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Courtesy photo /What career criminal and accused killer Henry Ford Wheeler was doing in a bar that led to him getting beaten up overnight Sunday is a police mystery.NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Once again, Henry Ford Wheeler found trouble or maybe this time trouble found him: He was beaten up overnight Sunday at a beachside bar, but police were sketchy on details.
Wheeler's face as the target of several patrons at the Traders Pub on Flagler Avenue with "hands, feet and teeth," according to a police incident report of the 2:19 a.m. attack. It wasn't clear in the police report what may have sparked the violence, requiring him to be transported to Bert Fish Medical Center. There ere no arrests. And if the cops knew who his attackers were, they weren't saying later in the day, citing an "ongoing investigation as a reason for clamming up.
Wheeler suffered "mostly facial injuries," Detective Sgt. Griffith said, adding Wheeler left the BFMC emergency room "before being completely treated." Wheeler had been released on $5,000 bail on charges of felony murder and possession of cocaine in the July 19, 2009, gunshot slaying of Jeremy Markley in an apparent drug deal gone bad.
Because the prime suspect in Markley's killing is 33-year-old Melvin Brown, Wheeler was offered a deal of substantially reduced time from a possible life sentence in exchange for cooperative testimony for the state.
Brown, in prison on an unrelated conviction, is the alleged triggerman in the 25-year-old New Smyrna Beach man's death.
Wheeler remains charged as a principal to murder in the shooting death since he arranged a meeting in another New Smyrna Beach bar that apparently led to Brown getting ripped off and retaliating by chasing the victim through the streets of New Smyrna Beach and Edgewater while firing a handgun at his vehicle, ultimately killing him, police have said.
Whether Wheeler should have been in the bar in the first place this time around is something police are still trying to get a handle on from the courts as a condition of his release from jail.
Wheeler has been arrested more than 60 times, and at one point was befriended by former longtime County Judge Mary Jane Henderson. She was swept out of office in November after she was reprimanded by the Florida Supreme Court for trying to help Wheeler manage his affairs by holding his money and helping him get an apartment.