White-glove test draws disdain from sheriff's radio show opponent

By Times staff writers

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 24, 2000

Pinellas County Sheriff Everett Rice's vision of a kindler, gentler-looking force of deputies isn't shared by all. Rice prohibited his deputies from wearing black gloves last week, saying the accessories made deputies look like members of the Gestapo.

Bubba the Love Sponge Clem, deejay and candidate for sheriff, scoffed at Rice's ban on a Wednesday morning talk show.

"How about guns?" Clem said. "Let's just take them and paint them pink, and when you shoot them, little flowers come out the end."

Rice suggested that white gloves might be less threatening.

Said Clem: "If some cop pulled me over with white gloves on, I'd start laughing at him. "You going to do the dust test on my visor here?' "

OUTRAGE AT $10,000, BARGAIN AT $105: It wasn't looking good for Harold Hempstead last weekend. His criminal trial on dozens of felony burglary charges that could bring him a 600-year prison sentence was four days old. And it looked as if prosecutor Pat Siracusa was hammering home a formidable case against him.

The jury went home to enjoy a quiet weekend.

Then on Saturday night, a juror got a mysterious call at home. Someone told him that Hempstead should be convicted. In fact, the unidentified caller wanted a conviction so much, a bribe of $10,000 was offered the juror to guarantee one.

The juror immediately reported the incident and was excused from service and replaced by an alternate. And the trial continued.

On Monday, the jury convicted Hempstead anyway. And jurors did it at the bargain-basement price of $105 per person in jury pay for the five-day trial. (Less if their employer pays their salary during service.)

Circuit Judge Brandt Downey III later sentenced Hempstead to 165 years in prison. With good behavior, Hempstead could be out in 140.

TUNE IN, TURN ON: David Wasserman, a Winter Park lawyer representing an adult book store on Fourth Street S in St. Petersburg, discovered an intriguing irony while in town to urge City Council members to approve a variance for his client. With time to kill before the council was scheduled to review the matter, he went back to his hotel, the Hilton St. Petersburg, to keep tabs on the meeting on television. He discovered the hotel doesn't carry the city government channel.

"They let you watch adult movies, but they don't let you watch the politicians. I'd say they've got their priorities straight," Wasserman quipped.

BIRTHDAY BOBS: The birthday cake covered in blue, green, red and yellow icing balloons said "Happy Birthday Bob" across the top of it, a gift from the Pinellas Planning Council staff to council chairman Bob Kersteen.

"I don't know what anniversary it is of my 39th birthday," Kersteen, a St. Petersburg City Council member, announced at the end of the planning council's meeting Wednesday. (For the record: It's the 24th anniversary of Kersteen's 39th birthday.)

"Wait," said council member Bob Jackson, who celebrated his 67th birthday Monday. "That birthday cake's for you?"

In the end, the two Bobs shared the cake. The board's third Bob, Robert DiNicola, seemed a bit miffed that he received no cake for his birthday.

-- Times staff writers Edie Gross, William R. Levesque, Adam C. Smith and Christina Headrick contributed to this report.

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