PAUL LAMISON / News Channel 8 photos

By ELLEN GEDALIUS
of The Tampa Tribune

TAMPA - Six days before the election and just weeks after her father died, someone broke into Mayor Pam Iorio’s south Tampa home today and took jewelry, police said.

Nobody was home at the time and no one was injured during the incident at the Beach Park house.

“It was broken into,” Officer Lisa Parashis said. “We went in and searched the house. There was no one inside.”

The call came in to the police department at 11:28 a.m. after the home’s burgler alarm went off. The police were in the neighborhood nearby but didn’t catch anyone.

Police called the mayor to tell her that her home had been broken into.

“They took mostly my jewelry,” said Iorio, adding that it was mostly necklaces and bracelets given to her by her husband over the years. The mayor said still has to inventory her pieces to find exactly what’s missing.

She said it was unsettling to have someone in her house.

“It just doesn’t feel right at all,” she said.

Had she known the police would be in the house, she would have left it cleaner, she joked.

“I had all the laundry out and everything.”

A double-pane window leading into a living room was broken on the home’s west side, according to police spokeswoman Laura McElroy.

“There were signs someone had been at the house and rifled through items,” she said.

Police say their initial search of the house indicates that whoever broke in did not touch the televisions or computers.

McElroy said the incident did not appear to be politically motivated.

This isn’t the first time police have been called to a mayoral residence.

In September 1997, police responded to a bleeding, half-naked man at the home of then Mayor Dick Greco. Vincent Ford, a 34-year-old habitual felon, tried to use the mayoral residence as his escape route following a botched carjacking attempt, according to police.

And Wednesday was the second time in about 10 days that Tampa police were called out to the home of a candidate running in the upcoming municipal election.

Last week, someone trespassed at the east Tampa home of council chairwoman Gwen Miller, who is running for re-election. Someone removed Miller’s yard signs from her lawn, tossed them into the street and put up the signs of her opponents. An Iorio sign also was thrown onto the road.

McElroy said the department had no evidence that links the crimes.

Stay with TBO.com for developments.

This story contains information from Tribune archives. Tribune reporter Valerie Kalfrin contributed to this report.

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