Back in July, Wayne Treacy was found guilty of attempted first-degree murder after he attacked 15-year-old Josie Lou Ratley with his steel-toed boots after she taunted him by making fun of his dead brother in a text. Ratley suffered permanent brain damage after the attack. The prosecution presented text messages…
The former director of boys’ lockup Thompson Academy, Renza “Craig” Ferguson, resigned under a cloud of suspicion in March. Staff members had made allegations that he was transporting young male inmates off campus and bringing them home to shower. See also: – Our cover story on abuse at Thompson Academy…
Four City of Fort Lauderdale firefighters have been arrested and a warrant has been issued for one former firefighter on charges of using bogus medical certification cards in a yearlong corruption investigation. According to Ft. Lauderdale Police, the investigation began when a routine audit by the State of Florida’s Department…
Update: A representative for Armor has clarified that the press release quoted below was not issued in response to our previous story, but was written back in August “to highlight the positive trend in Broward County Jail’s successful detox program.”The release highlights many of the program’s successes, including a marked…
Edward Crisante Jr., a depressive 32-year-old, turned himself in at the Broward Main Jail on June 29, 2010, after failing to appear in court on traffic charges. He left the jail four days later on a stretcher, after hanging himself in his bunk with a bedsheet. He died in the…
Well, at long last it looks like John Goodman’s douche caught up to him, and he is finally going to spend some time in the slammer. The International Polo Club owner, who has been under house arrest on a DUI manslaughter charge for killing 23-year-old Scott Wilson back in February…
This very rich purveyor of the world’s wealthiest game just doesn’t seem to want to accept his situation. When his car slammed into another, killing 23-year-old Scott Wilson late one night in February 2010, he ran away and hid in a barn before calling authorities.See also:- Our feature story on…
Terri Wright, a juror on Buju Banton’s federal drug and gun trial, says she’s passionate about law. Wright, who works in the insurance industry and lives in Tampa, jokes that she would be a professional juror if she could.But did her passion compromise the outcome of the reggae singer’s trial?In…
Camille Brown was arrested and charged with extortion after she demanded the family that founded the Pembroke Pines-based Claire’s stores pay her millions. Brown claimed she had embarrassing documents in her possession and said she would go public unless the Rowland Schaefer family forked over the dough, according to the Florida…
Terri Wright has been called to serve jury duty seven times. But none of the cases compares to the federal drug and gun trial of reggae singer Buju Banton. That one “took the cake,” as she puts it. She still talks to coworkers about the murky back story of the…
Nothing like being woken up in the middle of the night by random gunfire and then having a car slam into your house. That’s what happened in Pompano Beach on Tuesday morning, when a car was being shot at. The vehicle swerved to avoid the bullets and crashed into a…
A kooky South Florida story made the big time in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, as justices heard arguments in a case that will decide whether Fane Lozman’s floating home — targeted for removal from a marina by Riviera Beach and towed away by U.S. marshals –…
Boynton Beach police Sgt. Frank Ranzie, the cop who handled the Dalia Dippolito murder-for-hire plot, is reportedly under investigation for having kiddie porn on his laptop. According to the report, the porn was discovered after Ranzie brought his laptop in for service after it was hit with a virus. The…
Edward Crisante Jr. was, by his parents’ account, struggling with depression at the age of 32 in July 2010. He was a Fort Lauderdale barber with multiple felony counts in his past, including many drug charges, but it was a traffic ticket that led him to his death.After failing to…
Being a teacher takes up a lot of one’s time. There’s barely time to chitchat, let alone have conversations to iron out some misunderstandings. So naturally, the best thing to do in that situation is hire a hit man to murder the fellow teacher you’ve got a beef with. Pretty…
According to his girlfriend, Bryan Perez took her car to get dinner at popular Lake Worth Mexican restaurant Tacos Al Carbon on Tuesday night. It should have taken him about five to ten minutes to get the food. Instead, Perez was away for more than half an hour. When he…
A pair of alleged armed robbers were caught when one of their victims spotted them on a Facebook page bragging about their crimes, according to police. The photos on the Facebook profile show one of them in various poses with open wads of cash spread out. The name of the…
Last September, 26-year-old Aaron Stinson sat around a friend’s apartment in upstate New York drinking some beer and smoking Relaxinol, a brand of so-called “herbal incense.” Manufacturers would usually stamp warning labels on these products to indicate that they were “not for human consumption,” but users knew that smoking them…
How big must a man’s sandwich board be before the strong arm of the state comes down to crush his minimum-wage shenanigans? How long is too long for a giant arrow pointing to a mattress store where everything is always 75 percent off?Yeah, uh, six square feet, says the Margate…
Momma always told you to be careful at ATMs, so you hide your PIN from strangers and use the machines in a well-lighted area. But what if the machine itself is stealing your information?A gang of high-tech thieves has allegedly been traveling up and down Florida’s east coast, hacking those…
See also “Fake-Pot Industry Comes Down From A Three-Year High”The effects of synthetic cannabinoids on the human brain are not well understood. Yet people routinely smoke this stuff, sometimes called “synthetic pot.”This week’s cover story on the subject describes the phenomenon, but a recently published article in the Cleveland Clinic…
A federal lawsuit filed this week claims that U.S. marshals acted recklessly when they opened fire in a Boynton Beach parking lot last year and shot an innocent woman five times. Attorney Ronald Guralnick tells New Times that he’s seeking $10 million in compensation for his client, Janira Calderin. According to court documents,…
