Trial clerk, husband face abuse charges

By Times staff writer

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 17, 2000

DADE CITY -- Pasco County sheriff's deputies arrested a Pasco County trial clerk and her husband Friday morning, charging them with giving drugs to three teenagers, according to arrest reports.

Authorities arrested Michele Beth and Kirk Spencer Szymbroski, both 30, of Dade City, about 10 a.m. and charged each with six counts of child abuse, according to jail records. Reports state the two gave the drugs ecstasy, marijuana and alcohol to three 16-year-old girls.

Michele Szymbroski, a clerk at the Dade City courthouse, was released from the Pasco County jail in Land O'Lakes after posting $30,000 bail.

Her husband was also released Friday after posing $90,000 bail.

Investigated man commits suicide

WESLEY CHAPEL -- A man being investigated in an assault on his wife apparently committed suicide this week, days after his wife obtained a court order to keep him away from her.

According to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, a man drinking beer behind the Presto convenience store at 29741 State Road 54 late Wednesday found the body of 39-year-old Steven Allen Poulin of Zephyrhills.

Deputy Michelle Maternowski said she found a box of the sleep aid Nytol near Poulin and said the man had a plastic bag over his head with a black hose leading from the bag to a propane tank. He was pronounced dead at the scene. A check for warrants found Poulin had been investigated in a domestic battery last week.

Attacker bites off half of man's ear

CRYSTAL SPRINGS -- A 21-year-old Lakeland man told Pasco County sheriff's deputies that another man bit part of his ear off in a fight at a swimming hole Thursday.

Sean French told deputies he was at a bridge along Crystal Springs Road when he saw a man beating a boy during an argument .

French said he then saw the unidentified man punch a woman in the face and might have broken her nose.

French said he intervened and fought with the man, eventually bringing him to the ground. When the man calmed down, French said, he let him up, only to have him attack moments later.

French got away from the man, and friends drove him to Lakeland Regional Hospital, where French said he discovered the man had bitten off half his left ear.

No arrests were made, and no description of the suspect was available Friday.

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