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Schools

Assistant principal arrested in shooting

His girlfriend is treated for an arm injury. The administrator faces a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

By ROBIN STEIN
Published January 10, 2007

TARPON SPRINGS - A longtime Pasco County Schools administrator was arrested after his live-in girlfriend was shot in the arm early Monday morning, according to Tarpon Springs police.

Police said that Constantinos "Gus" Manticos and Theresa Hagerman, 41, had been arguing for several hours Sunday night at their home on North Florida Avenue. A little after midnight, a single bullet fired from a handgun pierced Hagerman's left arm. The wounds were not life-threatening, and she was treated at Helen Ellis Memorial Hospital and released.

When police later located Manticos at a relative's house, he denied shooting his girlfriend, claiming he had not even been at the house, Tarpon Springs police Sgt. J. Allen MacKenzie said.

Manticos remained in custody Monday afternoon at the Pinellas County Jail on a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. Bail was set at $10,000.

Officers recovered a .32-caliber Beretta semiautomatic handgun, but details about where or when it was found were not available Monday.

Monday morning was not the first time that the couple's fighting had ended with Manticos' arrest.

Pasco County sheriff's deputies charged him with disorderly intoxication in January 2002, after he refused to stop screaming at Hagerman in a parking lot next to an Applebee's restaurant on Little Road. He resolved the charges with community service.

The school district's superintendent, Heather Fiorentino, said Monday that Manticos will be placed on paid administrative leave until police provide more information about the incident.

"I think this is a really sad situation and until I have more facts, I don't want to comment," Fiorentino said. Depending on the status of the investigation, she says she might recommend the School Board take further action at its next meeting Jan. 23.

Since 2001, Manticos has been an assistant principal at the Fred K. Marchman Education Center in New Port Richey, and also served as the district's athletic director until 2002, according to Terry Rhum, director of Pasco County Schools' Employment Department.

Manticos started teaching at Cypress Elementary School in August 1972, and four years later moved into administration, Rhum said. Personnel records show that before Monday's charges, he had been disciplined only once, with a 10-day suspension without pay in the wake of his 2002 arrest.

District administrators at the time said Manticos had denied key details of the sheriff's report, but that his untarnished record and teary apology convinced them he was sincerely regretful.

[Last modified January 10, 2007, 07:43:10]