Ex-sheriff pleads not guilty after deputies killed

[April 28, 2009]  NICEVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- A suspended Florida sheriff pleaded not guilty to money laundering and conspiracy charges on Monday, two days after two of his former deputies were killed by a National Guard soldier they were trying to arrest.

Okaloosa County Sheriff Charlie Morris and Teresa Adams, his administrative assistant, made no comments following the brief hearing.

On Sunday, Interim Sheriff Ed Spooner, who was appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist to take over the troubled department just eight weeks ago, met with his department's 300 employees to try and explain what went wrong in the weekend shooting that left two deputies and the man they were trying to arrest for domestic battery dead.

Another deputy, Anthony Forgione, died in July after he was shot by a suicidal man who had barricaded himself in a home.

"All the things that keep happening, it's like a scab that keeps getting peeled back over and over," said Larry Carter, the department's senior chaplain.

FBI agents arrested Morris in February while he was on a gambling trip to Las Vegas.

Morris and Adams were indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday in a scheme to create fictitious bonuses for department employees and pocket the money.

Carter said employees had been preparing a May memorial service for Forgione and trying to put Morris' arrest behind them when Deputies Burt Lopez and Warren "Skip" York were killed.

Lopez and York had no warning a confrontation would occur when they tried to arrest Joshua Cartwright, 28, in the parking lot of a gun range, Spooner said. The deputies used a stun gun to subdue Cartwright, but he was able to start shooting at them from the ground.

"Within seconds he sat up and began firing a weapon that came out of nowhere, it was somewhere on his body we assume," Spooner said as employees joined hands in prayer, cried and hugged Sunday night.

Cartwright was killed in a shootout at a roadblock after a car chase into a neighboring county. The deputies had gone to a shooting range to arrest him after his wife sought treatment for domestic abuse injures at an area hospital.

Spooner said the deputies had no information to make them think Cartwright would turn his weapons on them.

"This went from zero to 100 in a matter of minutes. In three minutes it turned from a passive discussion to a shooting, it was one heck of a mess," the sheriff said.

According to a domestic violence report, Cartwright's wife, Elizabeth Marie Cartwright, 21, told deputies after her husband died that he believed the government was conspiring against him and that he had been upset by Barack Obama's election.

Authorities said the National Guard solider was interested in militias and in weapons training.

Both deputies were shot in areas not protected by their bulletproof vests, Spooner said.

In the chase that followed, Cartwright's truck flipped on its side after spikes at a roadblock punctured the tires. The soldier came out shooting, Spooner said.

Investigators say Cartwright and deputies at the roadblock exchanged about 60 rounds in 30 to 40 seconds before he was killed.

Both Lopez and York had retired from careers with the Air Force at nearby Eglin Air Force Base when they joined the department. A joint visitation for the officers is planned for Wednesday in Crestview. Lopez's funeral is set for Thursday afternoon in Niceville, and services for York are scheduled for Friday morning in Pensacola.

Capt. J.D. Peacock said Lopez, a father of five, was especially good at defusing tense situations such as domestic abuse calls.

"He was the person you would want in a confrontation because he calmed people down," he said.

[Associated Press; By MELISSA NELSON]

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