Now his attorney says the time lapse in obtaining a search warrant for the Powhatan Avenue home could bolster Lorenzo's defense against a federal affidavit linking him to two deaths.

Lorenzo and a friend, Scott Schweickert, are accused of smothering Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz, both 26, inside the house in December 2003, the affidavit states. The affidavit says the men placed Wachholtz's body in his Jeep, which they abandoned at a Town 'N Country apartment complex, and dismembered Galehouse, whose remains have not been found.

Neither is charged in the deaths. Lorenzo is facing federal drug charges. Schweickert is accused of being an accessory to a crime involving drugs.

An application for a federal search warrant served in November at Schweickert's Peru, Ill., home states Tampa detectives approached an agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in January 2004 about Lorenzo and possibly others being involved in drug-facilitated sexual assaults. The detectives provided the agent, Scott Albrecht, with four police reports about alleged sexual encounters with Lorenzo between November 2000 and December 2002.

Lorenzo's attorney, Donald Harrison, said the sex acts were consensual. Lorenzo has denied killing or raping anyone, he said.

``Mr. Lorenzo is a very promiscuous man,'' Harrison said. ``He picks up men and goes off with them. What's wrong with that?''

The DEA and Tampa police did not search Lorenzo's home until June 2, 2004. They discovered gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, a central nervous system depressant known as a ``date- rape drug,'' and methamphetamines, the document shows. They also found restraints, photos of more than 20 men in various stages of bondage and newspaper articles about local missing people.

Police Detective Filed Suit

Lorenzo was charged with felony methamphetamine possession. The Hillsborough State Attorney's Office later declined to prosecute the case, court records show.

Weeks after the search warrant, Tampa police detective Dale ``Chip'' DeBlock accused Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober of denying his application for a search warrant in the Lorenzo case because of his distrust of DeBlock. The accusation arose in a lawsuit against Ober, which was dismissed in September but is under appeal.

The lawsuit did not name Lorenzo but mentioned a suspect in the disappearance and killing of one homosexual man and the disappearance and ``presumed killing'' of others, then referred to the search warrant later executed by the DEA. That suspect, authorities now say, was Lorenzo.

Tuesday, Harrison said Ober not finding DeBlock credible could undermine the federal case.

``The information they went to Mr. Ober with is the same thing they went to the [DEA] with,'' Harrison said.

Tampa police said the initial application for the search warrant was rejected not because of a personal dispute but a lack of evidence.

In addition, police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said, DeBlock was only one detective working on the case. She named three others, including Tom Singleton, who was the first to identify Lorenzo as a ``person of interest,'' she said.

The warrant executed in June 2004 had ``considerable new evidence,'' McElroy said. She thought it was premature for Harrison to criticize the case when ``our detectives are still building it.''

Police have been working with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and DEA and are awaiting the results of forensic tests on items found in Lorenzo's house, McElroy said. The mothers of three gay men missing since 2001 recently gave police DNA.

Lorenzo Questioned On GHB

The discussion in the Illinois warrant application about the alleged sexual assaults was not the first time the DEA focused on Lorenzo, the application states. The DEA office in Buffalo, N.Y., flagged Lorenzo in 2002 while investigating customers who purchased two chemicals that form GHB.

Lorenzo had ordered 360 milliliters of gamma-butyrolactone to be sent to his Powhatan Avenue home in August 2002, the document states. When DEA agents interviewed him, Lorenzo said he did not know the contents of the package were similar to GHB, the application states.

DeBlock declined to comment on the lawsuit or the Lorenzo investigation. His attorney did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Ober's spokeswoman, Assistant State Attorney Pam Bondi, also declined to comment on Harrison's strategy because of the federal investigation.

Albrecht said in a July 22, 2004, Tampa Tribune story that DeBlock's assertion of evidence of ``kidnapping, sexual molestation, torture or aggravated battery'' at the suspect's house was ``overstated.''

Albrecht could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Steve Cole, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney, said when the GHB connection first arose, authorities pursued the federal charges they thought applied. ``This case is by no means over,'' he said.

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini contributed to this report. Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800.

Keyword: Arrest, to read an affidavit on the case by a federal agent.