Oh, sure, there was Sept. 11, and anthrax in Boca Raton, and accountants examining Presidential ballots with a magnifying glass, and a billion-dollar state budget shortfall, and sharks everywhere, and one of the worst droughts in modern times, and the Olympics aren't coming, and so forth. But what was really happening in our beloved state this year? Herewith is all the disturbing news you probably missed:
First, the Good News
A motorist seriously choking on a hamburger inadvertently gave himself a life-saving Heimlich maneuver when he accidentally smashed into a utility pole and was thrust against the steering wheel (Leesburg, June).
And the Mixed News
A 39-year-old woman, who had just killed one son, failed to succeed in killing another one because he blocked the bullet with the Bible he just happened to be carrying (North Fort Myers, September).
Well, That's About It.
Now for the Rest of the News
In August, Naples City Councilman Fred Tarrant demanded that local artist Ted Lay's "Famous Tongue Mona Al Monica" painting (side-by-side impressions of Mona Lisa, Albert Einstein and Monica Lewinsky sticking out their tongues) be removed from its place at a municipal art center because he thought Lewinsky's "tongue" too much resembled a penis (which Lay denied). According to a Naples Daily News report, Tarrant is in fact blind but said various advisors assured him that the tongue is a penis.
In March, authorities in South Florida warned of a proliferation of Tupperware-style "parties" in which people who are not certified health professionals travel home to home to offer illegal silicone injections to those who want rounder buttocks. The advisory was prompted by the death of a 53-year-old woman who had received a series of 36 injections from a man whose day job was house cleaner (Miramar).
The Carl Hiaasen/Elmore Leonard Rip 'n' Write Section
In August, an appeals court heard arguments on a third contempt of court order by judges against a Palm Beach lawn-care company owned by a cast of characters including superstar New York lawyer David Boies, who has been supplying legal firepower, unsuccessfully, against a rival firm (whose owner is representing himself in court). Boies' company, Nical, alleged that rival Scott Lewis broke a 1996 contract, and the sides have struggled since then, with another Nical owner apparently violating multiple court orders. Boies' co-owners are a convicted top-drawer Miami marijuana smuggler and the frisky ex-wife of a Guatemalan textile manufacturer (a woman described by one California clothing buyer as a "sex nazi" because she used him sexually in exchange for overlooking various invoices).
Broward County prosecutors announced in September that no charges would be filed in the notorious 1997 land-deal vote by the county commission. Developer Michael Swerdlow had wanted to sell 270 acres east of Fort Lauderdale International Airport, which was appraised at $24-million, then bogus-appraised at $68-million, then offered by Swerdlow to the county for $120-million, which the county commission accepted. Prosecutors said there was no crime, just your run-of-the-mill bad South Florida deal.
12 Magic Moments of 2001
Jeb Bush cries when recounting the abuse that his African-American staff members receive when defending his "One Florida" program (February).
Referees eject rowdy front-row spectator Jimmy Buffett from a raucous Miami Heat-New York Knicks playoff game on Feb. 4.
Grady Carter, 70, gets a $1-million check from Brown & Williamson, becoming the first ex-smoker ever to collect a dime based on a jury's verdict against a tobacco company (Jacksonville, March).
The Florida House of Representatives affords a standing ovation for their distinguished gallery visitor, Dr. Ruth Westheimer (March).
After intensive negotiations with the Teamsters, Disney World agrees to allow its mascot actors to wash their own costume underwear (June).
After expressing outrage in July upon learning in the press that the police had contracted to use face-recognition software, members of the Tampa City Council are informed that they themselves voted the contract through unanimously eight weeks earlier.
A site is finally found, in an abandoned Jupiter bank building, for the long-awaited Burt Reynolds Museum (August).
Florida is voted the most disaster-prone state in the Union (by the American Meteorological Association, that is) (January).
In his Miami road-rage assault trial in October, O. J. Simpson concocts a fingerprint explanation to rival the "pitching golf shots from the sandbox at 10 p.m. to the headlights of the Bronco" explanation, with a similar, serendipitous result.
A fire station in Tampa is cited for violating the fire code (April).
A skydiver at Daytona's Bike Week is blown off-course and lands in a vat with two female coleslaw wrestlers (March).
Least Justifiable Homicides
A 56-year-old man who lived in unit 712 of an apartment building was shot to death, allegedly by the resident in 512, who had once too often endured the overflow bathtub in 712. The resident of 612, who usually mediated the men's disputes, was not home that day (Miami Beach, February).
A 48-year-old man was shot to death, allegedly by his wife, after a fight over the remote control (Orlando, April).
Great Moments in Scholarship
A Florida State University scientist hired by the wood-preserving industry found last year that the arsenic levels in wood were at appropriately low levels, and thus he endorsed the industry's position that no new regulations were needed. However, in April 2001, he admitted that he had miscalculated the levels, which are actually about 1,000 times greater than he thought. Fortunately, though, he still didn't think any new regulations were needed.
Wedding-Bell Blues
Bride Kathy Naylor, 28, was arrested after taking time out from her wedding night to follow home a guest from her reception and reignite an earlier brawl (Crystal River, August). And a 36-year-old bride was charged with battery for smashing the groom with the wedding cake during the reception and then roughing him up as he lay on the floor (Stuart, March).
A Little Extreme, Even for Florida
A bar and package store in Perry was exposed for explicitly segregating its customers by race just as if the last 40 years had never happened (February).
F. Lee Bailey was declared by the Florida Supreme Court as too sleazy to practice even here.
Quality Health Care nursing home (North Port) was exonerated by state regulators in the case of an 87-year-old woman, who died from the trauma of being bitten by 1,600 fire ants in her bed (July).
A poodle was inadvertently but officially registered to vote in Palm Beach County, with a card issued, signed by Theresa LePore, supervisor of elections (July).
Mothers in Casselberry and Stuart were arrested after locking their adolescent kids in unventilated self-storage lockers for hours at a time in August while they attended to their business (or in the case of the Stuart woman, bowling with her boyfriend).
A Boca Raton firm, NCCI Holdings, became America's first reported post-attack-patriotism stick-in-the-mud when, on Sept. 14, it banned U.S. flags from workers' desks.
A St. Petersburg rape victim, still in a hospital gown and being examined, was ordered to jail when police discovered three minor misdemeanor warrants against her (June).
Tyranny of One
The University of South Florida agreed in July to pay $25,000 to a former art student whose father complained to the school about an optional class discussion on controversy in art. The woman said she felt sexually harassed by an exhibited photograph of a naked white woman hugging a naked black man, which led the school to discipline the instructor's assistant who supplied the photo, a move which provoked outrage from virtually all the other 250 students in the class.
Joy of Florida
Pasco County jail inmates complained in June about having to wear the new black-and-white-striped uniforms on outside work details, with one man protesting, "It makes us look like convicts."
Sarasota County sheriff's deputy Tim Czachur drove his cruiser to an often-used spot beside South Oxford Drive in Englewood in July to take a turn watching for speeders. In fact, it was too-often-used: The patrol car immediately rolled into a neatly-created hole about 5 feet by 5 feet, which was disguised by palm fronds and oak branches that someone had laid across it. Said Czachur, "Someone must have been ticketed and got upset."
At the International Beauty Show in New York City in April, Fort Myers hairdresser Valentino LoSauro showed off his set of finger scissors, "Clawz," which he has been using in his salon and now hopes to bring to market worldwide. The devices attach to the fingers of one or both hands to allow independent cutting from each finger as the wearer runs his hand through hair, greatly reducing the time for a haircut.
Tampa Bay's Supreme Court of Shlock
Circuit Judge Robert Bonanno (Tampa): had an affair with a court employee and then was caught inside the closed office of an out-of-town colleague, handling papers on a desk.
Circuit Judge Cynthia Holloway (Tampa): accused of conflicts of interest and lying to authorities investigating those charges.
Former Appeals Court Judge David F. Patterson (Lakeland): A month after retiring because of a drinking problem, Patterson had to be Baker-Acted after allegedly making violent threats against his wife.
Circuit Judge Matt McMillan (Manatee): kicked off the bench in August by the Florida Supreme Court for his poor-taste election campaign (unfair attacks on the incumbent; promising to favor the police when deciding cases).
Circuit Judge Florence Foster (Tampa): revealed by the St. Petersburg Times to have been, for over a year, allowing her brother-in-law to represent drug defendants in her courtroom.
Circuit Judge Susan Schaeffer (Pinellas-Pasco): revealed by The Tampa Tribune to have set up a soft, three-week job for disgraced former judge Bonnie Newton for the apparently sole purpose of allowing Newton to qualify for a $24,000 annual pension.
And for Chief Justice of the Schlock Court, Circuit Judge Charles Cope (Pinellas-Pasco): In April, police in Carmel, Calif., arrested Cope (who was there for a judicial conference) after he allegedly (at 1 a.m.) opened the locked hotel room of two women he had met earlier in the day and tried to enter. Cope, who was Pinellas-Pasco's family-law chief at the time, said the whole thing was a "huge misunderstanding," but the adult woman and her mother said they believe Cope found or took their key during their earlier conversation.
Thinning the Herd
Reid S. Torgerson lost the last Russian roulette game of his career (.38 revolver) (Delray Beach, October). A 13-year-old girl was killed "surfing" atop a speeding SUV driven by a 16-year-old boy (Pensacola, May). A 19-year-old man was killed as he ran a red light while attempting to flee a minor traffic accident that he caused (Largo, April), and a 48-year-old man fleeing a hit-and-run accident was killed when he accidentally rammed a flatbed truck (Holly Hill, September). In a road-rage chase that ended when the pursuing car wrapped itself around a tree, its driver and the front-seat passenger who had egged him on were killed. The driver being chased, who stopped twice to apologize but was threatened and cursed and so kept on driving, was unharmed (Clearwater, August). And amid the revelry of this year's Spring Break were two deaths from falls or incompetent leaps (a Florida man, 20, climbing balcony to balcony in Daytona Beach, and a New Jersey man, 19, leaping from a balcony into a swimming pool but missing, in Fort Lauderdale).
The Weirdo-Floridian Community
Two former faculty members at the USF medical school settled their religious discrimination lawsuits in August, lawsuits based on the faith-based management of their former department chairman, Dr. James Rowsey (an eye surgeon of some note). Allegedly, Rowsey had denied researchers equipment, based on spiritual instructions from his wife, whom he considers a prophet, and then pressured complaining faculty members to ask God for increases in the department's budget.
Gainesville police charged James Anthony Harmon, 39, with fraud in January after finding his house cluttered from floor to ceiling with $200,000 worth of unopened cartons of merchandise he ordered from Home Shopping Network. Apparently, Harmon did not use the merchandise; he just liked to shop. The Gainesville Sun reported that neighbors said he is "a loner who often kept to himself."
Courtroom World
In July, the parents of the late University of Florida student Matthew Kaminer filed a lawsuit against Eckerd Drug and the manufacturer of the powerful painkiller OxyContin, after Kaminer died of an overdose of the drug that a friend of his had stolen from an Eckerd store. The parents claim that if Eckerd had guarded its supply of OxyContin better, their son never would have been in a position to succumb to the temptation to ingest it.
In March, Charles Douglas Stephens Jr., was acquitted in Panama City after only 15 minutes' deliberation, apparently because the jury found persuasive his indignant denial that he would ever have stooped to robbing a convenience store. According to police testimony, Stephens admitted that he had murdered before and would murder again if circumstances warranted and thus would never be "stupid enough" to leave the Circle K witnesses alive (as the man who committed that particular robbery did).
Two men filed a lawsuit in Fort Pierce in October, hoping to receive $1.1-trillion from Osama bin Laden because his public threats have scared them.
Strip-club customer Jonathan Fisher of Worcester, Mass., who volunteered to assist dancer Sana Fey while watching her perform in 1999 at the Adult Depot in Lake Worth, filed a lawsuit against her and the club in March 2001. According to Fisher, Ms. Fey gripped his head in a leglock and yanked it, leaving him with possibly permanent ringing in his ears.
Best Names of the Year
The former executive director of the Make-a-Wish Foundation in Tampa pleaded no contest in March to grand theft for misappropriating almost $20,000 that had been donated for dying children. After serving her three-month jail sentence, she filed a lawsuit against the Foundation, demanding back pay, claiming that she should have been allowed to keep her job. Her first name is Delores, and she uses the surname of her husband (the lawyer who filed her lawsuit), Jack W. Crooks.
In a bold move, the organizers of Orlando's Gay Days this summer named as their public relations spokesman a man named Doug Swallow.
Yikes. Just, Yikes.
On March 22, a 59-year-old man was accidentally run over and torn in half in West Pensacola by a slow-moving tractor-trailer at a gas station. According to a Pensacola News Journal report, the torso portion continued to show signs of life, leading paramedics to airlift it to the West Florida Regional Medical Center, where the man was not pronounced dead until more than three hours later. Said a truck driver-witness, "I couldn't believe it. If you're cut in half, wouldn't you die instantly?"
More People No Longer with Us
An accomplished Florida marine biologist, on holiday in August at the Rio Grande Gorge (Taos, N.M.), fell in and died after climbing over a safety barrier to get a better look.
A 31-year-old employee of a boat-rental company was killed in November in Deerfield Beach while testing a jet-ski-type device at 55 mph, when a duck crashed into his head.
Family Values
According to an August profile in the St. Petersburg Times, local resident Tom Cagley, 66, has chronicled the life of his 21-year-old son Nick by writing about him in a journal every day since he found out his wife was pregnant (8,019 consecutive days, in 62 spiral notebooks, totaling 7,412 pages and, he estimated, 3-million words). The elder Cagley said had realized that he had not spent enough time with his five children from an earlier marriage and wanted to make sure that didn't happen with Tom (who, while generally appreciative of Dad's effort, admitted that he has not been very interested in reading the journals).
Justice, Florida-Style
Until September, prosecutors and six Tampa-area juries over an eight-year period had found Oscar Ray Bolin to be a vicious murderer (three victims), but he still hadn't been convicted. He was granted new trials each time (and then new trials on those new trials) because damaging testimony from his ex-wife had been admitted every time, and appeals courts said, every time, that Bolin had not waived spousal immunity. (And that was even though he had written police a six-page letter reading in part, "If there's anything that you really want to know about, then you'll haft (sic) to ask Cheryl Jo (the ex-wife), because she knew just about everything that I was ever a part of (and) she knew about all 3 of these homicide (sic) which I'm charged with.") But in September, he was convicted of one of the murders again, finally without the ex-wife's testimony.
DUI-manslaughter convict Casey Bloom got off pretty easy (4,350 hours of community service), but the Department of Corrections released him after he had made only two public appearances under the sentence. They reasoned that since those two events had been taped and then broadcast thousands of times, Bloom was all done (Pensacola, August).
A sheriff's deputy and a law-enforcement intern in Gainesville were reprimanded in March because they were not acting professionally during a drug bust in which 16 marijuana plants were recovered, along with 160 grams of dope and various drug paraphernalia. Superiors caught the two, in the middle of the raid, seated at a table in the apartment, playing Scrabble with the suspect's game.
Smooth Reactions
After an out-of-control William Garret Eamigh, 32, allegedly threatened his brother and in-laws in August, police were called to his home in Anthony (just north of Ocala) to subdue him, but their presence just infuriated him more, causing him to play his trump card: He ripped out his feeding tube (from an undisclosed condition) and allegedly sprayed deputies with whatever comes out of a feeding tube when you yank it out of your stomach.
Least Competent Criminal
Two months before Sept. 11, Tampa International Airport security guards busted illegal Peruvian immigrant Maria Riano after she had approached a Continental Airlines counter to buy a ticket to Newark, dragging eight bulging duffel bags (which were found to contain about $25,000 worth of upscale shoplifted clothes). Apparently new at the smuggling game, Riano froze up on the standard question, "Did you pack your own bags?" When she snapped back, "Why do you need to know that?" airport security hauled her away.
And This Year's Nominee to the Hall of Fame
State Rep. Nancy Argenziano of Crystal River, upset that inadequate nursing-home protection was being enacted by the Legislature in April and that an antagonistic industry lobbyist had recently barged in to watch the vote via closed-circuit television on her office TV, sent the lobbyist a handsomely gift-wrapped, 25-pound box of fresh cow manure.
Chuck Shepherd, who lives in Tampa, writes the weekly "News of the Weird," which appears in Weekly Planet and 300 other newspapers in the U.S. and Canada and on www.NewsoftheWeird.com.
This article appears in Dec 27, 2001 – Jan 2, 2002.