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Around the state

Fort Walton Beach mourns Marine killed in Iraq blast

By wire services
Published May 13, 2005

FORT WALTON BEACH - A Marine who graduated from high school just two years ago is among the latest victims of the Iraq war.

Lance Cpl. Marcus Mahdee, 20, died Monday of injuries suffered in an explosion near Al Karmah, his grandparents who raised him, Essie and Linton Harris, were told by the Defense Department.

"He was a good kid," Essie Harris said.

She said she had wanted her grandson to go into the Air Force like two of her sons, thinking the Marines would be too difficult. But Marcus wanted to be a Marine.

On the football team at Fort Walton Beach High School, Mahdee was "quiet and unassuming," coach Mike Owens said of the former wide receiver and defensive back. "Everybody liked him."

Mahdee was in the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division of the II Marine Expeditionary Force.

SANFORD - Seminole County Republican chairman Jim Stelling won a defamation suit against a former county GOP executive committee member over a letter sent to state party leaders, but he will get no damages.

Circuit Judge Clayton Simmons ruled Wednesday that a mistake in the letter saying Stelling has been married six times - it's only been five - was harmless. But he ruled that a spousal abuse claim was false and defamatory.

Stelling claimed the letter mailed by Nancy Goettman in 2003 sabotaged his bid to become chairman of the Florida Republican Party. He narrowly lost to Carole Jean Jordan in an election held days after the mailing.

He sued, and asked for $99,000 plus fees and costs.

"The lawsuit was about restoring my good name. I feel like the judge has done that. I feel vindicated," he said Wednesday.

ORLANDO - A judge on Thursday threw out all but four of 166 charges against a former NASA employee accused of falsifying inspections on the space shuttle Discovery.

Billy Thomas Thornton, 54, was accused of failing to make 83 safety inspections. NASA fired the 15-year employee in 2003.

After federal prosecutors rested their case, U.S. District Judge Gregory A. Presnell ruled they had failed to prove Thornton didn't oversee work by technicians from NASA contractor United Space Alliance, or that he committed fraud by stamping paperwork showing the work was done.

"No one in the chain of command testified how a NASA QAS (quality-assurance specialist) is supposed to do his job," Presnell said on the trial's fourth day.

The remaining charges involve whether Thornton properly inspected work done on Discovery's right wing.

Discovery is to be the first shuttle sent back into space after the fleet was grounded because of the 2003 Columbia accident, which killed seven astronauts.

MIAMI - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested a man on charges of having sex with a male child for three years and transporting pornography of the acts domestically and abroad, the agency said Thursday.

John J. Tulip, 61, of Palm Coast in northeastern Florida, was arrested Wednesday night in a motel in Brunswick, Ga. An indictment charges that Tulip transported the child within the U.S. and abroad numerous times from 2000 to 2003 to have sex with him and create pornography. The age of the child was not released.

If convicted, Tulip faces a minimum mandatory five years in prison and up to 185 years.

MIAMI - A homeless man who was stabbed to death is being remembered as a hero for stepping in to protect a restaurant owner.

Kelcy Ruiz, 32, died Monday night after intervening to defend Melida Murillo during a knife attack at her Colombian restaurant Mama Leonor. Another homeless man, Tyrone Daniel Clark, 43, is being held on charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder and armed robbery.

Ruiz, described by relatives as a crack cocaine addict who lived mainly on the streets, did occasional work for Murillo for food. Police say he died struggling with Murillo's attacker, probably saving her life.

"He may have been a street person but he was heroic," said Detective Delrish Moss, Miami police spokesman. "Even though he was a forgotten member of society, he acted better than most people who are not homeless."

[Last modified May 13, 2005, 00:56:15]