The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • B3

Orlando Sentinel: PRODUCT: OS DESK: LOC DATE: 02-15-2006 EDITION: FLA ZONE: FLA PAGE: B3.0 DEADLINE: 20.6 OP: jandrews COMPOSETIME: 23.19 CMYK Orlando Sentinel WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2006 B3 CENTRAL FLORIDA THIS WEEK'S SPOTLIGHT: Birthplace: Orlando Occupation: Chief judge, 9th Circuit Age: 56 Family: Wife, 2 adult children, 1 grandchild The Area i in Brief ORLANDO Central Florida judges have been in the news a lot lately but not in the way judges like to make news. As the top judge in Orange and Osceola counties, Ninth Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Belvin Perry has had to contend with two problem judges during the past few months. The state Supreme Court removed one of the judges for his misdeeds, and another judge abruptly retired amid controversy. Perry, the son of one of Orlando's first black lawmen, rose through the ranks of the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office to become chief assistant state attorney. He became an Osceola circuit judge in 1989 and has been sitting on the bench since.

His colleagues first elected him chief judge in 1995. After a two-year hiatus, he was re-elected in 2001. This is a busy time of the year for Perry. He spends a lot of time in Tallahassee lobbying and looking for more funds to support the state's third branch of government: the court system. Here are the highlights of a recent chat with Sentinel reporter Anthony Colarossi: Do you think the recent trouble with two judges has hurt the public's faith in the judicial system? It depends on the way that you look at it.

In one way you can look through the prism and you could see that the system works, where you have a judge who does something he or she should not do, and it shows that the system takes care of those problems. Did you ever dream you would be this town's top judge? I always wanted to be a lawyer. Never did I dream that I would become chief judge. In that back of my mind, I always wanted to be a judge But it was never my aspiration to become chief judge. You mentioned you watch the TV show Boston Legal.

Does that resemble reality? It does not resemble any notion of reality that I know of. It is purely entertainment. My mom and I get into these conversations. My mom likes to watch those judge shows. Judge Judy.

Judge Mathis. And all the rest of them. And she clearly enjoys them. But she understands that I can't do what they do. And what we do is totally different than what they do.

But it's entertainment. She likes it. Does a poor black man from Parramore get treated as fairly in this courthouse as a rich white doctor from Winter Park? (Long pause.) I think in terms of having their cases judged, the answer to that question is yes. In terms of the quality of representation that the rich versus the poor have, the answer to that question is no How do you feel about activist judges injecting personal opinions into their rulings? One of the things that you learn early on in the judging business is and it's hard for most people to understand you may personally feel differently than what you rule. You may not like the outcome of your ruling, but you take an oath to follow the law and the Constitution.

And sometimes that takes you in the opposite direction of your own personal beliefs and ideals. Who would you rather be stuck with in one of the Orange County Courthouse's notoriously problematic elevators: Public Defender Robert Wesley or State Attorney Lawson Lamar? (Laughs and pauses) Probably Lawson because I've known Lawson for a number of years. I used to work with Lawson. And we probably could have a very good conversation, I think. Has anybody ever asked you to help fix a speeding ticket, and if so, how did you respond? No, I've never had anybody ask me with help to fix a speeding ticket.

I may have people in jest in the community say: "Oh, I may get a ticket, Judge. Can you help me out?" And I laugh and say, "Yeah, I can help you out and tell you where to go pay the ticket." How do you keep your robe looking good? Dry-clean. 1 of 2 winners claims lotto prize An Orlando man claimed his share of a multimillion-dollar prize Tuesday for matching all six numbers in Saturday's lottery, state officials said. Gregory Ross Caldwell, 48, of Orlando had one of two winning tickets from the drawing, matching the winning numbers 7-10-1 1-30-37-39. The winning pot was an estimated $15 million.

The other winning ticket, which has not been claimed, was purchased in Fort Myers. Caldwell opted for a lump-sum payment of $4.4 million. He purchased his ticket at Kangaroo Express on East Colonial Drive. Caldwell is the 27th Lotto winner to purchase a winning ticket in Orange County and the 836th Lotto winner since 1988. He would not comment.

ORLANDO Man dies after apartment shooting One man died Tuesday and one was expected to be charged after a shooting at an Orlando apartment complex. Kenneth Christopher54, was found wounded at Country Place Apartments near South Bumby Avenue and East Michigan Street about 12:30 p.m., said Orlando police Sgt. Barbara Jones, a department spokeswoman. The victim was taken by ambulance to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, homicide Sgt. Richard Ring said.

Police questioned two people soon after the shooting, Ring said. Evin Hamilton Jones, 61, who lives in the apartment where the shooting took place, was expected to be charged with murder Tuesday night. ORLANDO FBI joins search for missing 24-year-old The FBI is assisting Orlando police in the case of a 24-year-old woman who has been missing for more than three weeks, a department spokeswoman said Tuesday. FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators spent much of the day at Huntington on the Green condominiums on the case of Jennifer Kesse, 24, said police Sgt. Barbara Jones.

That complex is where police discovered her Chevrolet Malibu, three days after she was last heard from by her boyfriend on Jan. 23. There, a camera captured grainy black-and-white images of what police call a "person of interest" walking past a pool gate. Orlando investigators asked for FBI assistance to verify their calculations of that person's height and other characteristics, Jones said. ORLANDO Last person in marijuana ring sentenced The last of five Jamaican-born members of a Central Florida marijuana-distribution ring was sentenced Monday in Orlando federal court to 3 lA years in prison.

Richard Sinclair, a marijuana supplier in Arizona, cooperated with federal prosecutors after his arrest and was willing to testify against his cohorts, who were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 4 1 to 60 months. Sinclair, also known as Jason K. Jones, pleaded guilty and admitted laundering more than $2.5 million in drug proceeds through wire transfers, body smugglers and money shipments. L0NGW00D Man charged with pocketing $20,000 A Lake Mary man faces a charge of larceny of more than $20,000 after Longwood police said he accepted a down payment of $36,000 for a metal building he was to order but then spent the money. Mark Allen Swink, 44, was arrested Tuesday when he went to the Longwood Police Department to talk to investigators.

Swink, owner of Southern Structural Systems, accepted the payment from Dunbar Construction Co. in Longwood last October, police said. It was to be sent to the Georgia company making the building but instead, police said, was deposited into Swink's business account. ATLANTA Official: Man hurt jumping off plane A passenger on a Delta Air Lines flight bound from Orlando to Atlanta was injured jumping off the plane, officials said Tuesday. Mark Dunbar, 43, tumbled 20 feet from the catering door of a parked Boeing 767 onto the tarmac at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport about 8:30 a.m., Transportation Security Administration spokesman Christopher White said.

Dunbar, of Ellsworth, Maine had arrived in Atlanta on Flight 1047 when he told his wife he was feeling queasy, prompting flight attendants to call 91 1, an Atlanta police report states. When paramedics arrived, Dunbar told them he could walk by himself, cursed and began struggling. He then opened the catering door and leaped to the tarmac. Dunbar was treated for a broken right leg and other injuries, the report states. No charges have been filed, but TSA officials are investigating.

Amy C. Rippel, Willoughby Mariano, Pedro Ruz Gutierrez and Gary Taylor of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. JACOB LANGSTONORLANDO SENTINEL 911 caller could shed light on Sanford killing Woman reported stabbing, then hung up said she was 'terrified' wood, Sanford police spokeswoman Cleo Cohen said. That helped investigators track down the person who owns the phone. It's not the woman.

Initially they knew the owner only as "Roy with Orlando Distribution," the greeting on his voice mail. But Tuesday afternoon they learned who he is and where to find him information they won't release. Now they hope he will lead them to the woman, Cohen said. Anyone with information about the caller or the man who stabbed Williams can call Crimeline at 1-800-423-8477. Gary Taylor can be reached at gtaylororlandosentinel.com or 407-324-7293.

mation police have about Williams' killer: He was a black man wearing a red jacket. Investigators want to talk to the woman, hoping she can provide more details. Her 911 call lasted more than seven minutes but ended abruptly when Abrante prodded the woman to give her name. Instead, she hung up. The woman had told Abrante she didn't have a cell phone when she witnessed the stabbing.

She said she drove away from Sanford and waited to make the 911 call when she was able to use a friend's phone. "I kept on driving," she said. "I don't understand how come you didn't stop at a pay phone or something if you saw somebody bleeding on the side of the road," Abrante told the woman. "I was terrified," she said. "I'm still terrified." The mystery caller said that, after dropping off a friend, she had turned onto 13th Street from U.S.

Highway 17-92. She had driven only a short distance when she saw the man get stabbed. "I seen two guys and then I seen a knife, and then I just tried to get out of there." She last saw the killer running behind a building, and she wasn't about to stop. "I'm a little white girl, and that's the ghetto," she told Abrante. Although she claimed to be in Kissimmee, the call was connected through a cell tower in Long- By GARY TAYLOR SENTINEL STAFF WRITER Driving along a deserted west Sanford street, the woman had just witnessed a crime.

One man stabbed another, and she was close enough to see the knife. But when she finally got around to calling 91 1 almost an hour after it happened police had already found Bonnie Williams' body on a sidewalk along 13th Street near Olive Avenue. "There was blood all over the ground," the woman told Marga-rate Abrante, a Seminole County communications-center operator. "It was happening as I drove by." The call, placed before dawn Thursday, provides the only infor COLORSTRIP: I.