Featured FL News Stories:
Ex-Aide Sentenced in Online Sex Case
Associated Press
17 Nov 2006 12:00 am
A 56-year-old former Homeland Security press aide was sentenced Friday to five years in prison after he pleaded no contest to sending sexually explicit Internet messages to someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl.
Brian Doyle, who resigned shortly after his April 4 arrest, also will have to serve 10 years of probation and register as a sex offender.
"I am profoundly sorry for everything. How I feel inside can't be described," Doyle told Circuit Judge J. Dale Durrance.
Doyle was immediately taken into custody.
The April arrest of Doyle, who had access to sensitive Homeland Security information, raised doubts about the agency's ability to ensure the security credentials of its own people.
Doyle pleaded no contest in September to seven counts of using a computer to seduce a child and 16 counts of transmitting harmful material to a minor.
Prosecutors said Doyle, of Silver Spring, Md., wrote graphic descriptions of sexual acts in online chats with a 14-year-old named "Ashlynne," who was actually a character created by sheriff's detectives.
According to court records, Doyle also bragged about his government connections, provided his government-issued phone numbers and showed off his department ID.
U.S. Marshals Round Up Thousands Of Fugitives
02 Nov 2006 7:12 pm
U.S. marshals have been fanning out across the eastern U.S. in recent weeks, and they rounded up nearly 11,000 alleged sex offenders, gang members and other fugitives.
Agents said they are targeting the "worst of the worst" on the run right now, WESH 2 News reported.
Part of the dragnet stretched across Central Florida.
In Central Florida, 38 people were picked up between Oct. 22 and Oct. 28. Those 38 people are responsible for 43 different criminal warrants.
Known as Operation FALCON III, the main targets were unregistered sex offenders and people involved in gangs.
The U.S. marshals cooperated with local law enforcement in every area of the United States, including several agencies in Central Florida, such as the Orlando Police Department and the sheriff's offices in Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Polk, Seminole and Volusia counties.
Deputy Eric Thompson said approximately 10,773 sex offenders were arrested before Halloween so that they couldn't pass out candy.
No one knows better about the threat of unregistered sex offenders than Mark Lunsford of Homosassa Springs. His daughter, Jessica, was kidnapped and killed. A sex offender who failed to register originally confessed. John Couey is now awaiting trial.
"Let's say I had met him and talked with him. I'd have no idea who he was or what he was capable of because he had never registered. He'd be unknown to me," Lunsford said.
Lunsford said the government is turning the tables on sex offenders.
"Instead of you stalking our kids, we're stalking you. And we're going to be a predator's worst nightmare," he said.
Former teacher gets two years for having sex with 15-year-old student
Associated Press
05 Oct 2006 9:22 am
A former teacher was sentenced Wednesday to two years in state prison for having sex with a student.
Janelle Marie Bird, 25, had previously been found guilty of two counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and two lesser counts of unnatural and lascivious act. She faced up to 30 years in prison.
Bird admitted having a relationship with a 15-year-old boy at East Hill Christian School. Both testified during the trial that they loved each other.
As a result of her conviction, Bird must register as a sex offender with local authorities wherever she lives for the rest of her life.
For school, sex offenders a big worry
ANNE LINDBERG
16 Sep 2006 12:00 am
The bulletin board is colorful enough to capture a student’s eye. It has a border of dark green and white stars, and the papers taped to it are neatly lined up. Students at Lealman Intermediate School pass it on their way to the principal’s office.
But the mosaic of miniature mug shots is far from a typical school display: It features the one sexual predator and 108 registered sexual offenders who live within a mile of the school.
“The first line of defense is to know who’s walking through your doors,” said principal Cheryl DiCicco .
The middle school has the highest number of sexual offenders in the surrounding area among all of Pinellas’ public elementary and middle schools.
State law does not require schools to notify parents if sexual predators or offenders live near a school. But districts generally have policies or practices urging schools to inform parents of predators. And the growing focus nationwide to track sexual offenders has increased the demand from parents that schools become more proactive about protecting children.
Many schools now routinely send fliers home in backpacks notifying parents when sexual predators have moved into a school’s neighborhood.
But Lealman Intermediate took more aggressive steps. Besides posting the pictures and addresses of the registered offenders inside the school at 4900 28th St. N, Lealman shuffled bus routes so students wouldn’t have to walk through the neighborhood.
Several sexual offenders living near Lealman Intermediate declined to be interviewed, saying only that too much is being made of their presence in the neighborhood.
According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Web site, 96 of them have been convicted of child-related offenses ranging from lewd and lascivious conduct to possession of child pornography. For some the site does not specify their offense.
A St. Petersburg Times analysis last year found that 9 in 10 people in Pasco, Pinellas and Hillsborough counties live within a half-mile of a sexual offender.
Registered sex offender arrested again
JOSE CASSOLA
07 Sep 2006 12:00 am
A sexual offender registered in Sweetwater was arrested Friday afternoon at his home on Southwest Seventh Terrace and 110th Avenue and accused of exposing himself and masturbating in front of two teenage girls who were walking across the street at Linear Park by the Tamiami Canal.
Angel Perez, 74, of 11011 SW Seventh Ter., was charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to a minor and four counts of indecent exposure.
Perez was found in his underwear in his front yard masturbating, according to police.
When confronted, Perez said he was exercising, police said.
''We did our job to get this individual off our streets,'' Sweetwater Police Chief Roberto Fulgueira said. "Now it's up to the courts to decide what his fate will be.''
Justice elusive for kids killed in crossfire
SUSANNAH A. NESMITH AND NICOLE WHITE
22 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Of at least 13 cases of children and teenagers killed by stray bullets in as many years, only one man went to prison for life: Raul Fonseca, for the 1998 murder of Marie Joseph. The 12-year-old was shot in the head as she walked down an Allapattah street.
Several cases remain unsolved, some years after the murder.
Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Kathleen Hoague said the problem in many stray bullet cases is finding proof.
''It comes down to witnesses who will come in and tell you what they saw. It comes down to finding bullets and casings. It comes down to being able to prove the facts of the case,'' Hoague said.
''I thought that once they were arrested, charged . . . it was an open and shut case,'' said the Rev. Richard Dunn, one of the most vocal of the clergy members who are decrying the many stray bullet cases involving children.
Instead, mothers like Luwana Westberry are left to wrestle with a justice system that they say offers little comfort when they are most in need.
US police chief says sorry after officers joked about shot woman
Richard Luscombe
11 Aug 2006 12:00 am
A police chief has apologised after he was caught on video laughing about a female lawyer who was shot in the head at a protest demonstration by his officers.
Elizabeth Ritter was alone and unarmed when she was hit by a hail of rubber bullets fired by police in riot gear at a free trade demonstration in Miami in 2003.
After she fell to the ground and turned to face them, one bullet ripped through a placard she was carrying and struck her in the forehead.
On a training video filmed the following morning and released to the media this week, Major John Brooks of the Broward County Sheriff's Department tells cheering colleagues how proud he was of their performance during the incident. "How about yesterday, huh?" he said. "I was so pumped up about how good you guys were."
Sex victim flees area to Guatemala
Jeff Cull and Amy Williams
11 Aug 2006 12:00 am
State attorneys are investigating the sudden disappearance of a 16-year-old Guatemalan girl who is the alleged victim of rape by her foster father.
The girl fled to her native country last month without telling authorities or her current caretaker.
She is a key witness in the case against Robert Jackson, 56, who was arrested Jan. 3 after his wife, Janie, reported finding her husband engaged in sex with the girl.
He was charged with unlawful sexual activity and battery, all second-degree felonies punishable by up to 15 years in prison. He was released from the Lee County Jail in May after posting $150,000 bond.
Reached by The News-Press in Guatemala, the girl said she left because she was frustrated with “the whole situation.
“I guess to them (DCF) I’m a runaway,” the girl said, “but not to me. I wanted to get away from there.”
Eight-Year-Old Girl Raped in Broad Daylight
20 Jul 2006 12:00 am
A man who suffers from mental health issues was being held Friday on charges of raping an 8-year-old girl on the side of a residential street in full daylight, police said.
The girl was leaving a park at about 12:55 p.m. Wednesday with her 7-year-old brother when a man grabbed her from behind, pulled her to the ground and raped her, police said. Their mother had left them alone for a few minutes to return home and turn off the kitchen stove.
A man playing basketball nearby said he heard the screams and ran to the scene. A motorist who witnessed it began honking her horn and dialed 911. The perpetrator got up and ran away.
Collateral damage
Kinloch C. Walpole
16 July 2006 6:01 am
Prisons and the war on drugs have become a public dole dependent on human misery. A misery designed by politicians to exploit both felons and ex-felons whose disenfranchisement makes them safe targets in a continuously escalating cycle of exploitation and abuse. About 60 percent of the felons are the necessary but expendable foot soldiers of the drug world. These are men and women who are in prison as a result of drug-related or drug-motivated crimes.
They link the assorted drug cartels to the professionals that roam the halls of our universities, businesses, hospitals and government. These professionals are largely unaffected by the consequences of their "responsible recreational" use of illegal drugs.
Fines, civil forfeitures and prison sentences have been constantly ratcheted up over the last two decades to combat the distribution and crime associated with the supply and delivery of illegal drugs. There is not one statistic, trend line or shred of evidence showing that any of these measures have reduced the supply, weakened distribution nets, lowered demand or preserved the integrity of our way of life.
What has happened is that our state and federal government have developed the largest and most successful money laundering operations and both law enforcement and government operations have been corrupted beyond anything known in history. And the United States now has the highest incarceration rate and ratio in the world.
All this is correctable if there is the political will to do so.
Couey's Attorneys Want His Statements Thrown Out
16 May 2006 12:00 am
Attorneys for a convicted sex offender accused of kidnapping, raping and killing 9-year-old Jessica Marie Lunsford last year want a judge to throw out his statements of guilt to authorities and bar the media from pretrial coverage.
In a motion to suppress the statements of John Evander Couey, 47, the defense said Couey was denied access to a lawyer before he told detectives in March 2005 that he raped and buried the third-grader alive.
Unregistered sex offenders
Paul LaGrone
11 May 2006 2:34 pm
There are many sex offenders that the state is aware of. While they’re supposed to be registered on the state’s website, many of them are not.
There are more than 1,200 registered sex offenders that are unaccounted for throughout the state.
Man lends home for 'Dateline' sex sting
Grant Boxleitner
11 May 2006 12:00 am
"Getting pedophiles off the street is a good thing," Gradwell said Wednesday. "Somebody had to do it. If we were still living here, we probably wouldn't have done it."
In all, 24 men from throughout Florida were arrested on felony Internet sex charges during the sting at Gradwell's home, including eight men from Southwest Florida.
Officials with Perverted-Justice.com, a national anti-sex-offender group, worked with Fort Myers police and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on the operation. They posed as underage boys and girls in chat rooms on the Internet from an upstairs room, then used decoys to bring the men inside the house.
That's when they were met by "Dateline" reporter Chris Hansen, who questioned their intentions as the cameras rolled. When he finished the interviews, police moved in for the arrests.
Sex offender registered in South Carolina allegedly molests girl in Sebastian
TONY JUDNICH
10 May 2006 12:00 am
A Vero Beach pizza delivery man who is a registered sexual offender in South Carolina was arrested Friday by Sebastian police for allegedly molesting a 10-year-old Sebastian girl.
Mark S. Moore, 33, of the 700 block of Tides Road, was arrested on a second-degree felony charge of lewd or lascivious molestation of a child under the age of 12. He has since been released from Indian River County Jail after posting a $200,000 bond.
Moore was convicted in South Carolina in 1999 on three counts of indecent exposure involving a 10-year-old girl, Grimmich said. Moore was sentenced to a three-year prison term on those charges, but it was suspended after he completed five years of probation.
The alleged molestation occurred Friday morning at the girl's residence, police said. Grimmich said Moore had been dating the girl's mother for about a year.
The mother told police she went to sleep with Moore about 12:30 a.m. Friday in her room. The mother said she awoke about 3:30 a.m. to find Moore was no longer in her bed. She looked around and found Moore kneeling at the foot of her daughter's bed, police said.
Moore was holding a flashlight in one hand and had his other hand on the girl's shorts and panties, pulling them, police said. Police said the mother then confronted Moore, who dropped the flashlight and began apologizing. The mother then told Moore to leave the house, according to police.
Sex Offenders Separated in Hurricane Shelters
Heather Sorentrue
02 May 2006 12:00 am
With the start of hurricane season just weeks away state lawmakers are trying to agree on how to shelter sex offenders and predators during a storm. Some counties already have plans in place to separate sex offenders from everybody else.
Hurricane season 2004 largely prompted the debate about whether sex offenders should be separated from the general public. The dilemma recently went to the Senate, which approved a bill requiring counties to separate them, but the House has yet to take a final vote leaving a lot of questions.
"Where are sex offenders suppose to be during hurricanes? Are we suppose to live on the street?" asked Everett, a registered sex offender who doesn't want his last name revealed.
He says he understands why people want to have sex offenders in different shelters but he doesn't like the idea of jails being used, which several local counties are opting for.
Sexual Offender Registers as Okaloosa Transient
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office is conducting a community Sexual Predator Notification in accordance with the “Public Safety Information Act of 1997” in regards to a convicted sexual offender who has registered as a transient within Okaloosa County.
Robert Wayne Harrelson, 42, was recently released from jail and registered with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Friday morning. He is currently residing and working in the Fort Walton Beach area. Harrelson is required to maintain contact with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Sex Offender/Predator Unit until he has a permanent address to report.
Harrelson is described as a white male, five-feet, eight-inches tall, weighing 145 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes. He has a scar on the right side of his head and travels by bicycle.
Harrelson is a registered Sexual Predator with a 1985 and 1993 conviction in Bay County for Lewd and Lascivious on a child under the age of 16. The victim’s gender is unknown.
