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Around the state

Jet stolen in Florida reappears in Georgia

By wire services
Published October 12, 2005

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - Authorities are investigating how a charter jet that was reported stolen in St. Augustine over the weekend ended up at Gwinnett County Airport-Briscoe Field.

Airport workers found the $7-million, 10-passenger Cessna Citation 7 about 1 p.m. Monday. Investigators think it landed overnight Saturday, when the airport's flight tower was not operating.

Bryan Cooper, assistant airport manager at St. Augustine Airport, said the plane owned by Pinnacle Air of Springdale, Ark., was there at midnight Saturday.

Two of the suicide hijackers who crashed planes into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 - Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi - trained at the Gwinnett County airport for a time.

"We've ruled out anything diabolical or sinister" in this case, said Darren Moloney, spokesman for county police. "We didn't find anything threatening on the plane."

Former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Scott Maddox said last week that negative publicity had nothing to do his dropping out of the race, and while he couldn't recall the exact total, his fundraising over the past three months had been "pretty decent."

On Tuesday, that number became public: less than $79,000, compared with more than $320,000 for U.S. Rep. Jim Davis of Tampa and about $322,000 for state Sen. Rod Smith of Alachua, party rivals.

The Republicans in the race, Attorney General Charlie Crist and Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, each reported raising more than $1.4-million.

SARASOTA - A video showing the apparent abduction of 11-year-old Carlie Brucia and a confession from the man accused of killing her came under attack by his attorney Tuesday in court.

Less than a month before the scheduled Nov. 7 start of Joseph P. Smith's first-degree murder trial, Assistant Public Defender Adam Tebrugge tried to persuade a judge to throw out the video captured by a car wash surveillance camera on Feb. 1, 2004.

Tebrugge argued that prosecutors can't prove the digital images and the date stamps on the video are authentic. Tebrugge also claimed Smith, 39, was "illegally interrogated" in a phone call in which he told his brother where to find Carlie's body, after he had invoked his right to remain silent.

[Last modified October 12, 2005, 00:18:12]