Tampa Bay briefs

By Times staff reports

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 31, 2001

Perfect record helps student win new car

CRYSTAL RIVER -- Tamara Casey, a 17-year-old student at Lecanto High School with perfect school attendance, burst into tears Wednesday when she learned she had won a new car through a program designed to encourage attendance.

Tamara was in the parking lot at Crystal Motor Car in Crystal River with students from the other Citrus County high schools when she was named the winner. She chose an $18,000, fully equipped Chevrolet Cavalier Z-24 over a Dodge Dakota pickup truck in the Wheels for Attendance drawing.

"She just got her license two weeks ago," said Tamara's excited father, Edmond Weeks, who was on hand with Tamara's mother, Jacqulyne Weeks.

One other student in the group received a runner-up prize of $500.

Crystal Motor Car donated the vehicle for the final drawing. The Citrus County Education Foundation pays sales tax for the car.

Murder trial attracts high-profile crowd

TAMPA -- As Joaquin "Joe" Martinez's trial opened Wednesday, the role of his ex-wife became the central issue in a 1995 murder case that has attracted international attention.

The Spanish ambassador and several Spanish senators sat in court Wednesday to support Martinez, a Spanish citizen living in Tampa.

A judge sentenced Martinez to death in 1997 after a jury convicted him of killing 26-year-old Douglas Lawson, a former co-worker, and Lawson's 26-year-old girlfriend, Sherrie McCoy-Ward. But the Florida Supreme Court overturned the convictions last year, and Martinez, 30, was granted a new trial.

Wednesday, prosecutor Chris Watson told the jury that Sloane Martinez provided important information when she said her husband had confessed to killing someone. Martinez also asked her to help conceal the crime, Watson said.

But defense lawyers portrayed Mrs. Martinez as a gossip who jumped to conclusions and spread half-truths to hurt her ex-husband.

Sheriff's officials bugged her house to tape a conversation about the killings. But Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett threw out the tapes as inaudible.

Detectives could not find any fingerprints, blood, hair or fibers linking Martinez to the murder.

Prosecutors have said they will not seek the death penalty this time if they win a conviction.

Industrial fire leads to evacuation of plant

PINELLAS PARK -- Three firefighters suffered minor chemical burns Wednesday evening when a fire started in a factory that contains tanks of industrial compounds.

Authorities said no hazardous materials escaped from TSE Industries at 5260 113th Ave. N, near the Pinellas Park Square shopping center on U.S. 19.

About a dozen night-shift workers evacuated the plant when the fire broke out about 6:45 p.m., said Pinellas Park Fire Chief Ken Cramer.

The business makes glue and a variety of industrial products. Its plant has a 4,000-gallon tank containing the industrial compound toluene, a skin and respiratory irritant, Cramer said.

Two large tanks in the building contain liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen.

"One started to blister from the heat," Cramer said. "We cooled it down with a hose line."

The fire caused only minor damage.

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