By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER and CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD
Published May 13, 2004
The message board was supposed to be a place where spouses of local law enforcement could go for support.
Instead, some people are using the recently created Spouse Support forum on www.leoaffairs.com to engage in stupid, insensitive pranks.
In two separate postings, someone using the monikers Hopelessly Lost and Embarrassed created fake scenarios. In one, the author posed as a wife being abused by her husband, a police officer. The other posting shared intimate details of a supposed cop husband's sexual preferences, and asked forum users whether this was "normal for police officers."
While one domestic violence investigator responded with legitimate advice to the abuse scenario, others - many of them apparently law enforcement officers - were less helpful. One person using the online name You are a sport!! replied, "It's nice to have your own punching bag. You got a sister?"
Responses to the sexual preference posting were even worse. Online poster Just do what you are told gave this gem of advice: "If you women would take care of these simple needs there would be no need for prostitutes or nude bars."
Chip DeBlock, the Tampa police detective who started leoaffairs.com as a forum for local law enforcement in 2002, deleted the insensitive postings this week. He also banned the person who posted the items about sex and spousal abuse from the message board. DeBlock said it appears the person is in Glendale, Calif.
He said he's disappointed that some people are turning a good thing into an adolescent joke.
"There's so many questions, so this was meant to be a place where they (spouses) can go," he said. "There's a lot of good that can come out of this. But by doing this with the fake postings, it takes away from the site."
By Tuesday morning, DeBlock had posted a message on the board reiterating the purpose of Spouse Support.
"This forum is intended to be a SUPPORT forum for the spouses of law enforcement officers. Some, however, have chosen to submit fictitious information which reflects poorly on LEOs (law enforcement officers)."
That's for sure.
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MEDIA ALSO-RANS: Laura McElroy, a reporter for WFTS-Ch. 28, beat out some interesting competition for the job of Tampa Police Department spokesman.
Among the 200-plus applicants from across the country were a few media locals.
Rob Spicker, also a reporter for WFTS-Ch. 28, applied. So did Cinnamon Draper, a reporter for Bay News 9. Bay News assignment editor Leann Schreiner also submitted her name, as did WTVT Fox 13 news producer Dawn Dugle and Bay News chief assignment editor Timothy Wayne Boyles.
And some people already speaking for government and law enforcement agencies apparently decided it was time for a change. Rick Morera, spokesman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, submitted an application. Also in the applicant pool were Sterling Ivey, communications director for the Florida Department of Corrections, and John Kevin Doll, spokesman for the Pasco County Sheriff's Office.
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MORE JOB-SEEKERS: Courthouse watchers will spot a number of well-known Tampa attorneys among the applicants for the circuit judge seat vacated by Judge Robert Simms' death.
One of them is Samantha Ward, 39, an assistant public defender since 1993 who has been involved in many of her office's biggest recent cases. In the last two years alone, Ward has defended a man who raped a baby, a man who killed two people with a spray of bullets outside a Tampa club, and a man who slashed the throat of another in the mangroves off the Courtney Campbell Parkway. They were all convicted, but in the last two cases, in which the state was seeking the death penalty, she helped win verdicts for life.
Also vying for the judgeship is Tracy Sheehan, a defense attorney who practiced for years with Barry Cohen and recently won headlines by representing a witness in the Jennifer Porter hit-and-run case.
Sheehan said her battle with breast cancer, which was diagnosed in November 2002, compelled her to seek office as a judge. She said she would consider running for judge if she didn't get the appointment.
"Any near-death experience causes one to reflect," said Sheehan, 44. "I decided it was time to stop chasing a buck and do something for others. It was kind of my bargain with God."
Carlos Pazos and Kenneth Whalen also want the job. Both lawyers ran unsuccessfully in 2002 for the circuit seat now occupied by Martha Cook.
The governor will decide who gets the open circuit seat. Four sitting Hillsborough County judges are gunning for it too.
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HIS HONOR: Hillsborough Judge William Fuente has won this year's Judicial Distinguished Service Award from the Florida Council on Crime and Delinquency, a nonprofit group formed to promote high legal standards.
Since his appointment to the circuit bench in 1997, Fuente has presided over more than 400 jury trials, including three death penalty cases. One of them was last year's trial of Melvin Givens, convicted of the murder of a WFLA-Ch. 8 news director. In that case, the judge let the jury deliberate until about midnight, when it emerged to recommend life in prison.
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POLITICAL TIES?: Along with everything else Circuit Judge Greg Holder has to worry about these days - notably a trial in June when he will face allegations of plagiarism - there have been grumblings about whether the courthouse crusader has gone too far in activity that might be construed as political.
Cannon 7 of the Code of Judicial Conduct forbids judges from publicly endorsing candidates for public office, or from attending political party functions, except in carefully codified circumstances.
Holder attended a victory party for Mark Ober at the Cold Storage Cafe on the 2000 night Ober won election as Hillsborough's state attorney. And in 2002, when Martha Cook was running for the circuit judge's seat she now occupies, a Cook campaign sign stood in the yard of Holder's home.
In a recent interview, Holder responded that he attended Ober's party "after the polls had closed to wish him congratulations," and added: "I don't see how that can be perceived as advocacy. The results were already in."
As for the Cook sign, Holder said his wife was behind it.
"My wife is very close to Judge Cook and my wife agreed to let Judge Cook put her sign in the yard," Holder said. "My wife has First Amendment rights and will exercise them as she sees fit."
