Officials: Jail inmate attacked lawyer, deputy

The public defender's office requests to be withdrawn from a murder case after one of its lawyers is injured in the jail.

By TAMARA LUSH

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 8, 2000

NEW PORT RICHEY -- In less than 24 hours, authorities said, inmate Robbie Robinson attacked his lawyer and a corrections officer inside the county jail, sending both to the hospital with severe facial injuries.

Robbie Robinson, 21, awaiting trial on a first-degree murder charge, said he was having an acid flashback when he struck lawyer Michael Tewell on Thursday afternoon. It was the first time that a lawyer has been attacked in a Pasco jail, officials said. "I hit him because it was fun and it's an easy way to get rid of him," Robinson told a deputy. "I hit my attorney just one time. That's all it takes. I am an accomplished fighter."

On Friday afternoon, the 6-foot-tall, 187-pound Robinson sucker-punched Deputy William MacKenn, 44, as officers held a routine, late-afternoon head count at the New Port Richey jail, according to sheriff's officials. On May 20, he told the Times that he killed Larry Pollock, a 51-year-old advertising salesman who lived in Veterans Village.

He was arrested by Lakeland police, after, Robinson said, he stole Pollock's car and credit cards.

Pollock's body was found in his home on May 14. Pollock had picked Robinson up hitchhiking out of Tampa; Robinson said Pollock was looking for casual sex and gave him drugs.

Robinson said he pummelled Pollock to death. As he sat in a cell at the Polk County jail talking with a reporter, he pantomimed how he punched Pollock with both fists.

Robinson, who said Pollock slipped him some drugs that made him angry and violent, used a similar excuse for punching his lawyer, documents show.

He told Deputy Russell Knieriem that he was "having an acid flashback" when he hit Tewell and slammed his face into a cement floor. Robinson also said he needs to have medications to control his psychotic tendencies, according to an incident report.

Tewell, 49, suffered a broken nose, a jaw injury and an eye injury, said his boss, Public Defender Robert Dillinger. Tewell spent Thursday night at North Bay Hospital and was released Friday afternoon.

Dillinger wouldn't comment about what Tewell and Robinson were discussing when the attack happened. Tewell was talking to Robinson in the day room of the jail, and expected the conversation to last only a few minutes.

"It was nothing controversial at all," Dillinger said.

Tewell and the public defender's office have requested to be withdrawn from Robinson's case. He will now receive a court-appointed lawyer, said Dillinger. When there is a conflict of interest between a public defender and client, a private attorney is assigned to defend the client.

Sheriff's officials aren't sure what sparked the Friday afternoon rage against the deputy, MacKenn.

The corrections officer, who has worked for the county for just over a year, was taken to Community Hospital and treated for "some pretty serious facial injuries," said sheriff's spokesman, Jon Powers.

Robinson suffered a cut on his forehead when deputies worked to subdue him on Friday, and was taken to Bayonet Point Hospital.

Reports on both attacks will be forwarded to the state attorney's office. Robinson is facing charges of battery on a law enforcement officer and battery in a detention facility, said Powers. It is unclear whether Tewell will press charges against his former client.

Robinson will now become a "red dot" inmate, which means that he will wear a red uniform instead of an orange one, and deputies will treat him as a problem inmate, said Powers.

"He will obviously be segregated from the rest of the jail population," said Powers.

- Staff writer Tamara Lush is the police reporter in Pasco County. She can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6245 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 6245. Her e-mail address is lush@sptimes.com.

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