Florida Today from Cocoa, Florida • Page 26

A TP IkkVnC wlHIE HEW? llfllC A controversial attempt to bar casino gambling interests from donating to Florida politicians was roundly de- feated on Monday. i Astronaut John Young will be on hand Friday to dedicate a monument to the thousands of workers in the Gemini program. TUESDAY, November 4, 1997 a SEGTIOfi Richard Sellers, news editor, 242-3622, 3-1 1 p.m. Judge reprimanded in court's 1 st TV broadcast FLORIDA BRIEFS return to Florida. The high court TV originally had been scheduled as a live broadcast Monday morning but was preempted by a special session of the Florida Legislature.

The court action was broadcast on a tape-delayed basis later in the day, although it was available live on the Internet, a service that began last month, said Jill Chamberlin, a member of the WFSU-TV production team handling the court coverage. She said live television Associated Press TALLAHASSEE Television viewers across Florida got their first glimpse Monday at gavel-to-gavel coverage of the state Supreme Court, including a rare in-person reprimand of a judge. They also heard arguments over the use of satellite television transmissions the same type of technology used for Monday's broadcast to permit witnesses from foreign countries to testify in trials without having to Television and Internet viewers saw her stand silently and stoically before the seven justices as Kogan admonished her. Something they did not see was Alley bursting into tears as soon as she left the courtroom. "It was appropriate," she said of her punishment after she regained her composure several minutes later.

But she refused further comment and left through a back door to avoid three pickets in front of the court who held signs demanding she be removed from office. She was accused of lying about her qualifications and those of her opponent, using a misleading photo of her opponent together with a murder suspect and falsely claiming a newspaper had endorsed her. See TV, Preceding Page Arguments, Preceding Page court broadcasts would begin today and continue through Friday, either live or on tape. "This is just another event in the history of the court to let people know exactly what it's doing," Chief Justice Gerald Kogan said in brief opening remarks. The court session began with the reprimand of Circuit Judge Nancy Alley of Sanford for lying and other ethical violations during her election campaign last year in Seminole County.

1 wMWW Whs mv4'iaJtiiii0mr'hmmm4tiiw frfrn'TTiiw'Miiiiiitrrrin'flMimtlftr AP New Smyrna Beach. Gov. Lawton federal aid on Monday. Rep. Burt i pushes lethal injection bill Associated Press TALLAHASSEE Senafe Majority Leader Locke Burt ht(s about half the Senate as co-sponsors of a bill that would keep the electric chair but make lethal injection the backup if electrocution is ever barred by a court.

Burt said Monday he's been working on getting the 27 votes he needs to bring the legislation to the floor today. The Ormond Beach Republican needs a two-thirds vote, to get the Senate to consider legislation not connected to school facilities, the topic of the weeklong special session that startejd Monday. Gov. Lawton Chiles last week delayed the state's next two executions, originally scheduled for last April, so that lawmakers could have time to consider the issue of lethal injection during the regular legislative session next spring. Chiles scheduled the executions for Leo Jones and Gerald Stano for late March 1998.

Last month, the state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the electric chair was constitutional. But five of the seven justices urged lawmakers to consider allowing lethal injection. One justice said such a step might prevent a "constitutional train wreck" if a future court ever bars electrocution. During Florida's last electrocution, a footlong flame burst from the headpiece worn by Pedro Medina. Executions were delayed while the courts considered whether death in the 74-year-old chair was cruel or unusual punishment.

Jones is condemned for a 1981 murder; Stano for murders almost a quarter of a century ago. Stano's execution is now set for 7 a.m. March 23; Jones, is scheduled to be executed 24 hours later. Jones is on death row for the 1981 fatal shooting of Officer Thomas J. Szafranski as he sat in his patrol car at a Jacksonville intersection.

X. Stano is condemned for tide murders of three women in the Daytona Beach area. for baseball RECREATIONAL VEHICLE leans on its side against a car in the parking lot pf a condominium i NX were restricting movement to the 10-block area across the Indian River, allowing only residents, contractors and repairmen in. The roof of the Irish's home was in a pile in their front yard but for a portion above a bedroom, the porch and the kitchen. Shattered glass creaked underfoot as the elderly couple removed lamps and furniture from their house.

A vanity and queen-sized bed, in a bedroom where a wall collapsed, now overlooked their neighbors' yard. Sunlight streamed into the roofless living room filled with a water-soaked couch, recliner and coffee table. "Look at the sky. Look how blue it is," Mrs. Irish said while picking up glass, pillows and a table cloth in their living room.

Her husband, who has had the winter home in his family for more than 40 years, shot back: "It's our roof dear." In this neighborhood by the complex in Chiles requested Justice Dept. closes civil rights probe FLORIDA TODAY wires ST. PETERSBURG The U.S. Department of Justice closed its investigation Monday into a police shooting that sparked back-to-back riots, saying there was no evidence the officer violated the victim's civil rights. TyRon Lewis, 18, was fatally shot by St.

Petersburg police Officer James Knight during an Oct. 24, 1996, traffic stop. Lewis was black and Knight is white. The shooting sparked two nights of violence, one the night of the shooting and another when a grand jury cleared Knight of criminal wrongdoing. Rioters burned businesses and hurled rocks and bottles at police.

The civil rights investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tampa, the FBI and the Justice Department "failed to uncover evidence to support a criminal prosecution under the standards of the federal civil rights statutes," U.S. Attorney Charles Wilson said in a statement Monday. The investigation would had to have shown Knight acted willfully and knew he was using excessive force at the time of the shooting, the statement said. Knight also has been cleared of wrongdoing by the police department and reassigned to another area of the city.

Since the riots, the police department was overhauled and the mayor worked up a long-term plan to improve the blighted conditions in the poor neighborhood where Lewis died. Millions of dollars in federal money has been earmarked for business loans, education and improved public housing. Lewis body lies in an unmarked grave at a local cemetery. Plane crash cause investigated FORT LAUDERDALE Aviation authorities are trying to determine the cause of the crash-landing of a twin-engine plane at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The plane, with seven people aboard, may have run out of gas just as it slammed down on a runway Sunday at the airport in southern Broward County.

The passengers were jostled around but were not hurt, said airport spokesman Jim Reynolds. There was no fire. Video showed the airplane's landing gear collapsed, and there were reports the plane had run out of fuel. No information was available on where the plane had departed. "It looks like, given the situation, it turned out real well," Reynolds said.

Stormy weather diverts plane TAMPA Florida's stormy weather last weekend caused an American Airlines plane to break off its approach at Orlando and head for Tampa while running low on fuel, the airline said. The plane, Flight 876 from Dallas, landed Sunday at Tampa without a problem. "The pilot declared he had a minimum emergency fuel shortage, and the tower got him first in line to land," said American Airlines spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan. The MD-80 with 104 passengers and a crew of five landed at Tampa International Airport at 10:57 a.m., said Fagan, speaking from Chicago. The plane refueled and continued on to Orlando.

She did not know how long the plane had been in a holding pattern because of bad weather in Central Florida. There were widespread thunderstorms over much of the state Sunday, including a tornado that took the entire second floor off some houses at New Smyrna Beach, about 45 miles northeast of Orlando. Oscar Mayer kids chosen ORLANDO Judges for Oscar Mayer Foods' nationwide Talent Search on Monday chose two Arizona sisters, 4-year-old Ashlyn and 7-year-old Lacey McCleve, to star in next year's bologna and hot dog ad. The announcement was made at Sea World in Orlando. As winners of Oscar Mayer's 1997 Talent Search, Lacey and Ashlyn will share the top prize a $20,000 college scholarship and starring roles in a national Oscar Mayer TV ad that will run next summer.

In the ad, the sisters will sing either the Oscar Mayer Wiener Jingle or the Bologna song. "We offer the opportunity for duets in our search, and we're thrilled that this year, a duet was selected," said Kevin Scott, vice president of marketing for the Madison, subsidiary of Kraft Foods. Attorney paid after 26 years FORT PIERCE After 26 years, a Fort Pierce attorney is finally getting paid for his work on the St. Lucie County school desegregation case. Ralph Flowers billed the school board $121,193.02 for his part In the lawsuit, which was first filed in 1970.

The county-wide district remained under a federal judge's desegregation order until this August. In 1971, Flowers began representing four black parents named as parties against the school district, and he racked up 1,105 hours of work on the case. Why did it take so long for Flowers to get paid? He'd never asked for the money, said school board attorney Dan Harrel. Losses from tornado estimated at $14 million By Mike Schneider Associated Press NEW SMYRNA BEACH Residents of this beachfront community Monday loaded water-logged furniture onto trucks, scraped up rooftops from their neighbors' yards and waited for insurance adjusters to calculate their losses from a devastating tornado that ripped through the area. "This was one of the worst we've seen," state Insurance Commissioner Bill Nelson said before touring the town of 18,000 people.

"This is another part of the price we pay when we live in paradise." Nelson estimated the damage at $14 million but said it could go higher as insurance adjusters interview more homeowners. Almost 300 homes were damaged and 175 people were dislocated. On Monday, Gov. Lawton Chiles requested federal aid for Manatee and Volusia counties. No one was killed when the tornado tore through four neighborhoods early Sunday without any warning.

Thirty-two people were injured, including six requiring hospitalization. By Monday, two remained in the hospital one with a fractured back, the other with a fractured pelvis. The damage was widespread. At the nine-story Diamond Head Point condominiums, two towers were mangled by the storm, which twisted metal from balconies around the white concrete building and left furniture hanging out windows. "There's nothing left," said Jerry Kersenbrock as he left his fifth-floor, two-bedroom condo Pair nabbed Suspects had boxes filled with memorabilia Associated Press MIAMI FBI agents found boxes and boxes of baseball memorabilia, along with more than $400,000 stolen in an Oklahoma armored truck robbery, when they arrested two suspects in a $279-a-night Fort Lauderdale hotel.

"There was a lot of baseball and sports memorabilia in the two-room suite," said Gregory Jones, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Miami division. "The thing that is significant here is the sheer amount of stuff that was in that hotel room, mainly baseball cards." The money recovered during Friday's arrest was a fraction of the $2.7 million stolen from an armored truck In June. But then, $1.7 million was found Saturday in a storage warehouse in Tallahassee in north Florida. Bobby O'Neal Negri 30, of Prague, and Michael Brandon Lutz, 23, of Claremore, beach, where some houses amazingly escaped without damage, neighbors with unscathed homes offered help. Charon Luebbers had planned a 40th birthday bash barbecue for Sunday but canceled it.

She spent Monday pulling a cooler filled with hot dogs, potato chips and soda around the neighborhood, offering lunch to neighbors whose kitchens were detached from their homes by the 155 mph winds. "My house was spared, that was a good birthday gift," Luebbers said. "It wasn't the party I expected." Myrna Rose, a licensed massage therapist, brought her massage chair and set up shop in front of a home that was knocked off its foundation. She offered free massages to homeowners, repairmen and emergency workers. "I was out cleaning houses up yesterday and I decided people could really use this," she said.

car heist had penchant ipog mm mmt if Tornado causes damage in New Smyrna Beach Daytona Atlantic Ocean (Titusviile Melbourne feebastian FLORIDA TODAY with a suitcase filled with shoes and a ceramic pig in his hands. His wife, Virginia, remained at Bert Fish Medical Center with the fractured pelvis, caused by a living-room china cabinet smashing into her bedroom and pinning her to the floor. Her husband said she was peppered with glass. "She's in good spirits," he said. "She's grateful to be alive." About a mile closer to the beach, Art and Jane Irish greeted neighbors and friends who stopped by to see their devastated three-bedroom home in one of the worst-hit areas.

Police in armored were arrested at a Doubletree Guest Suites along the Intracoastal Waterway in Fort Lauderdale. Authori LUTZ ties found the men after getting a tip from the television show "America's Most Wanted." Most of the $400,000 recovered from the hotel was in two briefcases, but bags of bills were scattered around the suite. Agents found even more cash stuffed in drawers and other areas, Jones said. The room also had clothes piled halfway up the wall, Jones said. "I don't think the maid service had access to the room in some time," Jones said.

Negri and Lutz had baseball memorabilia stacked throughout the room, Jones said. He said they did not accumulate many other possessions during their spending spree. "These guys can quote to you chapter and verse statistics and batting averages," Jones said. 1 for breakfast at a McDonald's restaurant just off Interstate 44 near Stroud, Okla. Left in the truck were Negri's pistol and a postcard that read: "Is Paris this nice this time of year? Oui.

Bye." Negri and Lutz will be brought to federal court in Fort Lauderdale for a detention and removal hearing before being returned to Oklahoma. He said he did not know if the two had attended the World Series late last month, but they lr a rl NEGRI into the hotel at least a month ago. Negri and Lutz appeared relieved that their lives as fugitives had ended, Jones said, adding that when Negri was arrested, he told agents "Boy, you guys are good." "They knew it was coming, I think. It was just a matter of time," Jones said. "Maybe a lot of thought went into the pre-rob-bery activities, but I don't think much thought went into what was going to happen afterwards." The FBI didn't find any weapons in the room and both men cooperated during the arrests, Jones said.

Negri was alone in the room when Investigators called him and asked him to come to the front desk, saying his car was hit by another vehicle, Jones said. Negri was arrested as he en- 5" BOXES FILLED with baseball memorabilia and other articles were recovered from the hotel room where the suspected armored-car robbers were staying in Fort Lauderdale. tered the lobby, where nine agents and three Fort Lauderdale detectives were waiting, Jones said. Agents waiting in the room arrested Lutz when he returned an hour later, Jones said. Authorities say Negri stole the money on his 30th birthday from the Loomis, Fargo and Co.

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