Tampa Bay Times court reporter Curtis Krueger
BY MARK WOLFENBARGER
NNB Student Reporter
CLEARWATER – Sitting at a table in the cafeteria of the Pinellas County Justice Center, courts reporter Curtis Krueger organizes notes as he prepares for Monday morning pre-trial hearings.
Like the attorneys who pass by, Krueger is dressed for the occasion – white dress shirt, blue necktie, dark gray dress pants.
A casual demeanor and a green Tampa Bay Times neck strap holding a press badge separate him from the attorneys who stop to chat.
Becoming acquainted with attorneys is invaluable. This is one of the ways Krueger discovers and keeps track of interesting cases.
In fact, it is how he heard about Le’Genius Wisdom Williams.
Krueger says an attorney asked him, “How come you didn’t write about the 13-year-old who shot somebody?”
Williams was arrested in August 2013 on an attempted murder charge for shooting a 15-year-old boy on 17th Avenue and 26th Street S. Prosecutors may seek adult charges. A trial date has not been set.
Krueger, 55, is from Bloomington, Ind. He attended Indiana University – and ultimately got a bachelor’s degree in journalism there – until he became a reporter at the Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, Ind.
Once he gained confidence as a journalist, Krueger joined the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times), where he has been a staff writer since 1987. He has covered courts for the Times since 2010.
Krueger scans a piece of paper with a list of five names written in black ink, each tagged with a letter. The names belong to defendants whose cases have Krueger’s attention. The letters identify which judge (and division) is presiding over the case.
After getting organized, Krueger heads across the first floor to the media room, where he drops off a Styrofoam cup filled with coffee and a black bag containing his laptop.
He then takes a series of escalators to the fourth floor. That’s where most of the felony pre-trial hearings and trials are held.
Most of Krueger’s writing is about trials. Pre-trials offer updates and sometimes a new case to follow. “Pre-trials are usually uninteresting,” Krueger says.
He enters the first courtroom, marked D.
More than a dozen people – defendants, family, friends and observers – sit in the wood-paneled room. They are separated from the judge’s bench and attorneys’ tables by a partition with a swing door in the center.
Bailiffs stand guard as defense attorneys, accompanied by their clients, approach the lectern to confer with the judge. Most are given a trial date.
Krueger says about 20 defendants can be in a courtroom at one time. Because there is no schedule, Krueger often has to wait for his case to come up. Atop his list today is Leonard Lanni Jr.
Lanni was arrested at a St. Pete Beach resort in July 2013 on a disorderly conduct charge; police say he was drunk and belligerent. On the way to jail in the transport van, police say, he savagely kicked another drunken man into a coma.
When the victim later died from his injuries, Lanni was charged with second-degree murder.
A shackled Lanni enters the courtroom in a blue corrections uniform. His attorney and the judge discuss a trial date; it is tentatively set for Oct. 7. Krueger writes it down, then leaves and walks down the hall to the next courtroom, marked A.
Krueger doesn’t see his next defendant or the attorney.
While he waits, another attorney stands at the lectern. When one defendant finishes, the next joins her.
A large man wearing a suit approaches the lectern and stands next to the attorney. “It’s interesting when a client is dressed as well as the attorney,” Krueger says. It often indicates a sex offender.
After about 10 minutes, the judge calls for a five-minute recess. Krueger exits. He says the recess is probably a bathroom break.
Krueger stands in the hall and identifies familiar faces, mostly attorneys, then walks to the opposite end of the hall. He stops to speak with an attorney named Richard Watts.
Watts is a slender man with white hair and charisma. He and Krueger have a brief discussion about law and journalists’ favorite amendment. “I am a big believer in the First Amendment, but I don’t like my name in the paper,” Watts says.
Before heading to the media room to gather his belongings, Krueger stops by the office of Ron Stuart, the public information officer for the Pinellas-Pasco circuit court.
Stuart is a tall, older man with a belly and a Southern accent. He and Krueger often discuss cases.
Stuart’s office has a variety of decorations including framed newspapers.
One is a Clearwater Sun front page from May 9, 1980, the day one span of the original Sunshine Skyway collapsed after being rammed by a freighter. “That was one of the last extras in America,” Stuart says.
He was managing editor of the Sun, which folded in 1989.
From Stuart’s office, Krueger heads to the media room to retrieve his black bag and neglected cup of coffee. He walks across the first floor and down the hall toward the doors next to the cafeteria where his morning began.
For many, the courthouse is where their stories end. For Krueger, it is where stories are born.