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Stand-in state attorney departs quietly from office Coe headed
By SUE CARLTON © St. Petersburg Times, published January 3, 2001 TAMPA -- For five months, Jack Rudy was Hillsborough's stealth state attorney. It began after the July suicide of Harry Lee Coe, when the governor had to pick someone to fill the position until a new state attorney was elected in November. Rudy, a relative unknown with no plans to run for the office, emerged as the temporary top prosecutor. The corporate lawyer and former federal prosecutor rarely spoke to reporters about the inner workings of the office he commanded. That was a stark contrast to Coe, who sometimes gave memorable interviews with off-the-wall quotes. It was also the mirror opposite of incoming State Attorney Mark Ober, a familiar face frequently quoted during his decades in Tampa's courthouse. Rudy's most frequent comment: "No comment." But the 62-year-old Republican earned another reputation during his brief tenure: a steady hand on the tiller of an office shaken by controversy. "He's had a good, successful run here," said Wayne Chalu, a prosecutor who was interim state attorney in the few days between Coe's death and Rudy's appointment. "The office stabilized. I think morale now is as good as it's been in the years I've been here." Coe, 68, killed himself in the face of a criminal investigation that would have revealed a serious gambling problem. Gov. Jeb Bush got plenty of advice on whom to appoint as the interim successor. Some said the governor should choose a caretaker rather than a person interested in running for election. The last thing the office needed, they said, was someone with a political agenda. Bush chose Rudy, who spoke pleasantly with reporters about his "six-month tour of duty" and then said little else. "Talk is cheap," he said recently. "What you do is reality." Rudy walked into an office under a cloud. Investigators were learning that Coe had been gambling heavily at local dog tracks, was in debt and had asked his employees for loans. They would find that he bounced checks and even dipped into campaign funds. He had broken laws he had sworn to uphold. "Given the circumstances of Harry Lee Coe's death and a lot of the rumors that circulated, I expected a lot of minefields" within the office, Rudy said. Instead, he said, he found "a good group of people trying to do the right thing." But some of them were nervous. What would the new boss bring? The answer was no wholesale hirings or firings. Just someone in charge. "He came in and quietly took the reins and gave us some stability we needed," said Robin Fuson, chief of the narcotics division. Rudy served in the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam, graduated from the Air War College in 1976 and retired in 1994 as a colonel. He was an assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington. He is also one of the founders of the Tampa law firm Bush, Ross, Gardner, Warren & Rudy. His tenure as state attorney was not without controversial cases. In September, a white dentist, Randy Puryear, was accused of shooting a black man, Jemale Wells, in a neighborhood dispute. The case had racial overtones. When the Hillsborough Sheriff's Office charged Puryear with manslaughter, some people called the charge too lenient. A state representative who said his office was flooded with calls about the case complained that his calls to Rudy went unanswered. Finally, one of Rudy's assistants called to say they wouldn't talk about an ongoing investigation. Rudy has upgraded Puryear's charge to second-degree murder. "A lot of people got irritated with (Rudy) because he wouldn't call them back and he wouldn't answer press inquiries," said Chalu. "He wanted to basically isolate himself to the facts and the law of the case and shut out any influence." Asked about his don't-talk policies, Rudy says now he did not want "the roar of the press" to figure into decisions. After a boss who personified the word "eccentric," prosecutors were hard-pressed to come up with anything quirky to describe Rudy. He is good-natured, steady, tells a good story and can make fun of his own shortcomings in golf, they offer. There was the time he indulged in a lot of peanut M&M's. Rudy has been rumored as a candidate for U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida. Predictably, he is succinct: "No one's asked me." - Sue Carlton can be reached at (813)226-3346 or carlton@sptimes. Recent coverageRudy's silence (October 6, 2000)
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