Monroe County voters want corrupt officials prosecuted

By John L. Guerra

Do you think your local, county and state officials are corrupt?
Is that nice employee at the Housing Authority, the Sheriff's Office, or wastewater treatment plant skimming money from the organizational till?
Is the meter maid accepting $20 bribes from car owners who walk up as she writes them a parking ticket?

Is the housing inspector giving a pass to his friends and family in the construction business while making it impossible for you to finish the addition you're building on your house?

When you go to pick up your dog from the animal shelter, is the counter person pocketing the $150 fee you just paid to get Fido back?
If you live in an average American city, chances are someone is grabbing public money for personal use.
Corruption seems to be a kind of institution in the Keys. In spite of the promise of public humiliation and jail time, there's always one more government official waiting in the hallway outside the grand jury room.

Is anyone watching the store?

At the Monroe County School District, former Adult Education Coordinator Monique Acevedo not only rang up hundreds of thousands of dollars in groceries, clothing, jewelry, furniture, and other goods on her school district credit card, she stole tens of thousands of dollars in cash from adult students hoping to earn state beauty licenses. The evening beauty school would accept only cash from students hoping to learn hair styling and manicure skills. Though scores of students paid up to $1,900 for classes, the line item in the annual school district budget for "Adult Education fees collected" were followed by empty accounting columns. In other words, the budget was prepared every year with no indication that money was ever collected from all those students.
The empty columns were there for the district's Finance Director to discover if she so desired. The proof was there, too, for the Florida Auditor General's Office, the state agency that reviews each school district's budget for fraud every year.

In the months before she was caught, Ms. Acevedo gave a special presentation before the School Board about all the money generated by her Adult Education Department beauty school classes. During the presentation, she told board members that the fees from the classes generated hundreds of thousands of dollars for the school district. She said that with a straight face, without a trace of irony. A recording of that meeting shows Board member John Dick expressing disbelief, but the truth was not learned for some time.
Now that she's well into her eight-year sentence for fraud in a Florida prison, the district is still trying to find its feet in the sand.
What if the newspapers reported all of the financial mischief in the school district--with the poor children literally robbed of publicly funded school books, clothes, dental care, and other benefits--and the Office of the State Attorney decided not to prosecute?
In the public call for justice, what if the state attorney decided that enough damage had been done to the district? Let Ms. Acevedo resign (she did) and let the school district clean its own house, some in the community suggested. After all (a state attorney could have decided) a long, penetrative investigation would only hurt the morale of well-meaning school employees and destroy the public faith in its school system.

U.S. Attorney prosecuted cases in the past

Many of the public corruption cases before Dennis Ward became Monroe County State Attorney were handled not by that office on Whitehead Street but investigated from the Miami FBI office and prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney, Ward's supporters argue.
Glen, a good friend who was born and raised in Key West, told me the Keys have changed in one respect in recent years: Now when there's a case of public corruption, the public learns the details of what happened. The public gets information about cases that once were dealt with quietly.
Ward, who got in trouble for greeting a juror (in full view of the courtroom, not in secret) and who neglected to keep up with continuing state bar association education requirements, is getting pummeled for these mistakes by his campaign opponents.
Ward's mistakes shouldn't be ignored, but given their proper weight. The judge declared a mistrial in that assault case and Ward apologized for breaking courthouse ethics.
Ward has since completed his bar education requirements. He was temporarily suspended from the bar, as were more than 800 other attorneys statewide, state bar officials said. Those same state bar officials consider it a minor administrative matter. Ward was rightfully criticized after his suspension became public, but I don't consider it a vote-breaker by any means.
Though former State Attorney Mark Kohl is hoping to win his seat back from Ward in November, I believe Kohl has had two terms to fight corruption in the Keys and Ward's supporters believe Kohl showed timidity in his pursuit of government criminals. Voters will have a chance to decide whether that criticism is fair. Kohl's supporters can point to Kohl's conviction of Louis LaTorre, the former head of county social services who recently began serving his 42-month sentence for DUI with serious bodily harm. LaTorre  had been free since 2008 appealing his conviction.

Ward should be re-elected

I am voting for Ward; he ran for his office on the promise to prosecute corrupt Keys officials. That is just what his office has done.
I first met Ward at the Studios of Key West one evening during his first run for office. As we stood outside the studios during an open house there, he introduced himself and as we talked, he told me he wasn't going to shy away from prosecuting dishonest local politicians. It was a safe promise to make; at the time there were no corruption cases on the horizon. So, Monique Acevedo is in prison; her husband, Randy, earned three felony obstruction convictions and is on probation. Norma Jean Sawyer, who ran the Bahama Conch Community Land Trust but misspent money meant to help poor and elderly residents in Bahama Village, also was convicted under Ward's service. The public had been pounding the table for someone to do something about the BCCLT problem for a long time.

Former Mosquito Control Director of Operations, Mike Spoto served 90 days in the Monroe County Detention Center for theft of cell phone services paid for by taxpayers. Kohl declined to prosecute Spoto, but Ward reopened the case after  he was elected.
Now Ward's assistant prosecutors are warming up in the bullpen for Lisa Druckemiller, the former Monroe County Technical Services Director charged with illegally selling about 50  iPhones and iPads that were slated for official use. A grand jury Tuesday indicted her for those alleged crimes.

Prosecutors are solid team

Ward's aces are Chief Assistant State Attorney Manny Madruga, assistant State Attorney Mark Wilson, and other assistant prosecutors who convinced juries to convict in criminal cases. Building strong cases and presenting simple but solid arguments to juries, Ward's prosecutors have helped Ward deliver satisfaction to a public tired of corruption in the Keys.
Ward faces fellow Democrat Catherine Vogel in the Aug. 14 primary; the winner of that race faces Kohl, who is a Republican, on Nov. 6. Vogel, who defended former Schools Superintendent Randy Acevedo in his obstruction trial, has criticized Ward's style for years. She argues that Ward tries his cases in the press when he should remain silent. Vogel believes his public comments in the run-up to Randy Acevedo's trial hurt her attempts to build a defense. She asked a judge to regulate Ward's statements to the press during Acevedo's prosecution, but the judge rejected her motion.
As long as a prosecutor agrees to release recordings, files, notes or other investigative documents to the press, I don't think the state attorney needs to comment anyway.
It's not that complicated, though. Ward is a fighter and Keys residents need someone who understands that corruption is expensive, destroys the public faith in its government, and hurts the morale of those who get up every day and do the right thing.

This opinion column first appeared in John Guerra's blog, at http://johnguerra.blogspot.com.

Is this a photo of ghost children fleeing 1886 fire?

By John L. Guerra

I am a skeptic. I am especially wary of those cable shows that purport to show videos of light orbs or leaping bed trolls or something fleeing in the dark.
When John Opp, who manages Ripley's Museum in the former Jefferson Hotel on Duval Street, showed me a string of "spooky" photos on his camera phone, I decided to join him in a nighttime tour of the museum to see if we could determine whether a floating face, or a disembodied hand in his photographs were really images of people long passed.
John said he started taking photos in the empty museum one night after he heard noises and felt chills. He said he was just "fooling around to see what he could photograph."
With me in tow, Opp stopped at five points in the museum where he'd snapped a photo and pulled an image up on his screen. The place has the greatest stuff in it and his flash had played havoc, creating the oddest images.
What he believed was a floating ghostly face in one image, for instance, was in fact a unique African death mask in one glass display case reflecting off the front of another display case. A "ghost" in a little dress was actually the reflection of "Thumbelina," the world's tiniest woman, showing up on the glass of another display case. In this manner, we determined that most of the "apparitions" were reflections created from other display cases as his camera flash went off.
We couldn't debunk this one.
When we got to the back stairwell--the same stairwell that served the old Jefferson Hotel--I could see no object, light source, or other item that could create the shadow figures he captured on his camera. (You can see the shadow of John's head against the wall just in front of the shadow figure in the foreground). The second figure is on the top landing in the corner. There are no stairs above this set of stairs. Therefore, there is nothing to the left of the landing but a wall. The notation in the top of the photograph is from a photo labeling feature from the software in his camera phone.
The fire of 1886 began next to the San Carlos Institute near the La Concha Hotel and spread down Duval Street to Front Street. It destroyed commercial buildings as well as grand homes, sending people  into the street. The Jefferson Hotel also caught fire and its guests must have been in a rush to get out.
Are these the ghostly images of children or young people from 1866 fleeing down the stairs of the Old Jefferson Hotel during the fire? I don't know, but I have known John for some time and he easily agreed when we were able to dismiss other suspect photos in his phone's image file. In other words, he was just as curious and skeptical as I was as we sought answers for his other suspect photos. I sense he's being honest when he told me he had done nothing on PhotoShop or other software program to create the "shadow people."
Anyway, I thought this photo would be of great interest to readers who have an open mind and/or know camera phone software. There may even be a feature that allows one to convert images of people into shadow people, but I doubt it.
Until I hear from someone who knows differently, this photo goes into the bizarre and creepy file.

-- John Guerra

'Dunc' Driving and Drinking

By John L. Guerra

It would be so easy to berate Duncan Matthewson, the pugnacious Monroe County School Board member who was caught driving down U.S. 1 after apparently drinking a beer or two.  For those who know him, however, there's much more to him than this public embarrassment.

I say only a beer or two because the breath tests indicated a blood alcohol content of .06 and .07.
Duncan is a big guy, too, which means to be really drunk, the man would have to down a lot more than what it took to register .07.
____________________

Matthewson has many reasons to be proud of his work with education and Keys students. His DUI arrest should not overshadow his contributions to Keys children.
____________________

The Monroe County Sheriff's deputy who pulled him over said though Matthewson's .07 did not break state law against driving with a .08 BAC, his driving was sloppy enough to indicate impairment. Crossing the double-yellow line on U.S 1, driving too slowly, and a "Be on the Lookout" radio dispatch for his vehicle set the stage for the arrest.
Matthewson also allegedly failed a roadside sobriety test, which we all know resembles more a gymnast's practice session than an accurate test of one's ability to drive. Don't get me wrong, if a guy can't walk straight, or looks screwed up, he should be stopped and tested. But a 73-year-old after a long day isn't going to be chipper and accurate as police order him to perform magic tricks.
On a great day after plenty of rest, it's tough to hop on one foot while counting backward from 100 with your neighbors driving slowly past. Mistakes during sobriety checks carry dire consequences and the cop determines whether you pass or not.
By the way, the officer said Matthewson's clothes were unkempt or sloppy, but those who know Duncan understand that he's frumpy like other Dartmouth alumni. Matthewson is an intellect whose world takes shape between the ears. He's smart like that. He concentrates on higher issues, such as the best way to organize a textbook on Spanish treasure, or as a founding member of The Dartmouth Club of the Florida Keys, finding ways to recruit more Keys high school students for Dartmouth. Matthewson is a dedicated soul but not a clothes horse.
As for his pants being unzipped, there's not a man on the planet who hasn't inadvertently "left the barn door open."  It indicates nothing.

Let's pause and think

There is no excuse for drinking and driving. By now we've all heard about what happens.
Here are some examples of what has happens on U.S. 1 when a drunk driver takes the wheel:
A 22-year-old Key West woman was charged with manslaughter in August 2010 after killing her passenger and injuring others during a DUI crash on U.S. 1 on Stock Island. Or how about the DUI suspect who killed a motorcyclist in May 2011? Or the four people killed on upper U.S. 1 in a drunk driving crash?
There are drunk drivers everywhere in the Keys. All day, all night.
I believe Matthewson should have been held, even though his .07 BAC was below the .08 legal limit.
Here's why:
In Sarasota last year, cops told drunk partiers to leave a beach area and though the driver was visibly drunk, police didn't stop him from driving away. Police believed the suspect when he said he wouldn't drive, but the inebriated young man drove off when cops weren't looking. Less than an hour later, he was in a crash that killed a mother of three who was walking her dog next to a road. Police don't second guess anyone's condition anymore. If they suspect something's off, you don't drive.

Unless you're another cop

The police give colleagues rides home when they pull a fellow cop over for drunk driving, but that doesn't mean they have to do it for everyone. And though police don't press DUI charges against one another as a matter of courtesy, that doesn't mean a School Board member should get a break.
There's no indication that Matthewson either argued against his arrest or has said that he didn't deserve what happened to him. He apologized to fellow board members and the public and that's good enough for me. The court will take care of the rest.

The state calls for the following penalties for misdemeanor DUI offenders:

• No less than a $500 fine, no more than $1000, unless BAL exceeds .15% or there is a minor in the car. In these situations, the fine will be $1,000 or more, not to exceed $2,000.
• Mandatory 50 hours of community service, or an additional $10 fine for each hour of community service required.
• Total period of probation may not exceed 1 year.
• Total period of incarceration may not exceed 6 months, unless BAL is .15% or higher, or there is a minor in the vehicle. In these situations, incarceration may be no longer than 9 months.
• License revocation for at least 180 days, not to exceed 1 year.
• Car may be impounded for at least 10 days.
• An interlock ignition device will be installed on offenders whose BAL exceeds .15.
• Must attend a DUI school, Level I, for first time offenders.

But on another subject, Duncan

While we're talking, I think it's more important that Matthewson recuse himself everytime his summertime Cultural Awareness Music Camp (the acronym's meaning keeps changing; the latest is "Collegiate Arts Magnet Program") comes before the School Board for funding. The program is operated by the Educational Coalition of Monroe County, which Tina Belotti and Matthewson founded years ago.
When it comes to his pet program, he shows no courtesy to those who believe it does not meet guidelines for Florida Department of Education class credit and thus, funding from the school district.
Matthewson becomes energized for CAMP funding issues like no other subject the board considers. He sought school district money for the program at a time when the district is cutting summer programs for kids.
If you are against full funding for CAMP (which is not the same as being against CAMP, Duncan) you will hear from Mr. Matthewson, in spades. He takes it personally, often accusing opponents of bias and bad politics. But all this is moot, now. He isn't running again and he's leaving the board on this embarrassing note.
But the man has done a lot for students in the Keys, giving time and energy to ensure they succeed. That should be kept in mind as he makes his exit in a few months.

--John Guerra

The body on Simonton Street

Elijah "Saunders" didn't have any plans for Memorial Day.
He was still on his bicycle after pedaling all night around Key West as the sky began to lighten on May 31, 2010.
Saunders, whose real last name is being withheld, was one of scores of night wanderers of this city, one of the homeless men and women who bounce from one vagrant encampment or gathering place to another, seeing who was about and what was up.
As Saunders rode his bicycle across the parking lot behind First State Bank on Simonton Street, he saw his friend Tracy lying face down on the asphalt, her bicycle standing a few feet away. Stillness inhabits a dead body so thoroughly that the absence of life is apparent a hundred feet away. Saunders knew she was dead even before he saw the blood pooled around her head.
Tracy Leigh Heshmaty, 37, with three sisters and a mother in Georgia, was a homicide victim, and the killer was someone in the clan. Like Saunders and the battered woman he had just discovered, the murderer was a restless soul seeking satisfaction on a nighttime bicycle ride. Elijah called the Key West Police just after 6 a.m. and waited with his deceased friend for the law to arrive.
Once at Heshmaty's side, Detective Scott Standerwick and a crime scene investigator analyzed the murder scene. A large piece of coral rock stained with blood and tissue was just beyond the victim's head. CSI Donald Guevremont also photographed a bloody shoe print, left behind by someone wearing athletic shoes. If the victim had carried a purse, it was now nowhere to be found.
Saunders told Standerwick and another Key West Police detective, Frank Duponty,  that he had seen Heshmaty with a Hispanic male about two hours earlier at the all-night CVS store at Truman Avenue and Simonton Street. He described the man as thin with long, black hair parted in the middle. The man had been on a silver mountain bike and talking with the victim outside CVS, Saunders remembered.
Duponty drove the three or four blocks down Simonton Street from the murder scene to the CVS and watched the security video. As he watched video that had been shot around 4:30 a.m., the time Saunders said he'd last seen Heshmaty alive, he saw the suspect on the screen. With the night just outside the doors, the high-quality video captured Heshmaty entering the store. In the next few frames, a man on a silver bicycle rolls past the store's entrance in the dark parking lot. The man is thin, with black hair parted down the middle. A few frames later, the man walks into the store, looking to his right toward the beer coolers, the direction Heshmaty had just walked. Finally, the two are taped leaving the store together. Detectives now had a suspect.

'A cipher'

The thin man in the video is Pablo Solano Jimenez, a 29-year-old drifter from a small town outside Vera Cruz, Mexico. He has no history in the United States before making it to Key West. Jimenez was living in a mobile home across Simonton Street from the Gato Building at the time of the murder. His trailer is between the CVS and the murder scene several blocks up Simonton Street.

According to Mark Wilson, the assistant state attorney who prosecuted Jimenez last week, there is very little known about Jimenez. There is no family in Mexico asking about his well-being and there are no defense witnesses going  to bat for him, Wilson said.
"He is a cipher," Wilson said. "We know nothing much beyond the intersection of the two and how it ended. She is from Macon, Ga., and he came to Key West from Mexico. She was sleeping on friends' couches and he was staying with friends at a mobile home."

Heshmaty had been arrested for credit card theft and fraud in 2005; her last arrest was in 2009 for a probation violation, Monroe County Sheriff's Office records show. There was marijuana in her system at the time of her death, an autopsy showed.
There are no witnesses to the murder so the question of motive may never be answered. All police have is Jimenez's version of events.
A former resident of the trailer park said Heshmaty and other women would occasionally go to the trailer park to perform sex for money. The former resident said he saw Heshmaty, long before the night of her death, knock on the door of the trailer where Jimenez and his male roommates lived.
That adds the possibility that the two had been discussing a sexual liaison on the night of the murder, but doesn't answer what led to the attack that killed her.
When police found him on Duval Street at 3:45 that afternoon, Jimenez denied knowing anything about Heshmaty's murder. In fact, Jimenez later suggested that African-American men who had been outside CVS may have killed her. He also told detectives that one of his roommates had talked of murdering someone.

The following detective notes indicate that his story kept changing:

• He saw the victim at CVS around 4 a.m. as he was buying beer. "He and the victim had gone to his trailer, kissed and had sex. She said something about looking for her roommate Richard and she left and he never saw her again."
• Jimenez then told police the two had walked down Simonton to a corner near the murder scene, where she left him, still alive. He then told police he last saw her "at the corner of CVS."
• Jimenez said he went to CVS with the victim, but stayed outside. He said he was waiting by Simonton Street but when told about the video showing him in the store, he changed his statement, saying he had waited for Heshmaty by the shopping center's Truman Avenue exit.

It was a bicycle, the silver mountain bike, that brought Jimenez down to earth, police said. Jimenez gave detectives permission to search the trailer where he was staying. Police could not find the pants, shirt, or athletic shoes Jimenez had worn in the CVS video, but they did find a blood-stained, silver mountain bike in the trailer. When detective showed the blood on the bicycle to Jimenez, he told detectives he didn't know anything about the blood stains.
The next day, on June 1, detectives found the clothes and shoes Jimenez wore in the CVS video; the athletic shoes that matched the bloody footprint had been put in the trash can outside the trailer.

The question: Why?

When asked what happened, Jimenez told detectives:

 "He had stolen a car and found two packages of cocaine in the trunk. He hid the packages and later he shared the cocaine with Heshmaty. At one point she started to demand money in exchange for her not to tell the owners of the cocaine about him. He also was [inexplicably] assaulted a couple of times," detectives wrote. "The morning of the incident she told him the guys were in town and she wanted money. She mentioned her daughter and he hit her with the rock."

Because the Monroe County Medical Examiner had found no cocaine in Heshmaty's system, detectives did not buy Jimenez's statement that he killed her to protect himself from drug dealers.

As Jimenez sat in his cell at the Monroe Count Detention Center a few days after his June 1, 2010, arrest, detectives dropped by to ask follow-up questions. Here is the report they gave of that conversation.


"Jimenez did not remove any of her jewelry, only her purse and he threw it in the trash. He said his friends [in the trailer] were not involved and knew nothing about the incident. Jimenez said he never threw the rock. Only hit her while holding the rock. He did not remember his exact hand placement.
 Jimenez said he did not do drugs; [that he] only had five beers and he did not know why it happened. Jimenez said he went to Denny's after a beer and a cigarette. He bought coffee and nachos.

Jimenez said they did not have sex in the parking lot. He said he pushed her down and hit her and believes he hit her in the back first. Jimenez said they did not fight. She scratched him as he pushed her. He grabbed the rock after she fell down. She never yelled after he hit her only at first during verbal argument.
Jimenez said he was not sure why it happened but it may be over anger, vengeance, reaching a limit, or hate."



 --John L. Guerra

No proof that Key West sailors were irradiated

Several people have contacted me with concerns that Key West Navy personnel were among the crew of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan exposed to radiation following Japan's tsunami in March 2011.
The Regan (CVN 76), a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered supercarrier, was deployed off the coast of Japan in the plume of radiation spewing from the Fukushima-Daichi nuclear power plant, the U.S. Navy said. The power plant had been hit by a tsunami generated by an earthquake off Japan's east coast.

Helicopter crews from the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan ferried supplies into the island nation and returned to the ship after passing through the plume, the Navy said.
One local said that at least 140 sailors had been treated for exposure in Key West; another put the number at about 50 sailors.
As to whether sailors from Key West were irradiated, that turns out to be false, the Navy said.
According to the ship's commander, Capt. Thom Burke, only 17 sailors, most of whom served on the helicopters, received low-level radiation. No one has taken ill from the exposure, he said.
"The levels that were detected were very low levels," Burke told 10News.com in San Diego, the Reagan's home port. "To put this in perspective, the maximum radiation dose received was equal to the amount of natural background radiation one would receive in one month from sources such as rocks, soil and the sun."
Generators designed to keep the power plant cooled during emergencies ceased working and the pumps that circulate coolant water in the reactor ceased to work, causing the reactors to begin to overheat. After full meltdown in three reactors, the Japanese shut down the plant by flooding the whole system with seawater.
No sailors from Key West were on the carrier, so there's no reason to worry about any Key West sailors when it comes to the Japan radiation, the Navy said.

The dogs of poor

Two recent national news items riled Key Westers who live on the edge of poverty. As everyone who lives here knows, it's incredibly expensive pay for an apartment here, much less pay a mortgage and raise kids. Key West, like other towns across America, has a suffering middle class.
So when it was reported on television networks that the 2008-2009 stock market collapse took 40 percent of Americans' savings, the news merely proved what we here have been feeling: that we got screwed. Those savings were in the form of 401K plans and other retirement plans. What happened was sinful: banking houses and investment firms took our savings and gambled them away without our permission. They had access to our money and they simply lost it on a whim, on a blue-sky investment idea, or in some scheme or other. If someone comes into your house, steals $500 from your dresser drawer and goes on a drinking spree,  the result is the same. A stranger used your savings for themselves.

The second news item was a televised Senate Banking Committee hearing at which the head of JP Morgan apologized to the American people for destroying Americans' nest eggs. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told Senate Banking Republicans that JPMorgan alone lost $2 billion of your money and those of millions of other Americans. He promised senators that JPMorgan would put a "risk committee" together to review what went wrong.

Meanwhile, JPMogan has yet to pay back billions in tax dollars (the money taken from your weekly paycheck) it received to keep the banking network afloat.
Here's a plan: I am going to go into a bunch of banks and steal all the money. Once banks start complaining, I'm going to put together a committee to determine what went wrong.

If the response of Republican senators on the banking committee this week is any guide, the banks I robbed would then hold me up as a model of honesty and American values.

Here's what Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), had to say about Dimon after Dimon explained that ONE guy in the JPMorgan London office blew $1.6 billion on ridiculous investments. (The guy's nickname is the "London Whale," by the way).

Corker, whose job it is to regulate bankers like JPMorgan, was unabashed in his sniveling, kneeling and pawing:
"You’re obviously renowned, rightfully so I think, as being one of the most, you know, one of the best CEOs in the country for financial institutions,” Corker swooned. “You missed this, it’s a blip on the radar screen.”

A blip? That's not what people who now have no money for retirement, much less healthcare, think of losing their money to some dude in some London office.

It made me and dozens of other Key Westers who caught the hearing ill and ashamed. Across the web, the exchange was seen as nothing less than an "ass-kissing" by Senate republicans who have no manhood.

Corker also asked Dimon how Congress can write legislation that makes it easier for banking firms to follow the rules. What he was really asking, it seems, was "How can we write rules that make it easier for you guys to not have to come here and explain?"

In my life as a critic, it's been easy to beat up on Republicans. To be fair, though, while Dimon gives Corker and other Republican banking committee members money for their campaigns, Democrats receive even more money from Dimon.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Dimon and his wife, Judy, have donated more than a half-million dollars to Democratic candidates and committees since 1989. That is nearly 12 times what the couple has given the GOP.

Vice President Joe Biden ($2,000), Sen. Chris Dodd ($5,300), Sen. Tom Carper ($8,000), Sen. Charles Schumer ($12,000) and Rep. Charles Rangel ($4,500) have all received Dimon dollars. Former Vice President Al Gore received $4,000 from the Dimons in 1999. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) has hauled in $7,000 from them over his career.

What this means is old news, unfortunately. Forget party affiliation; it doesn't exist. Nearly everyone up on Capitol Hill is for sale. They play fast and loose with our retirement, our futures. It's disgusting and at least the Republicans are up front about selling their souls to the rich and megapowerful.

Ambulances don't fit in new firehouse

By John L. Guerra

Conch Key Volunteer Fire Rescue proudly protects 4,500 people living in a 15-square mile area in the Middle Keys. The department consists of paid and volunteer firefighters and emergency medical technicians.

Too bad the openings for the ambulances and firetrucks in a new hurricane-poof building are too short for the vehicles to park inside.
The fire department in January was in the midst of building a new hurricane-strength bunker in which  to park its firefighting equipment when one of the construction workers noticed the doorways were only nine feet high. Ambulances are at least 10 feet tall and won't fit inside the planned bays, emails between county officials show.
I have a contact at the work site who has managed large construction jobs, including spanning bridges over rivers, pouring new concrete for power plant cooling towers, and building hundreds of commercial and government buildings.
He said he just wants the firehouse at Conch Key to be built correctly. He has read the blueprints as he took part in the construction.
"The mistake caused construction to stop for a couple of months," said my source, who showed me emails between the construction company and county engineers discussing in the problem. In one email, an architect associated with the job suggested low-cost solutions: removing the air conditioning units on the roofs of the ambulances to make them short enough to fit or relocating shorter ambulances from other Keys firehouses to the Conch Key building. Because those ideas aren't plausible, work was halted in March, my source says, so the construction problem could be engineered. That also meant the job had to be rebid to take into account the cost of the extra concrete needed to fix the problem.
Engineers and construction workers restarted work about two weeks ago, my source says. Until it's finished, the firetrucks and ambulance are parked outside and the emergency workers live in a house trailer, my source says.
To fix the too-short entrance ways, the builders will have to lengthen concrete support pilings that already have been built. In other words, they'll have to splice vertical iron rods through the top of the support columns and then pour more cement to make the support columns taller.
"It is going to cost the county hundreds of thousands of dollars at least," my source told me.
My source said there are other problems with the new station's design, including the fact that fire trucks wouldn't be able to back all the way in to the station, even if they could fit under the doorways.
"There is a work space on the inside back wall that makes the station too short horizontally, too," he told me.
These seem like giant oversights by someone, either by the architect or by engineers. How could such a simple miscalculation occur?
Not only that, the owner of a lobster trap yard next door to the firehouse has threatened to sue the county to stop the relocation of a power generator near his property.  The generator is designed to provide power should hurricane winds knock out electricity to the station. Without the new generator, the communications equipment on Conch Key will be useless after the power goes out. One need only remember the 1935 hurricane to remember how it all could end if help isn't found fast once a storm passes.
Not to mention communicating with firehouse equipment and EMTs in the field who need to radio vital information to emergency managers.
The cement pad upon which the generator is to be built is to be surrounded by a fence that should keep the generator's noise from disturbing neighbors. If the lobster trap owner next door convinces a judge to halt the project, that could lead to new delays, my source said.
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Death-row inmate innocent?
Not so fast, prosecutor says

By John L. Guerra
_____________________________________________________________________

Thomas Overton, a former Keys resident who now lives on Florida’s death row is innocent, the victim of mishandled DNA evidence, Overton's lawyer said last week.

On Wednesday, Monroe County State Attorney Mark Wilson said he has no doubt that Overton murdered a man and his pregnant wife after torturing them for hours in their own home.

"The DNA test showed 12 loci matched," Wilson said, explaining that a dozen points [loci] on a DNA strand taken from the crime scene matched the same 12 points on the DNA sample taken from Overton in 1996.
Overton was convicted of the August 1991 murders of Michael and Michelle MacIvor of Tavernier. Ms. MacIvor was eight months pregnant when Overton raped and murdered her.

"Unless Overton can come up with a non-criminal reason for being in the MacIvor home," he killed the couple and their unborn baby, Wilson said.

Overton's lawyer, Roseanne Eckert, said semen found on a comforter under Michelle MacIvor was not DNA tested until five years after the crime. In June 1993, the bedding samples were sent to FDLE for DNA testing. No match was found at that time.

Overton found in 1996 

Then, after Overton's 1996 burglary arrest, prison officials obtained Overton's blood when he cut his throat in an attempt to commit suicide. After testing Overton's DNA, serologists claimed a trillion to one result, which means that even with several Earths full of people, Overton would still be the perpetrator.

Eckert, however, says the evidence was mishandled.

"Doc" Donald Pope, a veterinarian-turned crime scene investigator and serologist for the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, swabbed Michelle's body at the scene and during autopsy. Pope testified that he found no evidence of sperm in the swabs he took from the victim's body.
"He then opined that he believed the absence of any evidence of sperm on the swabs taken from the victim's body was probably the result of deterioration due to weather and climate conditions," Eckert argued.
Pope also admitted during cross examination to having failed to properly collect and label the swabs in question. He also said dating on the samples did not accurately reflect the date on which the samples were obtained. The swabs also were lost and could not be found for a time, Eckert said.

 A bizarre twist 

The case took a bizarre turn in the time before Eckert became Overton's lawyer. Overton's earlier lawyer accused Monroe County Sheriff’s detectives of taking a violent inmate to the former La Concha Holiday Inn on Duval Street and plying him with drinks and confiscated drugs to convince him to testify against Overton.

The inmate, who called himself “James Pesci,” was a fan of Joe Pesci, the actor who plays psychopath mobsters. "James Pesci" inhabited a cell next to Overton after Overton's 1996 arrest. Pesci told jail officials that Overton had told him how he had murdered the MacIvors--including feeling the baby move as he sexually assaulted Ms. MacIvor.

Prosecutors wanted to put Pesci on the stand to recount the confession to a jury, but at one point, according to a motion from Overton's lawyers to prevent Overton's confession from being heard by a jury, Pesci balked at testifying.

To convince Pesci to testify, the motion states, detectives provided Pesci with prostitutes, alcohol, and drugs. Overton’s lawyer at the time claimed a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigator took Pesci from his jail cell in shackles and drove him to Key West where he bought him drinks at the La Concha. The FDLE investigator even went so far as to put his sports coat over Pesci’s shoulders so other bar patrons wouldn't notice Pesci's jail uniform, the motion said.

After “Pesci” had a few drinks, he was serviced by a prostitute in a hotel room upstairs as a detective stood outside the door in the hallway, the motion claimed.

On a second occasion, the motion claimed, detectives brought Pesci to Key West again, this time to meet a prostitute behind a local business. As an investigator stood outside a car, Pesci received services from a prostitute. Detectives also allegedly gave Pesci drugs police had confiscated from local drug defendants, the motion claimed.

Wilson: Pesci himself denied the story

When the motion was filed, the story of Pesci's Nights Out raised a lot of eyebrows, not to mention piqued the interest of the court. Wilson got to cross examine Pesci as well as a defense investigator who claimed Pesci could describe the hotel ballroom in the La Concha.

"Pesci himself said the story [about the trips to Key West] was false," Wilson said. "He recanted the entire story of his trips."

Pesci also got to testify what he said Overton had told him of his crime, including that Overton had first spotted Ms. MacIvor as she bought gas at the Amoco Station in Tavernier where Overton worked.

"Overton told Pesci details that only the perpetrator would know of the crime," Wilson said.

As for the defense assertion that a .22 pistol had been fired at the crime scene and that Overton did not own a gun, Wilson said the DNA match was more than enough proof that Overton is the killer.

The same goes for tire tracks that defense lawyers say don't match the treads on Overton's car, Wilson said.

"We have Overton's DNA under the body of Michelle MacIvor," he said.

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