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A run-in, a photo, a twist of fate

After two drivers clash, one dies of an apparent heart attack and a clue to the other is left behind. Now what?

By JACOB H. FRIES
Published March 28, 2006

SEMINOLE - It was a minor accident with major fallout.

Angelo Fiorino says he didn't even know the cars had touched, but the guy in the Mercedes flashed a badge, so Fiorino pulled into a parking lot.

What happened next raises questions of right and wrong. Crime and punishment. Even life and death.

Fiorino and Thomas Campbell exchanged insurance cards. Fiorino went back to his truck to copy Campbell's insurance information. When he walked back to the Mercedes, Campbell was slumped over. Fiorino shook Campbell, who made a noise like a snore.

"The guy's drunk," he recalls thinking.

Instead of calling for help, Fiorino reached into the Mercedes, took his own insurance card and left Campbell who, it turned out, was not sleeping but dying of an apparent heart attack.

The case might have ended there, but Campbell, a retired deputy, had taken a photo of Fiorino's license plate.

Two weeks later, deputies knocked on Fiorino's door.

"I've never seen anything quite like it," said Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe, whose office is considering charging Fiorino with a crime. "A fiction writer, a novelist would have a hard time coming up with something like this."

Fiorino, 45, is a tile layer and professional drummer. He is divorced and has no children. He has never been charged with a crime and has one speeding ticket on his record, from 1998.

This is Fiorino's version of what happened about 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 14. There were no other witnesses.

He was driving his pickup north on Starkey Road. He had just left the home of a band mate and was headed home to Clearwater.

Fiorino says a Mercedes-Benz fish-tailed into his lane. He laid on his horn, and the Mercedes straightened out. As he drove past, Fiorino gave the man the finger.

Up the road, the Mercedes began to tailgate him closely, switching lanes whenever he did, Fiorino says. The driver shined a red light, like a laser pointer, into Fiorino's cab.

At Bryan Dairy Road, Fiorino stopped for a red light.

Campbell got out of his Mercedes.

Fiorino locked his doors.

Campbell, 68, a retired Pinellas County sheriff's detention deputy, pounded on Fiorino's window with one hand, held a badge in the other. He told Fiorino to pull into the parking lot.

Before the incident, Campbell had been on his way home after dining with his longtime girlfriend. In the parking lot, Fiorino says, Campbell was angry and erratic, insisting that Fiorino had sideswiped him.

No damage showed on Fiorino's truck, but Campbell's Mercedes had two 10-inch-long marks on the rear panel, Fiorino says. It wasn't dented; the marks appeared to be made by a tire.

The men exchanged insurance cards and went to their vehicles to copy them.

Fiorino walked back to the Mercedes, where Campbell had been sitting with the driver's door open, and found Campbell slumped over. Fiorino says he shook Campbell's side when he didn't respond to "Sir." Fiorino became angry.

"Dude, you put me through all this, and you're nothing but a drunk," he recalls thinking.

Fiorino saw his insurance card on the floor of Campbell's car. He grabbed it, along with the piece of paper Campbell had written on.

Fiorino got into his truck, pulled back onto Starkey Road and headed home.

As he drove, Fiorino called his band mate on a cell phone and recounted the incident. Billy Hughes, 49, told him to go back.

He did, but to the wrong parking lot.

Hughes says he told Fiorino to go home. Fiorino could talk to his neighbor, a detention deputy, the next morning.

Campbell, meanwhile, remained slumped across the seats of his car, dead from an apparent heart attack, according to McCabe.

The red light Fiorino had seen coming from Campbell's car had not been a laser, but a camera. Campbell was taking photos of Fiorino's truck and license plate.

His relatives discovered the camera when detectives released the car to them. They called one of Campbell's former colleagues at the Sheriff's Office and investigators tracked Fiorino to Clearwater.

Fiorino says he told them what had happened. The deputies said Campbell had a bad heart. (Campbell retired from the Sheriff's Office in 1999 after 20 years. When he applied for disability retirement, Campbell noted that he had "coronary artery disease.")

Fiorino figured that was it.

Then he received a letter from Campbell's son, James, 43, a real estate lawyer in California.

"In his moment of distress and need we believe (Campbell's) life was in your hands," James Campbell wrote. "Personally, I cannot see leaving a dog or a cat in distress by the side of the road, let alone a fellow human being."

The letter ended: "On a personal note, may God have mercy on your soul."

Fiorino hired a lawyer.

Campbell's son says he has many unanswered questions.

Among them: Would his father be alive today if Fiorino had acted differently?

"We don't know his exact time of death," James Campbell said of his father. "We don't know what spurred his heart attack. We don't know what would have happened if an ambulance had been called."

Campbell has not spoken with Fiorino, but he says he has serious doubts about Fiorino's account.

"From my father's dying hands, he took his insurance info out of the car," he said. "These are not the actions of a blameless, guiltless man."

As a retired detention deputy, Campbell did not have the authority to make a traffic stop, according to sheriff's officials.

Still, taking the photo made the case.

"This was sort of my dad's last detective case," his son said.

James Campbell says prosecutors have told him Fiorino's actions may fall into a legal loophole. Technically, Fiorino did exchange insurance information before leaving, Campbell says.

"It's a sad fact that society has come to the place that we have to spell out every instance so that we can prosecute someone," he said.

McCabe, the state attorney, would not discuss many details of the case but said he was waiting for the medical examiner's report before making any decisions. Toxicology tests performed on Campbell have not been completed.

Fiorino's attorney, John Trevena, has warned him he could be arrested any day, perhaps charged with leaving the scene of an accident or maybe something even more serious.

Sitting in Trevena's office recently, Fiorino said he replays the night and waits for closure.

Billy Hughes, who plays with Fiorino in the rock band the Billy Club, says he worries about Fiorino's health.

"Angelo doesn't have a malicious bone in his body," he said.

Fiorino says he had no idea Campbell was dying when he drove away. He says he didn't take back the insurance card to hide his involvement; he took it because he was worried that Campbell, whom he thought was posing as an officer, would stalk him at home.

If Fiorino could talk directly to Campbell's family, this is what he would say:

"I'm sorry what happened to your father, and I would tell them I was not responsible."

[Last modified March 28, 2006, 23:44:38]