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Around the state

Three to face trial together in Xbox slayings

By wire services
Published November 3, 2005

DAYTONA BEACH - Three men charged in the 2004 beating deaths of six people will stand trial together.

Circuit Judge William A. Parsons on Tuesday denied defense attorneys' motion to sever the trials of Troy Victorino, 28, and 19-year-olds Michael Salas and Jerone Hunter. Parsons also said he would postpone the trial, originally set to start Jan. 3.

The men are charged with six counts of murder and eight other felonies for the Aug. 6, 2004, baseball bat beating deaths of six friends, ages 17 to 34, in a Deltona home.

Investigators say Victorino organized the attack to retrieve an Xbox video game system he lost when he was kicked out of a different house.

A fourth defendant, Robert Anthony Cannon, 19, pleaded guilty to all charges and faces life in prison without possibility of parole after he testifies against the other three.

MIAMI - A federal judge has ordered former football star O.J. Simpson to pay more than $33,000 in attorney fees for DirecTV, two months after he was ordered to pay $25,000 in damages for pirating satellite television signals.

In a raid on Simpson's Miami home in 2001, federal agents seized illegal devices known as "bootloaders" that authorities said were used to steal television programming.

U.S. District Judge Theodore Klein ordered Simpson last week to pay $33,678.42 in attorneys fees and costs.

Simpson moved to Florida from California after he was acquitted of murder charges in the 1994 stabbing deaths of his ex-wife and her friend. A civil jury in 1997 held Simpson liable for the killings and ordered him to pay the victims' survivors $33.5-million. Much of that remains unpaid.

BOYNTON BEACH - A 14-year-old boy died after touching an apparently live power line downed by Hurricane Wilma, authorities said.

Lt. Jeffrey Katz said Boynton Beach police got an anonymous phone call Tuesday night reporting that there was a person on the ground. Emergency responders found Christopher Baker not breathing, with a line in his hand that appeared energized and was hanging off a street light pole.

Autopsy results are pending, Katz said.

Katz said the department had earlier told Florida Power & Light about the downed line, but it wasn't live at the time.

"It's a tragic example of why we work so hard before and after storms to remind people to stay away from downed electric equipment," said Bill Swank, an FPL spokesman. Wilma hit Florida as a Category 3 storm on Oct. 24. At least 26 deaths have been blamed on the storm.

[Last modified November 3, 2005, 01:06:17]