Among the hundreds of pages of Broward County court documents recently made public regarding the 2008 murder of Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler attorney Melissa Lewis, one of the most illuminating is a police interview with Aimee Villegas. Aimee is the daughter of Debra Villegas, Lewis’ best friend and Scott Rothstein’s right-hand woman…
Erika Morales snatched the identity of every person who came close to her, based on the probable-cause affidavit released today by West Palm Beach police. Her victims include her daughter’s father and the woman at the daycare center who watched that child.A police investigator interviewed one identity theft victim named…
Carolyn Bianco, the 65-year-old woman who was struck last week by an SUV while crossing Las Olas Boulevard, has died. That means vehicular homicide charges against whoever was driving that SUV, last seen heading east on Las Olas.The Fort Lauderdale police news release says that the other woman who was…
As I was posting this article yesterday about the search for murder suspect Tony Petigny, I noticed that in his mug shot, Petigny had a swollen right eye — just like the Broward Sheriff’s Office release said.After another New Times staffer noticed the same thing, I asked BSO whether it…
Florida has given the rest of America so much over the years: delicious orange juice, great football players, cop dramas, a preposterous quantity of Disney paraphernalia, and more recently, the devastating social destruction of prescription pill addiction. Wayne Bird, chief of police in Williamsburg, the southernmost Kentucky town on I-75,…
A family with the name Gallagher ought to be celebrating on a day like today. But not the family of former Broward County School Board member Beverly Gallagher. This afternoon, she entered a guilty plea to a charge of accepting a bribe from an undercover agent and expects to receive…
Sometimes, after popping some Vicodin, a fellow may feel the impulse to test the reflexes of his emergency responders. Or at least that appears to be the impulse that seized Frank Celestino today. According to a Boynton Beach police affidavit, the 55-year-old Celestino dialed 911 three times, each time screaming…
Police at Florida Atlantic University’s campus in Boca Raton called Ryan Beauchamp on March 10 while he was working as a valet on Sunrise Boulevard. They had found a box of ammo in the University Village Apartments mailroom with the words “9 mm ammunition” emblazoned on the side. He agreed…
Juice reported earlier today that missing person Melanie Parada was found but that she had been charged with child neglect. Fort Lauderdale police just released the probable-cause affidavit in that case, and it claims that Parada disappeared so she could buy crack cocaine.According to the statement Parada gave to police,…
While Debra Villegas told police officers she was nearly certain that her husband, Tony Villegas, didn’t kill her best friend, Melissa Lewis, others who were close to the women were not so sure.Ilene Vinikoor was a family therapist who had been counseling Debra and Melissa separately while both women were…
I don’t know whether Guavin Kanhai was angry that a bartender rejected his romantic advances or whether he was mad that she wouldn’t refill his drink. But surely it was one or the other that caused the 47-year-old Kanhai to dial 911 three times to report that a “fake” bartender…
It appears that more than one man was linked to the stabbing death of a man at a Pompano Beach barbecue this past weekend. The Broward Sheriff’s Office is looking for Tony Petigny, a 28-year-old man who lives in Deerfield Beach. Petigny allegedly had a role in the murder of…
Update: Police just announced that Parada has been charged with child neglect and taken into custody.Last night around 10, Fort Lauderdale police patrol officer found Melanie Parada, a 36-year-old woman who has been missing since March 11, in the 1100 block of NE Tenth Avenue. A news release by the…
When a Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy saw a couple of dozen people running in different directions on NW Tenth Street on Saturday night in Pompano Beach, it was a clue that something pretty awful had happened. The deputy learned that they were scrambling away from the scene of a barbecue…
One of the attorneys representing the family of Craig Elford, a victim of the hit-and-run accident last February in Fort Lauderdale, says he expects the suspect in that case, Ryan LeVin, to surrender to police tomorrow.”I haven’t heard that he was missing,” says Seth Miles, whose Coral Gables firm is…
It was a matter of time before we had our first arrest for fraud in the U.S. government’s TARP program, and it was a sure thing that the fraud would have a South Florida angle. But besides the feds, it appears a bank executive plucked an unlikely victim out of…
As scam artists go, Gina Marks is maddeningly persistent. The 37-year-old from Hollywood has been busted before for what Broward Sheriff’s Office calls “gypsy” crimes. Last May she was convicted of felony fraud, but she received only probation, which paved the way for another arrest last week on charges that…
A just-released Fort Lauderdale Police affidavit describes how Ryan LeVin and Derek Cook partied all night February 12, then into the morning of February 13, a party that came to a gruesome end around 2:18 a.m., when LeVin’s speeding Porsche careered off Seabreeze Boulevard and struck two British tourists, killing…
Earlier today, we told you that Derek Cook, the Tamarac man who was allegedly involved in the hit-and-run death of two British tourists last year, has surrendered to police. And now Coral Gables attorney Seth Miles, who’s representing Elford’s family in a civil suit against Cook and Ryan LeVin, says…
Since February 2009, Fort Lauderdale police have been looking for Derek Cook, the Tamarac man who was allegedly racing a Porsche on Sea Breeze Boulevard when he lost control and struck two tourists from Great Britain, killing them.This morning, just before noon, Cook surrendered.Cook, 38, is charged with accessory after…
Ever wondered what it feels like to lift a 32-pound bucket of tomatoes? When the Coalition of Imokalee Workers’ Modern Day Slavery Museum, which kicked off its statewide tour last week, hits town you’ll have a chance. That 32-pound bucket is part of the museum’s multimedia exhibit. South Florida farm…
That does it for the political career of Josephus Eggelletion. Sounds like a sad, pathetic scene at the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach. One tear-choked quote:”What I did was wrong. I’m not trying to hide from it. I’m not trying to run from it.”Just to correct the historical record,…
