Briefly
By Times Staff
Published September 1, 2006
Suspect just won't give up
ST. PETERSBURG - Police say that when an officer tried to stop Joshua Selsor in a stolen Cadillac Escalade Thursday, he backed up, crashed into the officer's cruiser and sped away. A few blocks away, he crashed into another car near Fifth Avenue N and 49th Street N, police said.
Then Selsor took off running, officers said, but was caught after a car hit him on 49th Street N. Still, Selsor, police said, and had to be subdued with a Taser.
Selsor, 25, was charged with auto theft, aggravated battery on a police officer, possession of cocaine and several other charges.
One of the four passengers in the Escalade, Robert Trice Jr., 30, was arrested on cocaine possession and obstruction charges.
Defendant in killings declared fit
TAMPA - Scott Schweickert, the Illinois man accused of helping to drug two Tampa men who were later raped and killed, has been found competent to stand trial by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Schweickert, 41, was sent to a North Carolina psychiatric hospital just days before his trial was set to begin in February.
Now doctors at that hospital, which is run by the Bureau of Prisons, say he's ready for trial. But at a hearing Thursday in U.S. District Court, Schweickert's attorney, Pedro Amador, said his client is still not competent.
"He doesn't understand what he's being charged with," Amador said. "He can't help me with his defense. He has no memory of these events he's being charged with."
U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark A. Pizzo ordered an evaluation of Schweickert by a court-appointed psychiatrist. A hearing will then be scheduled to determine whether his trial should move forward.
Schweickert is charged with conspiracy and assisting in a drug-facilitated crime of violence against Michael Wachholtz and Jason Galehouse, both 26. The two men disappeared the same weekend in December 2003.
Schweickert's alleged accomplice, Steven Lorenzo, was sentenced to 200 years in prison.
Session with dean ends in arrest
TAMPA - Thomas Wayne Marshall apparently did not like the way his meeting was going Tuesday with a University of South Florida student affairs administrator.
According to campus police, he leapt over the administrator's desk and put associate dean of students Jason Spratt in a choke hold.
Marshall, 27, lives at 9746 Lake Chrise Lane in Port Richey, according to his arrest record. But on Aug. 14, he was living in a USF office building. And police say that's how the whole mess started.
A resident assistant checking on the Andros building on Aug. 14 was startled to find Marshall sleeping in one of the classrooms, said USF police Sgt. Mike Klingibiel.
Marshall told officers he was waiting for Kappa Hall to open. In the meantime, he didn't have a place to live. He'd been showering at the student services building and living in different classrooms.
USF police told Marshall to leave the building and referred him to student affairs.
That led to the confrontation with Spratt. Witnesses outside Spratt's office in Argos Room 235 called police Marshall was held in the Orient Road Jail in lieu of $2,750 bail on charges of battery on a university official, obstructing or opposing an officer, and disrupting a school function.