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Published on Wednesday, October 8, 2003
in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune
OKANOGAN, Wash. -- Walter Rhodes, arrested in Washington for violating parole after serving 18 years in prison for killing a Florida trooper and a Canadian constable, is fighting extradition.
"We're contesting the entire issue of him going back to the state of Florida," Rhodes' attorney, Anthony Castelda, said after a Tuesday hearing in Okanogan County District Court on Tuesday.
Florida that it has 60 days to issue a governor's warrant for extradition.
Rhodes, 53, has been wanted in Florida since 1994, when he broke parole by failing to show up for an alcohol treatment program.
He was one of three people involved in the 1996 killing of Florida Highway Patrol trooper Philip A. Black and visiting Cpl. Donald R. Irwin of Canada's Ontario Provincial Police.
Castelda said Rhodes potentially faces life in prison in Florida.
Rhodes also faces new Washington charges of perjury and felon in possession of a firearm. He has pleaded innocent to those charges.
Rhodes was arrested on Sept. 9 near his Oroville home on the Florida warrant.
Rhodes was one of three people involved in the shooting deaths of the two officers as they approached a car at a rest stop on Interstate 95 near Pompano Beach, Fla., in 1976.
Sentenced to life in prison, he skipped parole after he was released in 1994 to attend the treatment program.
One of his co-defendants, Jesse Tafero, died in Florida's electric chair on May 4, 1990.