The notorious, the wronged get theirs

By JAMAL THALJI, Times Staff Writer
Published December 30, 2007

A judge ordered doctors to treat cancer patient Daniel Gomez, 10, over the objections of his mom, Natasha Esteras.
	[Mike Pease | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT Year in review Special report: So long, '07! Hello, '08! [Julia Kumari Drapkin | Times] Eric Antwon "E-Love" Wilson was sentenced to life in prison for his role in a 2001 murder. [Mike Pease | Times] A murder trial ended quickly for attorney Bjorn Brunvand, left, and defendant Phillup Alan Partin. It was a mistrial. [Julia Kumari Drapkin | Times] Alfredie Steele Jr., killer of Lt. Charles "Bo" Harrison, got life instead of death. [Zach Boyden-Holmes | Times] Michael Wiley is notorious for his awful driving record and his persistence. His offenses caught up with him in August.

Judges and juries possess an awesome power: to decide the very course of one's life.

That was never more true than in Pasco County this year.

In 2007 everyone from a 10-year-old boy stricken by cancer to a 23-year-old cop killer to a 37-year-old preacher fighting for his pulpit turned to the courts to learn their fates.

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Six years after "Little" Ronnie Barber was gunned down outside the Lacoochee nightclub Rumors, one of the men charged in his death, Eric Antwon "E-Love" Wilson, remained free. Until March, that is, when a jury convicted Wilson of second-degree murder. The father of four was given a life sentence.

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Alfredie Steele Jr. was spared the harshest fate.

The most important murder trial in Pasco County history saw Steele sentenced to life - not death - for killing Pasco sheriff's Lt. Charles "Bo" Harrison, a beloved community peacemaker.

Harrison died in a hail of bullets in 2003, shot in the back while on stakeout outside Rumors.

Steele confessed, and his admissions were played for jurors in his long-awaited murder trial in April.

It was an emotionally grueling trial for Lacoochee, the close-knit hamlet where Steele was born and where Harrison served as Pasco's highest-ranking black deputy. Harrison was a friend of Steele's family.

"I didn't mean to kill Mr. BoBo," a weeping Steele told detectives in a taped 2003 interview played for jurors.

But the years had turned tears into defiance.

"First time y'all ever seen somebody convicted with no evidence," he declared to the courtroom pews after his sentencing.

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In April, Circuit Judge Linda Babb ordered doctors to treat 10-year-old Daniel Gomez with radiation and chemotherapy to prevent the return of a fast-growing cancer.

And she overruled his mother, Natasha Esteras, in doing so. The mom told the judge she wanted to decide what was best for her son and didn't trust the doctors.

But after the mother interfered with her son's treatments the judge decided in May to make her order even stricter.

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Even the black robes are not all-powerful.

In 2004, chronic pain patient Richard Paey was sentenced to 25 years in prison for illegally obtaining his own painkillers. His very last appeal was to be heard in Tallahassee by the governor and Cabinet.

They listened. In one whirlwind September day, a full pardon was granted, Gov. Charlie Crist ordered Paey returned to his Hudson home that night and his family rushed back from the capital to greet him there.

"In the immortal words of Dorothy," said Paey as he kissed wife Linda, "there's no place like home."

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The charge was misdemeanor battery, but the allegation was far more salacious: Ronald Smart was accused of improperly touching a male church member.

He had everything at stake: his reputation as a family man, as a successful executive and his position as pastor of Union Missionary Baptist Church.

It took the jury three hours in October to acquit Smart.

"His good name is everything to him," said defense attorney Christopher Frey.

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John Jason Benjamin was a captive of his own drug addiction. In 2005, he was taken captive over a $300 drug debt.

He was beaten and stabbed, his body left to burn in a gasoline-soaked SUV by two men.

Daniel Lee Parbel chose not to testify on his own behalf in November. This month, Christopher Wright chose to tell jurors his side.

Neither tactic worked. Both men were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

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This was the year Phillup Alan Partin thought he might learn his fate. He faces the death penalty for his alleged role in the 2002 murder of 16-year-old runaway Joshan Ashbrook.

But during his October trial, new blood evidence emerged that needed to be tested.

The result: a mistrial. Partin should learn his fate in 2008.

Jamal Thalji can be reached at thalji@sptimes.com or 727 869-6236.

Pasco's most famous - or infamous - defendant had to be Michael Francis Wiley. The triple amputee earned national notoriety by learning to drive with the stumps of his shoulders - but not how to do so legally.

His long history of traffic and drug offenses caught up with him at an August sentencing. He got five years and lost his driving privileges for life.

"But by the grace of God," Circuit Judge William Webb told him, "you could have killed or maimed a lot of people."

[Last modified December 29, 2007, 19:58:47]