St. Petersburg Times (Florida)

February 3, 1988, Wednesday, City Edition


$ 10-million bail set for man in jail on drug charge

DATELINE: SARASOTA

SARASOTA - An Englewood man was being held in the Sarasota County  Jail on $ 10-million bail Tuesday night on a drug-related charge, the    Sarasota County Sheriff's Department said.
 
    Stephen L. Ruth, 38, was charged on Polk County warrants for    keeping or using an aircraft for selling drugs and failure to produce a    pilot's license. The charges resulted from an investigation that U.S.    Customs and the Polk County Sheriff's Department launched when Ruth was    arrested after landing an airplane at the Lakeland Airport, the    department said.
 
    Ruth was charged Jan. 3 for using a false aircraft identification    number and released on his own recognizance, according to Polk County    Jail records.
 
   

 
 

St. Petersburg Times (Florida)


March 31, 1990, Saturday, City Edition


Inmate accused of trying to hire killer

SECTION: TAMPA BAY AND STATE; Pg. 7B

LENGTH: 137 words

DATELINE: LAKELAND

 

An inmate already serving 60 years in a drug case was charged Friday with hiring an undercover agent to kill his former attorney and the law officer responsible for his arrest, the Polk County Sheriff's Department said.
 
   Steven L. Ruth offered the agent $ 80,000 to kill Tampa lawyer Dominic Baccarella and Frank Mercurio, a special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) in Tampa, a sheriff's spokeswoman said.
 
   He also agreed to pay the agent another $ 300,000 to design and execute a plan to break Ruth out of the Polk County Jail, spokeswoman Lynne Breidenbach said.
 
   Ruth, 50, (sic) of Englewood was sentenced in September 1989 to 60 years for altering an airplane's identification number during a drug-smuggling operation.
 

 

 

Tampa Tribune (Florida)

August 3, 1998, Monday, FINAL EDITION


Prosecutor fired after complaints;

TALLAHASSEE - Days after a drug dealer's attorneys complained to state officials, an assistant  attorney general was fired.

In April 1997, Jeanne Clougher filed a legal motion in Sarasota County Circuit Court that she  hoped would help neutralize a drug smuggler who had threatened to kill public officials from his  prison cell.

Under the state's racketeering law, Clougher, an assistant attorney general in Tampa, was  attempting to seize valuable real estate that the state said Stephen Ruth had purchased with drug  profits. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement also contended Ruth planned to use the assets to  finance contract murders of public officials.

One hitch was defense attorneys were after the same property for their legal fees. After the state began seizure efforts on the property, Ruth's lawyers had a mortgage on the  property assigned to them.

Clougher took the position that the state already had claim to the property. She filed a motion  that, among other things, asked the court to consider naming the law firm as defendants in the  forfeiture case. That move is permitted under the state's RICO act because the attorneys had  acquired their mortgage on the Ruth property after the state had filed for forfeiture.

That's when the case took an unexpected turn.

Ruth's lawyers called Clougher's superiors in Tallahassee and less than 48 hours later she was  fired. Clougher's superiors did not explain why, court documents show.

And on Friday a spokesman for Attorney General Bob Butterworth, Joe Bizzaro, said "nobody" would  have any comment now on Clougher's firing.

Clougher, an eight-year veteran of the attorney general's office, was not only out of a job, she  was scared.

"I didn't have any protection anymore from Ruth," she said in an interview.

"I hid in my house for the next two weeks with the alarm system on and the gun next to me every  place I was.

"I expected a hit."

Ruth, already in jail on pot smuggling charges, was convicted in 1990 of threatening to kill  10th Judicial Circuit Court Judge J. Dale Durrance and FDLE Special Agent Frank Mercurio and their  families.

A convicted drug smuggler, Ruth was caught flying 400 pounds of marijuana from Belize to Florida  in the late 1980s. He touted connections to Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.

FDLE investigators wrote to Butterworth in 1993 that they feared Ruth would continue to try and  use "the many assets he had acquired in his narcotics ventures to finance an escape or cause harm to  other witnesses."

Clougher was trying to seize those assets, an estimated $ 3 million in real estate in Charlotte  and Sarasota counties tied to Ruth, a former restaurant owner. Investigators claimed the property  was purchased with drug money and that Ruth intended to pay for additional murders "by selling or  deeding over ownership" of the property.

Clougher's attempts to seize the property also apparently put her in Ruth's cross hairs.

An FDLE investigative report obtained by The Tampa Tribune says that she was among those Ruth  wanted killed. FDLE took the threat so seriously Clougher was taught by the agency to use a gun.

The Bartow attorneys who complained about Clougher had placed a lien valued at $ 300,000 on the  disputed property to cover Ruth's legal bills.

Attorney Jonathan Stidham and the firm of Boswell, Stidham, Purcell, Conner, Wilson & Brewer,  were hired by Ruth to fight the state's forfeiture lawsuit.

Clougher's motion was but a piece of the complicated forfeiture proceeding that had been  dragging on for more than six years. It was designed to clear up whether Ruth's mother had any  legal interest in the property. Ruth had transferred the real estate to a trust in her name.  Stidham also represented Ruth's mother, Eileen Borg, in the forfeiture case.

Believing that the motion overreached the legal issues involved and amounted to an attack on his  law firm, Stidham called Butterworth assistant Lester Garringer to complain. Later, Garringer would  testify that Stidham never disclosed his financial interest in the property.

To reach Garringer, Stidham enlisted the aid of attorney Mitchell Franks, who was Butterworth's  top deputy until 1991.

Since entering private practice, Franks had joined the law firm of Lane, Trohn, Clarke,  Bertrand, Vreeland & Jacobsen, and that firm had recently merged with Stidham's. In an interview  with the Tribune, Franks said he also "might have" telephoned the attorney general's office to give a  "heads up" that Stidham would call.

Stidham's father, Wofford Stidham, who belonged to the same firm and also represented Ruth, told  the Tribune that Clougher's motion was "outrageous" because it accused the firm of needlessly  dragging out the litigation. The motion also castigated the attorneys for allegedly thwarting the  payment of child support to Ruth's ex-wife, he said.

"The undersigned Assistant Attorney General is appalled at the lengths that counsel for these  defendants have gone in order to secure their fees," Clougher wrote. "It is a wonder that they can  sleep at night when helping to assist another child be deprived of support."

Wofford Stidham said such liens on property are routine and necessary when clients don't have  the cash to hire an attorney.

If the state won the forfeiture fight, the mortgage held by the attorneys could have been deemed  worthless.

In a recent deposition in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by Clougher, Jonathan Stidham  acknowledged he called Franks "and told him that I needed to talk to Ms. Clougher's boss ... I felt  like Ms. Clougher was out of control, and I called to get some help."

At the time of Clougher's firing Peter Antonacci, who succeeded Franks, was Butterworth's top  deputy. Now in private practice, Antonacci defended Clougher's firing, saying she was dismissed for  overall poor job performance.

Clougher was a problem for her supervisors and co-workers, Antonacci said. He dismissed her high  job performance reviews within the department.

In contrast to Antonacci's claim, one day following her dismissal Clougher's supervisor in  Tampa, Scott Farr, issued a terse confidential memo obtained by the Tribune in which he cited the  motion as the sole reason for Clougher's firing.

"In addition to draftmanship (sic) well below that expected of a legal professional, the motion's  content is unprofessional," Farr wrote. "The content demonstrates a lack of the detachment and  objectivity required of a lawyer and resorts to ad hominem attacks."

Just two days after Clougher's firing, Stidham notified the Sarasota judge deciding the motion  that he had received "a telephone call from Ms. Clougher's superiors earlier in the week and learned  that Ms. Clougher had been terminated ... I do not believe, therefore that (Clougher's) proposed  order reflects the state's position."

After Clougher's termination the state dropped the request to name the law firm as a defendant.  And the forfeiture case has yet to be resolved, although settlement negotiations are under way.

The Stidhams have left the Lane, Trohn firm. Ruth has hired new attorneys and Wofford Stidham  said he and his son are no longer involved in the case. He said they still hold the mortgage to the  Ruth property. Wofford Stidham and Jonathan Stidham are the father and brother, respectively, of  Tribune editorial writer Jeff Stidham.

Clougher is now in private practice in Tampa and is awaiting a mediation hearing in her wrongful  termination lawsuit.

Ruth remains in Florida State Prison, where he is serving a 30-year term.  Michelle Pellemans covers state government. She can be reached

 

08/20/05

Third fire for Englewood Beach restaurant

ENGLEWOOD -- A faulty air-conditioning unit was blamed for an early morning fire Friday that ravaged Sunsets Seaside Restaurant Patio Bar on Manasota Key.

It was the third fire at the Beach Road building in four years.

The Englewood Fire Department responded to the blaze, which started shortly after midnight, fire officials said.

The fire caused $80,000 in damage, according to Lt. Tammy White of the Florida State Fire Marshals Office. No one was injured; all of the restaurant's employees had left shortly after closing at 11 p.m.

The restaurant is at 1975 Beach Road, on the southeast side of the new roundabout, across from Englewood Beach. It served sandwiches, seafood and steaks, and featured nightly entertainment in the tiki bar.

Jerry Matherene was hired as general manager of the restaurant only a few days before Friday's fire.

"The air-conditioning unit isn't old, it was just replaced about a year-and-a-half ago," Matherene said. "The patio is all right, the major damage is in the kitchen, dining room and office."

Restaurant employee Tammy Cain showed up early Friday morning to help salvage food items from the kitchen.

"We're trying to get all of the frozen food out of here before it goes bad," Cain said. "We're all just in shock."

Cain said a major loss for the restaurant was the expensive, hand-painted skim boards that hung on the now-charred walls.

"The boards were handmade, and they're ruined," Cain said. "Everything is black."

Sunsets averaged between 500 and 600 customers a day during peak season, Matherene said.

"The fire marshal said with a good contractor and because we're fully insured, we should be open again in three months," Matherene said.

Matherene said he was grateful that restaurant employees were ready and willing to help clean up the debris.

"Some of them were here as soon as they heard about the fire," Matherene said. "From what I can tell, all of the workers here are like family."

Friday's fire marked the third in four years for the Manasota Key restaurant.

The first fire occurred in March 2002, when the building's roof was destroyed by an electrical fire that started in a shed attached to the building. The second fire occurred in April 2003, because part of the building's electrical wiring had not been replaced since the first fire.

The building is estimated to be 50 to 60 years old.

Both fires happened when the restaurant, formerly Crabby George's, was owned by George Ristovski. The building and property is co-owned by Eileen Borg and Stephen L. Ruth.

Ruth, 56, was arrested on Manasota Key earlier this month on charges involving a 2001 incident in which he allegedly hit a woman on the head with a chair, according to the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office.

On June 23, 2001, a woman told authorities Ruth hit her on the head with a chair at the House of Chan restaurant on State Road 776. The victim said she didn't know why Ruth attacked her.

An arrest warrant was issued in 2001, but authorities couldn't locate Ruth until this month, when he was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

At the time of the alleged incident, Ruth owned the Captain's Club restaurant, now known as the White Elephant, down the road from the Sunsets building on Gulf Boulevard.

Sunsets is the second Manasota Key establishment in seven months to be damaged by fire.

Calico Jack's, 1950 Beach Road, was severely damaged in January when the building's ceiling caught fire. The fire gutted the office and heavily damaged the bar.

Calico Jack's is being renovated, but has not yet reopened.

You can e-mail Shelly Janke at sjanke@sun-herald.com.

By SHELLY JANKE

 

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