Ambassador, untouchable overseas, harrassed here at home TREASURE ISLAND - He's a powerful man, the builder of BayWalk and Centro Ybor, and the current U.S. ambassador to Italy. But all that power can't buy Ambassador Melvin Sembler protection from a man who has been causing problems for more than a decade.
As powerful as he may be in many circles, it seems Mel Sembler (right) is powerless to stop Ray Bradbury. For 10 years, Bradbury has been combing through Sembler's garbage at his Treasure Island home.
"I've been out in front of his house picketing. I got a right to do that," Bradbury said. "The Supreme Court ruled in the '70s I can take his trash, I did that. If he wants to put all this stuff in the trash, that's his problem."
At least one thing
[THE PENIS PUMP] Bradbury took from the trash has found its way on to eBay, with an asking price of $300,000.
"That's mortifying to think that a medical device, a private personal medical device prescribed by a physician as a result of prostate cancer surgery, is being advertised on eBay for $300,000," observed Lenny Englander, the ambassador's attorney.
The online auction wasn't Bradbury's first attempt to sell the Semblers' personal belongings. He has also placed ads in a local paper.
"I think that these recent events, particularly the publication and the advertisement that was used for the medical device, were just over the top," Englander continued.
In a move that some would say is extortion, Bradbury offered to sell it back to Sembler for $700,000.
Bradbury claims to have other sensitive items from Sembler's trash.
"There's only a couple of people that know what I've got, it's myself and the Semblers. I fee; that based on what I've seen from what I got, it could have national security ramifications," Bradbury said.
ABC Action News lead investigator Robin Guess spoke to the State Department, who said while Sembler is on his mission abroad, the ambassador has all of the protection they can possibly give him; no one rifles through his garbage cans. But while he is at his Pinellas County home, they say there is nothing they can do unless his life is in imminent danger.
Pinellas County Sheriff Everett Rice is investigating the case to see if Ray Bradbury has committed a crime, but Bradbury insists he's just exercising his rights; he has an axe to grind against the Semblers.
Mel and Betty Sembler were once on the board of directors for a drug rehabilitation program called Straight. Ray Bradbury entered that program in the 1980s and he says the Semblers are to blame for the mental and physical abuse he suffered there.
"They're responsible, Melvin and Betty Sembler, and all the rest of them on that board of directors. All the other people in the state of Florida that were culpable for making sure they kept their license, all those people, they were the adults," Bradbury told Robin.
The state of Florida closed Straight in the 1990's, and the Semblers deny Bradbury's allegations. Now, they say, Bradbury has gone too far.
"They felt that they could deal with it before. I think that this has pushed them over the edge," Englander continued.
The Semblers aren't waiting for a criminal investigation. They're fighting back in the civil courts.
A Pinellas County judge ordered Bradbury to stay away from the Semblers, their family, and their garbage at home.
"Irrational people perform irrational acts and do irrational things," Enlgander said.
The ambassador has also sued for monetary damages and to have his personal items returned.
ABC Action News will follow the legal battle as it unfolds, but for the meantime, given the judge's signed injunction, Bradbury must stay away from the Semblers.
http://www.abcactionnews.com/stories/20 ... ador.shtml
