide whether to charge Gable with a crime.
The case was assigned to Scott Rosenwasser, the senior member of the office's traffic homicide squad. The year before, he was one of three prosecutors statewide that Mothers Against Drunk Driving honored for excellence on impaired driving cases.
In his Dogging Steve Yerrid role, Drew pestered Rosenwasser's secretary as often as two or three times a day. When the prosecutor didn't call him back quickly enough, Drew would call McCabe's secretary and demand to be put right through.
He wanted prosecutors to know he was all over their every move and told them, straight up, he did not trust them to handle his sister's case competently.
Rosenwasser prepped Drew for the worst: Speed by itself would not be enough to charge Gable with a crime. He said that was the upshot of the case of Richard Delrio, a Tampa high school student who cut a corner and killed a woman pushing her baby stroller. The jury convicted him of vehicular homicide, but the judge overturned the verdict, saying the state had not proved recklessness.
The appeal court sided with the judge: Vehicular homicide requires reckless driving, which is "more than a mere failure to use ordinary care."
Drew didn't buy it. How could Gable do twice the speed limit, kill somebody and not be driving recklessly? Drew said that would mean he could get up on U.S. 19 outside Inglis, kill somebody doing close to 140 mph and get away with it. "That's reckless driving for sure."
Rosenwasser told him criminal charges would be a slam dunk if they had speed combined with evidence of driving under the influence. Was there such evidence? The state did not know.
The first officers to reach Gable that morning found nothing to suggest he had been drinking or using drugs; they did not have legal reason to draw his blood before paramedics took him to Tampa General with a broken leg. None of the paramedics or hospital personnel observed anything to suggest Gable was impaired. Now, to get his private medical records, including a sample of his blood, the state needed the Yerrids' permission or a court order.
Patience, Rosenwasser told Drew, patience. We'll get the blood.
Patience is not one of Drew's strong suits.
* * *
Rosenwasser kept telling Drew that Yerrid's side was about to release the medical records without objection, but the date kept getting moved back. Drew figured Rosenwasser was being played. Ten weeks after the accident, the state still did not have the blood.
Drew called Tampa General and said he wanted to pay an outside lab to DNA-test Gable's blood, to make sure nobody had sneaked in a dummy sample. "They said that wasn't possible, there wasn't any blood there, it had already been purged."
Drew assumed conspiracy and coverup, that police were protecting the son of a man of influence. He burned up the phone lines to the governor and the state attorney, demanding an investigation.
How could the blood have been lost?
Police spokesman Joe Durkin answered: It was only after detectives reinterviewed hospital staffers and learned that Gable "may have been on prescription medication" that they had legal reason to get his blood. But by then, it had been thrown away.
TGH routinely disposes of blood in seven days - a practice that Durkin said detectives were unaware of. If asked, the hospital will safeguard blood and release it upon court order. But the police did not ask. Durkin said the law precludes police from even requesting that a hospital safeguard potentially crucial evidence.
Instead of empirical blood analysis, prosecutors told Drew they would try to find people who spent time with Gable in the hours leading up to the Saturday morning accident.
On Nov. 20, Drew said, Rosenwasser told him the state had identified the house Gable had been at the night before. The owners had not been home; seven teens who supposedly were there would be called in, their statements taken. The state would have a decision on whether to charge Gable by early January.
Drew's spirits soared.
On Dec. 11, he said Rosenwasser told him all but one of the teenagers had been in; none had said anything that incriminated Gable.
Drew's spirits collapsed.
He expects the state will announce it soon: no charges. Like he figured from the start.
* * *
Drew believes God works miracles. As much as he mistrusts lawyers, especially big-shot ones, if Christi had to die, Drew said, God made no mistake in choosing the other driver. "She could have been hit by somebody without a pot to piss in, with no insurance."
He said he called Gable's home twice and left messages on the answering machine that it would help to hear him say he is sorry. Gable's mother wrote back that they would not be calling; their attorney had instructed them not to discuss the accident with anyone.
Please understand that each day our family, particularly Gable, hurts for each of you. . . . We are not insensitive and our inability to speak with you has nothing to do with our sorrow.
Sincerely,
Vee Yerrid
Drew said he left a message with Steve Yerrid's secretary Dec. 2, and Yerrid called him back.
"He said he's just trying to protect his kid," Drew recounted. "I told him, that's your job, to protect your kid. But that's my sister, my job is to seek justice.
"You're doing your job, I'm doing my job. He lost, I lost, everybody lost."
- Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.
