News on the go

By Times Staff Writer
Published November 12, 2007

TAMPA

She went to jail to visit, then stayed there

A St. Petersburg woman went to Orient Road Jail for visiting hours Saturday, but then ended up behind bars. Deputies charged Tomeka Dean, 29, of 3817 Seventh St. S with two counts of child neglect after she left two children inside a car in the jail parking lot, according to an arrest report. Dean told deputies she had asked someone she met in the parking lot to watch the children while she visited an inmate inside. She was listed in the Orient Road Jail with $15,000 bail Sunday.

PANAMA CITY

Boot camp trial bill nears $200,000

The bills are still coming in, but more than $196,000 has already been spent for the investigation and expert witnesses in the trial of eight former boot camp employees in the death of Martin Lee Anderson, 14. The prosecution total of $156,508 does not include salaries or attorney's fees. Thomas Andrew, a state forensic expert, billed the state $21,000 for 50 hours of record review, plus deposition and trial testimony. Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Vernard Adams billed $12,600 for his participation. Deputy Public Defender Walter Smith said the defense spent about $40,000 on its case. He said his office billed the state about $26,000, including $19,000 for sickle cell trait expert Dr. E. Randy Eichner. Private attorney Bob Sombathy, who was appointed to the case and therefore paid by the state, billed another $6,000 for Eichner's trial testimony. The private defense lawyers paid out $5,000 for a use-of-force expert who gave a deposition but did not testify at trial, plus about $1,000 each for copies of the discovery and other items. Anderson died Jan. 6, 2006, after collapsing during his first day at the now-closed military-style juvenile detention center. Jurors acquitted the drill instructors and a camp nurse of any wrongdoing.

JACKSONVILLE

Minister dies before sex trial

A minister awaiting trial on six counts of capital sexual battery has died, his attorney said. The Rev. Robert Gray, 81, the former pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville, had been hospitalized since mid-October and had a variety of health problems. Gray was arrested in May 2006 and again two months later when more charges surfaced. More than 20 women have come forward with accusations against Gray, but the statute of limitations had expired in most cases. The charges involved four women who say Gray molested them when they were children in the 1970s.

[Last modified November 12, 2007, 00:03:15]