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Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
There have long been allegations of corruption in Pinellas County and allegations that individuals protected from prosecution by the Attorney General's office, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office and the Pinellas state attorney's office.
  Would it be any surprise if Attorney General and Governor-elect Charlie Crist (left) taps former Pinellas County Sheriff Everett Rice (right)for an appointed position in his new administration?
After all, Crist and Rice hung tight to deny any kind of meaningful investigation into allegations of abuse in the Terri Schiavo case.
For the first time in some 35 years, Rice is going to be off the public payroll at year's end, as he had to leave Florida's House for his aborted run for Attorney General.
But he contributed the maximum $1,000 in campaign contributions to Charlie Crist. Will it be enough to buy him a position in Crist's administration?
 After all, he took care of Eleanor Centonze, mother to Michael Schiavo's concumbine until she retired from the sheriff's office and then, in one of the last official hirings made before he left to become of member of Florida's House of Representatives, Rice hired Michael Schiavo as a nurse for the inmate division.
Of course since Schiavo's been employed at taxpayer expense, inmates have been dropping like flies and mentally ill inmates have been gouging their eyes out. The death toll this year in the Pinellas facility is at eight. Sounds like it's time for a federal investigation of the Pinellas County Jail and it will have to be federal because it's highly unlikely Crist will order any kind of a state probe. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/111006JailDeaths.html
  
In Pinellas County where Crist has his roots, public officials like Rice, state attorney Bernie McCabe (above, left), Judge George W. Greer (above, center), Dr. Jon Thogmartin (above, right) must all hang together or assuredly they will all hang separately.
They all hung together to deny justice in the Terri Schiavo case. In that case and others, the domino theory prevails, once the first one is toppled, the whole row will tumble.
Ching Chang Charlie, after raising a record $24 million in campaign contributions, he wanted donors to throw in $500,000 each to fund his $2.5 million inaugural ball. http://www.charliecrist.com/donations.pdf
Republican donors were asked to donate $50,000, $100,000 or $500,000 to get tickets to the inaugural and wow, for that they could have their picture taken with Mr. Big Spender, get engraved cuff links, a tote bag and silk tie (not sure what he planned on giving women donors but women don't seem to figure much in Crist's agenda). Let's not forget the preferred seating at a prayer breakfast at Florida A&M University the big donors would get.
Think about it, think what good $24 million could have done if donated to the United Way, the American Cancer Society or other worthwhile organizations instead of being used to buy a political office.
There's nothing frugal about Charlie, His now abandoned plan for a multi-million dollar inaugural shindig should make Florida taxpayers real comfortable about how he'll approach state spending. He's got big plans to spend billions of tax dollars but claims he won't raise property taxes. This should be interesting.
But then Charlie has already proven that you can't believe anything he says and has shown that he flip flops on the issues, depending on who's in his audience and how the political winds are blowing.
  Let's not forget that Brett Sembler (left), son of Mel "Penis Pump" Sembler (right), deep pocketed real estate developer, Republican fund raiser and former ambassador appointee of two Bush Administrations, was one of Crist's leading campaign fundraisers. Sembler was a fraternity brother of Crist at Florida State.
Donation proposals were sent to lobbyists, lawyers and real estate developers and the other monied Republicans, promising them a title of "vice chairman" if they raised or contributed $500,000.
Kind of sounds like a Mafioso situation, doesn't it?
Is that how Crist is going to run state government, for sale to the highest bidder? Is that how he operated the Attorney General's office, everything has a price, targets of investigations and prosecutions bought their way out?
If indeed Rice is guaranteed a spot in the administration, where will it be? Voters didn't want him to be attorney general so he was forced to withdraw because of lack of support. Then he wanted to be the new commissioner of Florida's Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) after Guy Tunnell was forced to resign for his improper remarks dealing with the Martin Lee Anderson boot camp death in Bay County.
When he announced his withdrawal, Rice said that "as soon as I have time to thank my supporters and close out accounts, I will be busy helping Charlie Crist become the next Governor of our state", Rice said. Was there a quid pro quo deal back in July between Crist and Rice?
Sounds like the Florida Ethics Commission should be tuned in to Crist from the getgo.
Rice claims to be an attorney but he only practiced law from 1985 to 1988 when he found a better deal feeding at the public trough. Fits in well with Crist who needed three tries to pass the bar exam.
Does Rice have his eye set on that FDLE post in the Crist administration? A man of exceptional integrity with unwavering personal values and honesty should be appointed to the helm of the FDLE, a person in whom the public can have the utmost confidence. That's not Everett Rice.
Rice, as well as Crist, had a very high profile role in the Schiavo case, heavily conflicted and exacerbated by his 20-year friendship with Pinellas County probate court Judge George Greer, the executing judge in the Schiavo case. Despite there being more than sufficient probable cause to open an investigation into various facets of the Schiavo case, Rice steadfastly refused.
In fact, there's evidence that Greer and Rice discussed the case at a baseball game and with an assistant state attorney and then when confronted, tried to deny it had occurred and Greer refused to disqualify himself as he should have done and is required by judicial canons for discussing a pending case publicly.
 But let's not forget, for over 20 years, the mother of Michael Schiavo's concubine worked for the Pinellas County Sheriff's office and for Rice 11 years after he became sheriff. No wonder he closed to his eyes to the evidence and allegations of abuse of Terri Schiavo, the exploitation of a vulnerable adult.
At the height of the Schiavo case in July 2004, Rice allowed one of his sergeants and another officer who works as Greer's bailiff to appear in a political commercial for Greer's reelection and to use a departmental patrol car to help influence the voters to reelect Greer, a blatant violation of election law. Everett Rice isn't above the law anymore than Michael Schiavo is. Is that how he would operate and rule the FDLE---with favoritism, cronyism and politics?
Instead of adding Michael Schiavo to the payroll, Rice should have criminally charged him with filing a false written instrument with the intent of defrauding the taxpayers. Obviously Schiavo's employment application was rubber stamped and approved without any background checks, with only a cursory look at the statements made on the application. Scary. Who else did Rice hire into the sheriff's department based on a false application and without checking the arrest history? All he had to do in the case of Michael Schiavo was use his own computers to confirm if Schiavo was telling the truth about his arrest history. Apparently he didn't chose to do so. Why?
Rice used questionable practices and policy in Pinellas County law enforcement, he can't be allowed to use those same tactics in a statewide office.
Michael Schiavo misrepresented his arrest record on the employment application and that by itself should have disqualified him from consideration to be placed on the public payroll, for the taxpayers to pay for him to sit watch at Woodside Hospice for two weeks, waiting for his incapacitated wife to die. And then to add insult to injury, courtesy of Everett Rice, Pinellas County taxpayers had to pay Schiavo to take his honeymoon entourage to Las Vegas. Now his supposedly been promoted to a $68,000 position in the sheriff's department, rewarded for obtaining the position by lying. What kind of message does that send the public? Floridians should be able to trust the commissioner of the FDLE. After all, someone in the FDLE is the one who shut down the Schiavo investigation at the state level.
Who was at the helm of that, was that another case of money talks, people walk? Will that be the basis of how the Crist administration is operated, money and power?
As attorney general, Crist refused to initiate an investigation into the Schiavo case, claiming that there were no complaints about the abuse and neglect of Terri Schiavo when there is an envelope containing information about alleged abuse in the Schiavo case which was personally handed to him and later returned to the complainant without action, but with Charlie Crist's fingerprints.
Crist blatantly told the public in a televised statement that there had been no complaints of abuse made to the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) a week after a DCF file in the matter was acknowledged in the Schiavo case. He lied to the public.
How can the public believe anything Crist says?
Crist ultimately shut down any and all investigations into the Schiavo case although he was statutorily and constitutionally empowered and morally obligated to protect the civil rights of the disabled woman.
He then claimed in his campaign ads that he is pro life and a "compassionate conservative".
Silver haired and silver tongued---but where's the integrity?
Crist twice failed the bar exam before passing it on the third try, has been the target of prior ethics accusations that miraculously disappeared. No wonder he entered politics, its doubtful he would have had much of a career as lawyer, probably would have had more legal malpractice claims than escrow accounts.
Apparently while he wanted to practice law but couldn't pass the bar exam, he "interned" with the state attorney's office. So now we complete the full triangle---Crist to Bernie McCabe to Everett Rice.
Gee, if Michael Schiavo hadn't backed Crist's opponent Jim Davis and turned Democrat, maybe Silver-Tongued Charlie would have named him to head the state Department of Health or maybe the Board of Nursing.
Crist won't have a first lady but rather a "First Daddy". Is there something wrong with that picture? Maybe Daddy Crist will be the health commissioner.
Crist has an remarkably undistinguished academic career and virtually non-existent private sector career. He actually has no finger on the pulse of the working man and woman, on the general public.
Major campaign contributors to Crist were the Battaglia family led by patriarch Anthony Battaglia. According to information learned by The North Country Gazette, Battaglia is the subject of a complaint before the Florida Division of Elections involving alleged campaign finance violations involving Crist's campaign. Will that investigation be swept under the rug with Crist's oath of office come Jan. 1? http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/101906RunningMate.html
    
Anthony Battaglia (above, left), Robert Jagger, Aubrey Dicus (above, second from left)---all members of the Battaglia law firm; defense attorney Barry Cohen (above, center) who represented Judge George Greer before federal Judge James Whittemore in the Schiavo case; Pineallas state attorney Bernie McCabe; Scientology attorney Wally Pope (above, second from right), Louis Kwall (right, above) whose wife was the general counsel for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Department, were all members of the committee to elect Everett Rice attorney general.
Dicus has represented the Pinellas County Sheriff's Department and Rice in government related litigation.
Looks like Crist is going to surround himself with the same people who have run interference for each other in Pinellas County for the past 15 years. McCabe, Rice and Crist, quite the triangle, kind of like the Bermuda triangle, the Devil's Triangle.
 It certainly appears from what Crist has exhibited so far that Floridians have gone from the frying pan into the fire. Jeb Bush was certainly no prize, but it appears cash and checkbooks will dictate the future of Floridians as long as Charlie Crist sits in the Governor's office in Tallahassee.
Time will tell if Floridians have enough in their bank accounts to survive the Crist administration. 12-17-06
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© 2006 North
Country Gazette
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