Convicted murderer whose release Pam Bondi fears will stay behind bars

TALLAHASSEE — A former Tampa police officer convicted in 1980 of murdering a security guard was again denied parole at a hearing Wednesday where Attorney General Pam Bondi said his release could have put her at risk.

Bondi, a career prosecutor who years ago as a member of the Hillsborough state attorney's office urged parole commissioners to keep Charles Norman, 67, behind bars, continues to advocate publicly against his release.

It's unusual for the state's top legal officer to openly opine about cases like this, but this one is different: Bondi said Norman has sent threats to her and to former Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober, including identifying where the state attorney lives, though that information is usually kept private under a public record exemption meant to protect prosecutors and law enforcement.

"He is a menace to society and needs to remain behind bars," Bondi said Tuesday.

Bondi's description is starkly different from the picture Norman's lawyer, William Sheppard, painted of a bright man with a creative mind who was wrongly convicted of a murder he did not commit. Norman is a writer and a sculptor who has expressed interest in counseling other inmates since at least 1986, when the Times reported he won a $500 scholarship from Mensa to take correspondence courses at the University of South Florida.

"I cannot conceive of any person coming before you who could match up to how Charles Norman has served a life sentence," Sheppard told the three-member Florida Commission on Offender Review.

In 1980, Norman, who had already left the police force, was convicted of first-degree murder for the 1975 death of Steven Bluffstone. A 20-year-old security guard, Bluffstone was shot during the robbery of a Pantry Pride grocery store on Gandy Boulevard in Tampa.

Norman was sentenced to life in prison and a minimum mandatory sentence of 25 years.

Four decades after the shooting, he maintains his innocence. The testimony that led to his conviction was gotten from convicted felons on the promise of immunity, Sheppard said.

"Immunity is only given to the guilty," he said. "The innocent don't need it."

That argument didn't sway the three commissioners, who voted 2-1 to deny Norman's release from the Columbia Correctional Institution Annex in Lake City. The third vote by Commissioner David Wyant would have delayed his parole by three years.

By doing so, they bucked the recommendation of a parole investigator from the commission who after an interview earlier this year proposed that Norman be released on July 4.

On Wednesday, just as in 2012 when Norman was last up for parole, the Hillsborough State Attorney's Office opposed his release.

Assistant State Attorney Kim Hindman called him "calculating" and a "manipulator" who has painstakingly constructed a sham image of his life behind bars, complete with a photo essay documenting more than three decades in state prisons that all three members of the commission received.

"The words obsessed, vendetta, hating with a passion have been used about how he feels about Mark Ober and Pam Bondi, who was 10 years old when he committed this offense," Hindman said.

In the next two months, the commission will meet again to finalize an order outlining the reasons they denied parole, spokeswoman Kelly Corder said. On that date, they can decide when he is next eligible for parole within the next two to seven years, or they could decide to change their ruling.

Times senior researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Contact Michael Auslen at mauslen@tampabay.com. Follow @MichaelAuslen.