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Wedding won't be ringing at Lake Hobbs

By Times Staff
Published December 1, 2005

LUTZ - Wedding bells have fallen silent at Lake Hobbs.

So have the Funky Chicken and rap tunes.

That's because Camelot at the Lakes, a lakefront wedding pavilion in Lutz, agreed Wednesday to a 60-day court order banning nuptials. Circuit Judge James Barton also prodded Camelot's neighbors, who sued to stop the weddings, to try mediation, said their leader, Meredith Wester.

Camelot's attorney could not be reached for comment.

After two years of complaining, Wester's group persuaded Hillsborough County in February to outlaw the weddings as a business operating in a residential zoning. So David Barnett, one of the owners, vowed to conduct them for free.

But 10 days ago, an investigator working for the neighbors signed an affidavit quoting a wedding consultant as saying weddings cost $1,850 - in cash. The neighbors filed suit the next day.

TAMPA - Authorities are pursuing adult criminal charges against a 16-year-old accused of breaking into a neighbor's home, grabbing a knife from her kitchen and raping her.

Tuesday night, sheriff's deputies moved the teen, Miguel Angel Martinez-Gama, from the Juvenile Assessment Center to the Orient Road Jail and booked him on charges of burglary and sexual battery with a deadly weapon.

The charges stem from an attack at 8 a.m. on Nov. 10, Tampa police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said.

The woman was sleeping in her home when the teen broke in through a back door and came into her bedroom armed with a knife, police said.

The woman recognized him because she had recently seen him riding his bicycle back and forth past her house and "staring," McElroy said.

"He told her, "I know you're alone in the house,"' McElroy said. "He had been watching her."

After the assault, the teen ran out the back door, McElroy said. The woman ran to a neighbor, who called 911.

Police used the woman's description to find the teen, who lives in a pink house down the street, according to detectives. They arrested him as he tried to sneak out the back door and brought him to the juvenile assessment center.

He was being held without bail with adult prisoners in the county jail Wednesday.

[Last modified December 1, 2005, 01:07:16]