Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 22

4B TIMES WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1997 Holdup siuspecft laes odd stootoint with wmpeirs I Officials say two South Carolina men forced a woman to drive 100 miles across Florida before they exchanged gunfire with troopers near Miami. talked to the media outside the Metro-Dade Police Department. "The bullets were coming out the car, so it was a little close. I'm so thankful that I'm alive." Duarte said the brothers likely picked the convertible because its top was down, making it easy for them to jump inside. Troopers caught up with the stolen vehicle west of Miami, on the edge of the Everglades.

More shots were fired, and at one point, one of the suspects dropped or threw his gun onto the street, said Duarte. Then, with three trooper cars in pursuit, Silver slowed down her car and spun sideways, and two cruisers stopped right up against her car, Duarte said. Silver crouched down, he said. That is when one suspect, who was wearing a military pouch holding two clips full of ammunition, leaned out the front passenger win dow and fired at the troopers. They -returned fire, killing him.

His brother jumped out of the car and ran into the woods. Authorities caught up with and arrested him after a brief struggle. Silver was not injured. She said the carjackers threatened her and held guns to her head throughout the 100-mile trip across the Everglades. "She was talking to them about religion," Duarte said.

"She also asked them who would play their part in a TV movie." The brothers were wanted on bank robbery and kidnapping charges in South Carolina, Duarte said. The surviving George brother faces numerous counts of attempted murder of a police officer, kidnapping, felony fleeing and other charges, Duarte said. The brothers had an extensive criminal history, he said. MIAMI Two brothers had a shootout with troopers on Florida's west coast, carjacked a woman and forced her at gunpoint to drive across the Everglades and then had another shootout near Miami that led to one brother's death. The brothers, both suspects in a South Carolina bank robbery, were driving a stolen Chevrolet Blazer when a Florida Highway Patrol trooper stopped them early Tuesday afternoon on Interstate 75, about 18 miles south of Fort Myers.

a at A sheet covers the body of a South Carolina man killed by troopers near Miami on Tuesday. The man leaned out of the window of the BMW and fired at troopers, officials say. Larry King replays sign case Harassment suit is 2nd against city manager it hp Mm 1 From CNN's studio in Los Angeles, Larry King, left, interviews Joe Episcopo, center, attorney for Thomas Miller in the stop sign case, and lead prosecutor Leland Baldwin during Larry King Live. Shots were fired, disabling the trooper's vehicle, and the suspects fled. Moments later, they carjacked the woman at gunpoint on another highway and forced her to cut across the Everglades, traveling toward Miami on the Tamiami Trail.

The ordeal ended in western Dade County after troopers pulled up alongside the woman's BMW convertible and returned fire, killing one of the carjackers. The suspects were identified as Billy Arvel George, 30; and David Dallas George, 27, both of Greenville, S.C., but troopers did not say which brother died in the shootout. Authorities said Edie Silver's quick thinking probably saved her life. "She is to be commended," said Lt. Ernesto Duarte.

The 48-year-old Silver, the consumer hot line director for Fort Myers television station WINK, was smiling and upbeat as she PSC officials and Florida Power representatives had hoped the settlement would end months of scrutiny and negative publicity about both the agency and the company. Tuesday's revelations revive issues that have nagged the PSC for years. In 1993, Commissioner Tom Beard stepped down from the PSC after a series of disclosures in the Times about his relationship with a Southern Bell manager, whom he eventually married, and his friendships with Bell executives. (BellSouth is the new name for Southern Bell.) Beard frequently voted in favor of Southern Bell's positions on rate increases and other issues. Davis, the PSC's director of legal services, could not remember a time a lawyer has been involved in such a situation.

She said the agency's code of ethics hangs prominently near the entrance to the legal office, and she does not know why Wagner seemed to ignore it. "I don't know what was in her mind," Davis said. siblings or falling down while learning to walk. But Dr. Joan Wood, the chief medical examiner of Pinellas and Pasco counties, testified Tuesday that she doubted so many head injuries could be accidental.

She said she could find no natural cause for the girl's death but did notice bruising on the inside of the girl's lip that appeared consistent with smothering. After the child's death, Florence said that she overheard Robinson talking to his uncle while they watched television. She said she heard him say, "Can the cops find out if somebody put their hand over somebody's mouth?" But Schwartzberg suggested that his client only asked that because the two men were watching a talk show about people who had killed children. The trial continues today. i i II I 4 ft I down stop signs?" he asked.

"Just something people do," said the newly clean-cut 20-year-old. "Is this done a lot where you live?" King asked. In a case that has sparked debate across the country, Christopher Cole, Miller and roommate Nissa Baillie, 21, were convicted last month of pulling up a stop sign on a lonely country road in southeast Hillsborough County and ultimately causing the deaths of three teens who drove into the path of an 8-ton Mack truck. Sentenced to 15 years in prison, they were released pending their appeal. King opted for a second hour of the discussion, to be aired at 9 p.m.

Thursday. month after about 2V4 years at the PSC, was a attorney in the agency's electric and gas division and worked directly on cogeneration issues. Dolan is the manager of cogeneration contracts and administration for Florida Power and has worked at the company since 1983. At its June 24 meeting, commissioners agreed with the staffs recommendation to approve the rate increase and allow Florida Power to buy out the contract with Lake Cogen Ltd. Wagner's last day of work was June 27 two days before she and Dolan got engaged.

The two had been dating for a "couple of months," according to an internal memo. Neither Wagner nor Dolan could be reached for comment. Dolan has been placed on paid administrative leave pending a Florida Power investigation. Company officials first learned of the relationship June 11, but thought it was casual, Florida Power spokeswoman Melanie Forbrick said Tuesday. The company reassigned Dolan and thought that Wagner would remove herself harder, Davidson said, Robinson "wrapped her tight in a blanket and he suffocated her." Florence saw none of this.

She testified she was outside the house for about an hour chatting with a friend, and when she returned to bed she took a sleeping pill. When Florence woke up the next morning and began getting the older children ready for school, she noticed her youngest was not moving. "Her face was all blue, and she had several bruises," Florence said, holding back tears. "She was cold. I got very upset and started screaming at Larry, 'What did you do to my little Robinson denied harming the child.

He told detectives that as far as he knew she and the other children all slept through the night undisturbed. He also denied hitting any of the children. tional registry whose marrow might match. Her mother said they waited for nearly four years, always being warned by doctors that the likelihood of a finding a matching donor were slim. In fact, nationally the odds are about 1 in 20,000 for African-Americans.

Still, they held on. Sometimes the visits to the doctor came every day. "She's very strong," said Waller. "She has been all the way through this. She has to tell me not to cry." In early June, a donor was found at last.

It was not ideal; the match was not perfect. That continues to worry Tabrae's doctors, who say it increases the risks that her body ultimately will reject the marrow. But they really had no choice, said Dr. Nanette Grana, a pediatric oncologist and hematologist overseeing the case. Tabrae's condition deteriorated to the point in By SUE CARLTON Tirni Staff WrttBf TAMPA Everyone was there, it seemed, but the judge.

From studios in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and even hometown Tampa, the players in the trial of three young people convicted in the notorious stop sign case gathered before CNN talk show host Larn' King Tuesday night for a show ihat was at times confrontational, confusing, and most importantly, live. "Tonight I feel like we're doing the case again," said King, intto-ducing his dozen guests. The host dove right in with a question for defendant Thomas Miller. "What were you doing taking Romance from 1B conflict of interest may have influenced" the PSC's vote, according to the company's filing. PSC Chairwoman Julia Johnson was out of town and could not be reached for comment late Tuesday, but agency officials said the commission may reconsider the rate increase.

The agency is conducting an investigation. The increase was approved June 24 to let Florida Power buy out a 6-year-old contract with a Lake County power plant. It was one of several such cases in which the St. Petersburg-based utility was raising rates in the short term to buy out cogeneration contracts with inefficient plants in hopes of saving money in the future. Florida Power officials said in their filing they believed the relationship between PSC attorney Lorna Wagner and company employee Robert Dolan existed before the staff issued its recommendation on the case June 12.

Wagner, who resigned late last Trial from 1B Rose's mother, Catherine Florence, in a one-bedroom apartment at 5100 40th St. in the Lealman area. He helped her care for the girl and her three siblings, all under age 8. On the night of March 13, 1995, Davidson said, Robinson was sick with a cold and in a foul mood. After he argued with Florence, he went to bed.

But the 2-year-old, who had a 100-degree fever, woke him with her crying, Davidson said. "She began to cry, and he didn't want to hear it," Davidson told jurors in his opening statement. "So he picked her up and rammed her repeatedly into the frame of the bed." When the injured girl cried Transplant from 1B age 15, figured it was nothing serious. She was getting impatient as the hours crept by and still they waited in the hospital. "Everybody started looking at me weird," she recalled.

The doctor said he was going to send someone else in to talk to them. The word leukemia did not really register at first. It was a word from a TV show. "I said, 'Well, so, how can you get rid of she said. Little did she know then the journey her family had begun.

Tabrae's diagnosis was chronic melogenous leukemia, a rare type qf bone marrow cancer. Because she is African-American, her odds for a bone marrow transplant immediately plummeted because of the scarcity of donors in the na gesture for the plaintiff to sit there," the lawsuit says. The lawyer for Anderson and the city was not available for comment Tuesday. Anderson said he has been advised not to talk about the case, though he denied the allegations when Musgrave filed her EEOC claim. He also has said there was no truth to an earlier suit, filed by his then-secretary Shirley Lane.

Lane, who resigned last year, filed a complaint with the city then and followed with a suit in Hernando Circuit Court a month later. The case was transferred to the U.S. District Court in Tampa in April. Musgrave worked for the city from November 1995 to July 1996. She was not available for comment Tuesday, but said in April that Anderson's treatment of her was one of the reasons she left the city without giving the required two-week notice.

Vice Mayor Ward Friszolowski said. "But the business side of me says we need to do what's in the best interest of the city." City Commissioner John Bailey hesitated because, unlike Friszolowski, he has supported Ellsworth consistently. "I'm not happy with it," Bailey said of the settlement. "I just wish there were a better solution." Residents also were divided in their support of the agreement. "Tonight, you have the opportunity to show this community you are leaders and not followers," said former City Commissioner Robert Mariner, who left office in March.

"Please do not cave in. If you do, you send the wrong message to other communities and future commissions of this city." Some residents thanked Ellsworth for her service. "If I was Jane, I would sue for a million dollars," said Vernon Schmidt, who grabbed an American flag near the podium and said: "We pledged allegiance to the flag with freedom and justice for all. The city government has desecrated the flag." He then went east on Haines Bay-shore" Road, south on Elaine Drive and drove around the neighborhood. When he pulled onto Whitney Road and headed west, a cruiser was blocking the way.

"He took off the rear end of the cruiser," Tita said. "I mean it is gone from the car. But (King) kept going." According to the sergeant, King veered off the road after hitting the cruiser. He hit the corner of a vacant house at 2864 Whitney Road, stopped and was surrounded by deputies. In March 1996, two inmates escaped through a window at the jail.

They were captured 12 hours later. Times Classified editions. 7505, exL 7850. By DAN DeWITT Timet Staff Writer BROOKSVILLE A former city of Brooksville secretary on Tuesday became the second woman to file a sexual harassment lawsuit against City Manager Richard Anderson. City officials were not caught off guard by the lawsuit because the secretary, Patricia Musgrave, had filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in April.

"Does it surprise me? No," City Council member Pat Brayton said. The lawsuit claims Anderson touched Musgrave against her will and made inappropriate comments in her presence. "Some specific incidents included: rubbing the plaintiff's leg; putting his arm around the plaintiff's shoulders; saying things like it was a good thing she was not clairvoyant; patting his knees as a Settle fromlB Ellsworth was fired in February, four months after she stood during a City Commission meeting and accused Walker of sexual harassment. In her claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, she said Walker asked her to go to bed with him after election duties in 1992. Walker, a 25-year employee, has denied making the comments.

He said he may have jokingly said, "Let's get drunk and get naked." Still looming are separate discrimination claims two female employees filed after Ellsworth's accusation. Some city commissioners appeared reluctant Tuesday to accept Ellsworth's offer, but they did, considering mounting legal costs. So far, the dispute has cost the city $144,000, not including the settlement. The city's insurance carrier may cover up to half the $1 10,000 settlement, said City Attorney Jim Devito. "My conscience tells me to fight it, to litigate it, not to pay," Escapee fromlB ward the two 15-foot fences surrounding the compound.

One has barbed wire and razor wire at the top; the other has barbed wire. Tita said King scaled them both. Shedding his jail-issued blue shirt, King ran south along 49th Street N. Several deputies in an unmarked car saw him at 140th Avenue and 49th Street, where King jumped into a Dodge van. Tita said the van driver had left the keys in the vehicle while making a delivery inside a building.

With deputies in pursuit, King drove west on Ulmerton Road to U.S. 19, where he turned north. mm Sill IT im Ads run in all Call 1 800 333 Restriction bddIv. CLASSIFIED from the case. But on June 24, company officials watched as Wagner addressed commissioners briefly on a technical issue related to the cogeneration issue, Forbrick said.

Six days later, they learned of the engagement. "That was when we realized this was a very serious matter and had to take action," Forbrick said. On July 1, the company notified Wagner's direct supervisor, attorney Bob Elias. "I was not aware that Lorna had a relationship with an employee of a regulated company," Elias wrote in a July 1 memo to Davis. "It was quite a shock to me." Last month's rate increase came on the heels of the settlement of an unrelated issue, in which Florida Power agreed to cover more than $300-million in costs related to the shutdown of its Crystal River nuclear plant.

The company rolled back a prior rate increase and had hoped in the settlement to quell growing public anger over its rates. Florida Power has the highest rates of any investor-owned utility in the state. According to defense attorney Michael Schwartzberg, the only witnesses who say they saw Robinson abuse the girl are her sister and brothers. He warned jurors that the children have told conflicting stories. In cross-examining Florence, Schwartzberg brought out that state child-welfare workers had investigated her several times for keeping the children in "hazardous conditions." (Since Mandy Rose's death, Florence said in pretrial testimony, she has given up her other three children for adoption.) Schwartzberg suggested Gum-biner's death might be due to her ailments, an incorrect mixture of medications or the constriction of a bandage Florence wrapped tightly around her middle to cover the hole once used for a feeding tube.

He said her head injuries could be the result of horseplay with her which doctors were afraid to wait any longer for a more compatible match. In fact, when she arrived at the hospital's out-patient facility June 30 for a routine procedure, her mother said the doctors were alarmed enough about her condition to admit her. She has been in the hospital ever since. That has been tough on everyone. Tabrae is homesick.

Her mother said she thinks she is starting to get scared, too. "I tell her, This is what we've been fighting said Waller. To prepare for tonight's procedure, Tabrae underwent two days of chemotherapy and three days of radiation treatments. Those are designed to kill her diseased bone marrow and suppress her immune system. The treatments were hard, causing severe nausea and diarrhea, Waller said.

So far Tabrae has not lost any hair. Waller said her daughter has taken the possibility in stride, probably better than she has. "I was upset. She wasn't. She said, 'It'll grow Waller said.

On Thursday, a second girl, Tara McElroy, 4, also will undergo a bone marrow transplant. Although not the first time, hospital officials say it is rare to have such back-to-back transplants. Grana said Tara had fared better with her chemotherapy and radiation treatments. She said the girl on Tuesday was singing and dancing in her room. Following the transplants, both girls will begin a critical three- to four-week stage in which they will be closely watched for infection due to their suppressed immune systems.

Determining whether the new bone marrow will be accepted could take two weeks. Both girls should be hospitalized six to eight weeks after their transplants. I.