Crime Blotter: Vacationing Juror Sent to Jail

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C I N C I N N A T I — Christina Fiorini apparently left the jury hung out to dry.

The 33-year-old woman was serving as a juror in a murder trial when she left in the middle of deliberations to go on vacation in Mexico.

When she finally showed up again, the judge presiding over the trial sent her to jail. "I think the appropriate sentence would be that you have to serve seven days in jail since you wasted seven days of our time," he told her. "You get to sit in jail for seven days with all the other knuckleheads up there and see what it's like."

Fiorini began serving her sentence on Monday. She was also fined and ordered to do 40 hours of community service.

When Fiorini didn't show up at court on Feb. 19, authorities issued an arrest warrant for her, court officials say. She resurfaced Monday and appeared before Judge Robert Ruehlman, who was presiding over the trial Fiorini skipped out on.

"What happened was I have e-mail access and what I did was I checked my e-mail on Tuesday to make sure that I didn't have a message because I couldn't get a phone call in or out [where she was on vacation]," she said.

While waiting for her to show up, Ruehlman delayed deliberations for a week in the trial, which involved a woman accused of luring a man into a parking lot where he was robbed and killed.

The defense eventually agreed to let the 11 remaining jurors render a verdict, and deliberations continued without Fiorini. The defendant, 24-year-old Dorie Terrell, was convicted of complicity to aggravated murder and complicity to aggravated robbery.

Something Fishy About This Assault …M A D E I R A B E A C H, Fla. — The swordfish is mightier than the beer can, it seems.

Florida fisherman Frank Ashmus stabbed Garth Spacek, also a fisherman, with a swordfish bill last Thursday when the two got into a fight, police said.

"There was a lot of drinking out that night," Pinellas County sheriff's spokeswoman Marianna Pasha said.

The trouble apparently began when Spacek, 42, beat Ashmus, 46, Pasha said.