ST. PETERSBURG -- A civil rights group is suing the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, saying the team has discriminated against the black community for almost a decade by prohibiting the group from holding its annual event honoring Martin Luther King Jr. at Tropicana Field.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference wants a judge to force the Devil Rays to hand over public records that their members think will prove the team has deliberately kept them out of the stadium.

Since 1992, the SCLC has asked the city and, more recently, the Devil Rays to let the group use the downtown facility for the Festival of Bands, which takes place each year the day before Martin Luther King Day, said Sevell Brown, president of the SCLC's St. Petersburg-Pinellas chapter.

But each year, Brown said, the group has been told the stadium is not available because it is being used for another event or that building crews could not accommodate the festival.

Tampa official won't face charges in car accident

TAMPA -- A city official will not be charged with leaving the scene of an accident last month in which he hit and injured a 65-year-old Tampa woman, the State Attorney's Office said Monday.

Wayne Brookins, 56, was unavailable for comment. He has been Tampa's solid waste director since the early 1990s. The victim's family decried the decision. In a written statement released by their attorney, Ricardo Roig of Tampa, they said: "Mr. Brookins' stated reason for leaving the scene, that he was not sure he had hit something, is devoid of any credibility."

Carrollwood man charged in murder of Tampa man

TAMPA -- Four days after a decomposed body was discovered off a wooded trail in Land O'Lakes, a suspect in the killing was arrested in Tampa on Monday.

On Thursday, a man gathering firewood on state conservation land off Parkway Boulevard in Pasco County found the body under a tarp. He flagged down a Pasco County Sheriff's Deputy, and the investigation began. On Monday, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office arrested David Brian Mickler, 31, of 12101 N Dale Mabry Highway in Carrollwood and charged him with second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence. Detectives said Mickler killed Kevin Patrick O'Brien, 30, of 8415 N Armenia Ave., in his north Tampa apartment in December and drove to Pasco to dispose of the body.

Jury selection starts in trial of church elders

TAMPA -- Jury selection began Monday in the case against five Greater Ministries International church elders accused of bilking investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Church president Gerald Payne and his wife, Betty, came to court early Monday with fellow defendants Patrick Talbert, Howard Eudon Hall and David Whitfield. They are charged in what prosecutors have described as a classic Ponzi scheme.

Indicted by a federal grand jury in March 1999, they face 17 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

Tampa girl released after kidnapping in Honduras

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- A 4-year-old Tampa girl was released three days after being kidnapped in Honduras, police said Monday.

Tiffany Richards was found Sunday in a park in the town of El Progreso, 80 miles north of Tegucigalpa, the capital, police spokesman Donaldo Burquet said.

Burquet said no ransom was paid for Tiffany, the youngest daughter of Honduran Elsa Guzman and American Douglas Richards. The family came to Honduras on Nov. 23 to stay at their home here. On Thursday, three men with AK-47 rifles stormed a ranch in Rio Lindo, 100 miles north of the capital, and took the girl. A mechanic at the ranch has been arrested, Burquet said.

At the Richards' home in the Carrollwood area, a man who said he was Douglas Richards' stepfather said he could not discuss details of Tiffany's release because the family still had security concerns. The family is expected to return to Tampa in several days.

7 plead not guilty in Ecuador drug case

TAMPA -- Seven men arrested in a major drug bust off the coast of Ecuador pleaded not guilty Monday.

Six Colombians and one Mexican were trying to smuggle more than 1,600 pounds of cocaine on a speedboat when the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard caught up to them, according to federal prosecutors. The men each face federal conspiracy and cocaine possession charges. The judge ordered them held in jail without bail pending the outcome of the case.

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