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The big squeeze

It's a bumper crop for Florida's annual all-points bulletins of wild and crazy news.

By TOM ZUCCO AND CRAIG PITTMAN
Published December 29, 2005

	[Times photo illustration: James Borchuck]
	It’s a bumper crop for Florida’s annual all-points bulletins of wild and crazy news.

When Debra "I'm Too Sexy For My Cell" Lafave, the Carolina Panthers cheerleaders and the strip-joint party bus in the Bucs parking lot fail to crack the 17th annual Sour Orange list, you know it has been a very good year for absurdity.

For the past 12 months, we scoured newspapers, magazines and the Internet for all the futile, inane and moronic news stories in Florida. And as usual, we came away overloaded.

Here's the best of the best. Keep in mind that it's people like these who make Florida what it is.

Scary thought, isn't it?

The mild-mannered guy in the Belligerent Drunk Man costume was a hit at the Halloween party. But then he had a few too many, turned into his alter ego, and started mixing it up with fellow superhero the Green Lantern.

Clay County sheriff's deputies answered a disturbance call to find William A. Griffin, also known as Belligerent Drunk Man, dressed in a blue sweat suit, a belt made of beer-can pop tops and a Superman-style emblem on this chest, duking it out with Joseph Gilliam, a.k.a. the Green Lantern.

Griffin, 26, was charged with disorderly intoxication and resisting arrest.

Jill Knispel hid a rare Greenwing parrot in her bra after stealing it from a Fort Myers exotic bird store. That was her first mistake. Then, when Knispel went to trade the $2,000 parrot for a vintage car, she told the car's owner how she came to possess the bird. Mistake No. 2.

The owner of the car was friends with the man who owns the bird. Knispel, 35, was charged with grand theft.

A man reported missing from a Florida psychiatric hospital was found in North Carolina dressed like a doctor and driving a stolen ambulance with a dead deer wedged in the back. It wasn't known where Leon Holliman Jr., 37, got the deer, which had been dead for some time.

A naked man was accidentally shocked in the genitals by a Taser after he was found breaking windows in Bonita Springs and asking women to touch him inappropriately.

At the start of his anatomy and physiology class at Polk Community College, Bradley Neil Slosberg asked his students to write their names and Social Security numbers on a sign-in sheet. "We all signed it," student Amanda Bracewell said. "We figured, "He's a teacher, what is he going to do with it?' "

Glad you asked. Police said Slosberg and his girlfriend stole the identities of at least three students and filled out credit card applications in their names.

The mother of a high school senior elected "Most Whipped" by his classmates asked for a recall of Boynton Beach High's 2005 yearbooks because of photograph of her son wearing a collar and leash. School officials instead used stickers to cover the photo.

For weeks, state troopers and Broward County police had spotted the same motorcycle rider cutting through traffic at speeds of up to 140 mph. He managed to flee at least twice and almost caused wrecks involving troopers. Finally they caught him.

The culprit: a man set to take an exam to join the Florida Highway Patrol.

"We told him (not to) bother showing up," an FHP spokesman said of David Carpenter, 24. "Getting arrested is an automatic disqualifier."

A proposal to raise money for the Hospice of Southwest Florida by placing 70 large fiberglass clowns - painted by artists and sponsored by businesses - around Sarasota met with protests from the city's arts community. The dissenters said the mass-produced figurines are overly commercial and hackneyed. They also pointed out that there are children and adults who have "coulrophobia" - a fear of clowns.

"The clown phobia thing is huge, I had no idea. There are people who just plumb hate the images of clowns," said the chair of Sarasota's Public Art Committee.

Lest we forget, for decades Sarasota was the wintertime home of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, and John Ringling's name is still attached to a local museum, road and school of art.

Here's what Palm Beach County Zoning Commission chairman Kevin Foley told mobile home park residents facing eviction: "Maybe not everyone is entitled to live here."

The only problem: Foley, a developer and Republican fundraiser, doesn't live in Palm Beach County. Yet he continued to serve, illegally, on the zoning commission. He has since resigned.

Among the hundreds of arrests in Jacksonville last year were these: a driver and his passenger were charged with showing obscene material to minors after authorities determined children in surrounding vehicles could see their porn playing on a TV screen in their vehicle.

Then there was the woman who kept calling 911 to reach the handsome police officer she had seen. "I just didn't know of any other way to get in touch with (him)," she explained. "I think he's hot and I wanted to hit on him."

An employee of a Tamarac Walgreens allegedly stabbed a co-worker during an argument over who could microwave her soup first.

An uproar ensued over an unsigned memo to the GOP that extolled the political advantages of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo, which somehow wound up in the hands of a Democratic senator. Turned out the paper was written by a senior staffer working for Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla. Martinez said somehow it ended up in the pocket of his suit jacket, and he handed it to a senator from the other party without realizing what it was.

Fifteen-year-old Galen Smith is a dance enthusiast who practices three hours a day, but he won't be a part of Choctawhatchee High School's dance team as long as it's known as the Indianettes.

Smith made the team after tryouts, but balked when the Fort Walton Beach school refused to change its feminine nickname. Now he's trying to form a second team with a gender-neutral name, contending "Indianettes" is sexist and discourages boys from joining.

Daniel Andrew Wolcott, 22, was charged with felony theft and misdemeanor reckless conduct after police say he stole a 10-passenger, $7-million jet and took it on a 350-mile joy ride from Florida to Georgia.

A former minor-league baseball player who worked for the state Department of Corrections long enough to help prison guards win a softball tournament was arrested for pocketing $1,240 in salary. At first, Mark Guerra said he was hired to work in the prison library. He then changed his story and said he was hired to play softball for the Apalachee Correctional Institution.

A St. Petersburg woman was arrested after allegedly attacking a suburban Atlanta police officer with a plate of chicken wings and a 2-liter Coke bottle. Beverly Anne Campbell, 61, was also charged with inciting a riot after she tried to turn a crowd against an officer who had pulled over the car in which she was riding.

A former toll supervisor was arrested for allegedly stealing more than $43,000 in quarters, dimes and nickels at the automated toll booths of the Cape Coral Bridge.

A 3-foot, $5,000 bronze Humpty Dumpty sculpture, a commissioned artwork that adorned a beachfront home in Indian Shores, was stolen from a pillar - on a concrete wall.

RUNNING ON EMPTY.

If you're going to steal a gas station employee's car, don't come back an hour later to get a fill-up. Investigators say that bit of logic escaped Artemio Castillo and Ernesto Garcia.

Pam Pease was sweeping the parking area of the Pensacola gas station where she worked when she noticed a familiar car pull up to pump No. 7. It was her blue 1994 Ford Escort with a missing hubcap. She had reported it stolen less than an hour earlier.

Pease called police, and Castillo and Garcia were arrested a short time later.

The Majestic Oaks Homeowners Association near Ocala admitted it made a serious error when it told residents that temporarily hosting families left homeless by Hurricane Katrina would violate deed restrictions.

The customers had just started enjoying themselves at Ollie's Neighborhood Grill in Milton when the room started to get down - literally. A sinkhole, likely caused by an underground spring, sent a steady stream of water flowing beneath the floors and caused the building to sink about 6 inches in some places, said owner Andy Leach.

"This happened just in time for happy hour - unhappy hour now," Leach said.

In May, former Tallahassee mayor and Florida Democratic Party chairman Scott Maddox announced he was running for governor and touted himself as the only Democrat in the race with executive experience.

The party was then hit with a lien by the IRS for failing to pay payroll taxes while Maddox was in charge. Then it turned out the party couldn't reconcile how it spent $900,000 in donations. Then it turned out Maddox neglected to pay property taxes on a house his company owned.

Maddox dropped out of the race, but said he might run for another office, explaining, "I'm going to do whatever I can to help the Democratic Party."

Dusty Simmons, 45, had never been to prison despite 83 convictions for prostitution, drugs, robbery and bail-jumping, mostly in the Jacksonville area. But her luck ran out when she torched a local civic leader's home after she became angry that newcomers to the neighborhood were hurting her, um, business. She got 30 years in prison.

The owners of a Japanese restaurant in Orlando who claimed their newly renovated building is haunted were sued by their landlord for refusing to move in. An offer to hold an exorcism was refused, and the building remains empty.

Hurricane Dennis had an unexpected side effect when it swept through Miami. It battered radars used to spot drug-smuggling airplanes and boats.

Two employees at Florida Memorial University in Miami who had access to computer databanks were charged with accepting cash - and one with accepting sex - in exchange for changing the grades of dozens of students.

Teddy Claire Akin's wife, Felicia, called Ocala police to report that her husband had said he had done something awful to a hitchhiker. When police arrived, Akin admitted he had picked up a man and killed him when the two got into an argument over how far Akin would drive him.

Deputies searched the area where Akin said he dumped the body, but found nothing.

Akin eventually told police he was going through a divorce and had hoped the murder story would make his wife leave him. He left for jail.

Using newspaper obituaries, thieves in Jacksonville burglarized more than a dozen cars of people who were attending funerals. Before they were caught, the thieves struck at churches, funeral homes and cemeteries.

As he was leaving a Jacksonville Starbucks, Delshawn Prejean told the server, "I left your tip on the counter." When the server looked down, she saw a small amount of unwrapped marijuana. But Prejean was gone.

Of course, Prejean returned the very next day, the server recognized him, and police were called.

A robbery attempt and a gunshot wound to the leg didn't stop a Tampa pizza delivery man from making his scheduled stops. Thomas Stefanelli, 37, said dedication to his job at Hungry Howie's Pizza kept him going after a struggle with a robber left him bleeding from a bullet hole in his left thigh.

His first stop turned out to be a setup: a vacant house where the robbery attempt occurred. Then he drove to his next delivery address, dropped off the pie and called his boss to ask him to call the police while he made three more deliveries.

Hundreds of Lee County high school seniors did not receive their diplomas because their names were misspelled.

A teenager seething after an argument with his parents turned them in for allegedly trying to get him to steal appliances from a house under construction. Officers acting on a search warrant found the appliances installed in the family's Port St. Lucie kitchen, and the parents confessed to their involvement. The boy was not charged.

A school bus driver in Fort Myers drove students off their designated route so that she could join her daughter. Sounds nice, right?

Apparently, while Leslie Mae Jones was driving students home, her daughter called from a cell phone and told her she was in a fight with other teens. Jones drove to that school and allegedly left about 30 middle school students on her bus, with the engine running, to join her 13-year-old daughter in a brawl at a school for children with behavioral problems.

Jones quit her job and was charged with breach of peace.

Cornell Jackson, 31, tried to persuade a Panama City judge he was crazy and not faking mental illness at a hearing on charges he beat his girlfriend. Jackson told the judge, "I'm going to the moon. The spirits are gonna take me to the moon."

Then he dropped his pants and mooned the jury. Instead of the moon, Jackson went to prison.

A Fort Lauderdale man was arrested after he pumped five rounds from his pistol into the hood of his 1994 Chrysler LeBaron to "put my car out of its misery."

John McGivney, 64, said the car had been giving him trouble for years and had "outlived its usefulness."

A tornado that ripped through Geoffrey Crook's Palm Bay home in February didn't just tear away his roof. Authorities say it exposed his elaborate marijuana-growing operation.

Patrick Curley and nine of his Winter Springs High School friends hired a limo driver to take them to their prom because they wanted to be safe. But the students said they had to take the keys away from the limo driver after she drove through stop signs, cut off other drivers and veered onto the wrong side of the road.

The kids called police on their cell phones and the driver was charged with DUI.

A Fort Lauderdale police officer stopped a doctor for speeding on his way to deliver a baby and took him to the maternity ward in handcuffs.

A Naples woman was sentenced to 30 days in jail for killing her neighbor's chihuahua with a shotgun, telling the dog's owner she was horribly frightened by the 2-pound dog.

Tawny Peaks, a former topless dancer who was cleared of battering a Miami nightclub patron with her size 66 HH breasts, had her oversized silicone implants removed and put up for auction on eBay.

Michelle Fernandez of Tampa was driving her kids home when a man in a black Nissan started shouting at her and flailing his arms. He chased her for several miles and ultimately pulled in front of her and got out, still yelling. The motive, cops say: the Bush-Cheney sticker on Fernandez's car.

A Port St. Lucie construction worker accidentally shot himself in the eye with a nail gun, and then pulled the 21/2-inch nail out. He recovered.

A Monroe County prosecutor who had been drinking thought it would be funny to run naked across a parking lot and hop into a friend's car. He jumped into the wrong car and was arrested.

A homeless man was accused of swimming nude across Biscayne Bay in search of tennis star Anna Kournikova's waterfront residence and getting caught naked by the swimming pool of her next-door neighbor's home. Police said William Lepeska, 40, screamed, "Anna! Save me!" as he was taken away.

A 79-year-old Hallandale Beach woman received only minor injuries after she was left dangling when a drawbridge opened as she walked across it.

A Pensacola restaurant worker tied up by two robbers used his nose to dial 911 after the thieves left.

Eagle Lake Vice Mayor Dennis Pate said he wanted a new rule to prohibit spitting at council meetings after he accused former city manager Linda Weldon of spitting at him following a meeting. Weldon denied the charge.

Ed Ehlen installed the fake grass around his new $4-million waterfront home on Marco Island because he wanted to conserve water. But city officials wouldn't give him a certificate of occupancy to let him move in, saying the lawn the didn't look good. Ehlen, who paid nearly $20,000 for the turf, hired an attorney and threatened to sue.

In the meantime, Ehlen found out the city has no restrictions on paint colors. So he painted a portion of his home pink with purple and green polka dots.

- Information from Times wires and other news sources was used in this report.

[Last modified December 29, 2005, 12:09:05]