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News & Notes

Purse thieves left an obvious trail

By Times Staff
Published March 21, 2006

Dumb criminal alert. On Sunday night, John D. Banks and Robert Justin Gorby Jr. drove to a Publix a block from their home in Seminole and snatched a 61-year-old woman's purse from her shoulder. They never even got out their Jeep Wrangler. Minutes later, Pinellas deputies noticed the Jeep - parked back at the men's home at 13760 94th Ave. N. Police found the victim's purse in a back bedroom. Banks, 39, and Gorby, 19, were charged with robbery.

CONVICTION UPHELD: Paula Gutierrez, left, has lost the appeal of her murder conviction in the death of Tampa police Officer Lois Marrero, right. The 2nd District Court of Appeal upheld the conviction. Her supporters argued she was a battered victim of boyfriend Nestor DeJesus, who shot Marrero and himself on July 6, 2001. Gutierrez was sentenced to life in prison.

The tiger, or the human ?

Let's review basic tiger safety rules. No. 1: Don't grab a tiger by the tail. No. 2: Do not put your arm in a tiger's cage, particularly if you've been drinking. A trucker named Jason Wayne Hardin, 25, of Westville apparently violated the second rule. He had taken the tiger to the Putnam County Fair and, and officials say, stuck his arm into the tiger's cage about 2:25 a.m. Sunday. His sister said Hardin had been drinking. He was treated at the hospital for severed tendons in his forearm. The exhibit was inspected and ruled safe.

He was already in prison, so what the heck? An inmate serving a 15-year sentence in Florida State Prison for manslaughter has been convicted of running an income tax scam from behind bars that defrauded the government - that's all of us taxpayers - out of more than $138,000. He recruited fellow prisoners to file fake tax returns. His wife, not in prison, would file the paperwork, take $1,000 off the top and send the rest of the money to inmates' relatives. Paul Turturro, the tax scammer, now gets an additional four-year federal sentence.

Declining the option of treatment, the mother of Sarasota murder victim Carlie Brucia was sentenced to 90 days in jail Monday after she pleaded no contest to drug and prostitution charges in Pinellas County. Susan Schorpen, 36, refused efforts by prosecutors to put her on probation and get her drug counseling, said assistant state attorney Brian Daniels. Schorpen was arrested Jan. 19 in St. Petersburg. Schorpen has been in jail since her arrest and missed the sentencing last week of her daughter's killer, Joseph Smith.

[Last modified March 21, 2006, 02:30:40]