Free Republic

A 48-year-old Florida businessman has legally adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend as his daughter in what one attorney is calling an attempt to shield assets in a wrongful death civil suit that has entered a "legal twilight zone," according to a judge. John Goodman, who founded the International Polo Club Beach in Wellington, legally adopted Heather Hutchins on Oct. 13 in Miami-Dade County, according to a court order by Circuit Court Judge Glenn Kelley. "The events which serve as the grounds for the relief sought by the Plaintiffs border on the surreal and take the Court into a legal twilight zone,"...

Students at a high school in Boca Raton, Florida, must step over rivers of urine and endure the stench of rancid waste after a plan to bring 'green' waterless urinals into bathrooms backfired. School officials at Spanish River High School thought they had found an environmentally-friendly, cost-saving solution for their bathrooms when they installed Falcon Waterfree urinals in their boys bathrooms.

With the field of Republican candidates down to four, GOP voters trickled to the polls on the first day of early voting in South Florida with plenty of opinions about their choice to challenge President Barack Obama in November. Many said they were deciding between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in what has been a rollercoaster race. Romney is ahead in Florida, with more than 40 percent of GOP supporters, followed by Gingrich with 22 percent, Sen. Rick Santorum with 15 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul with 9 percent, according to an average...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - Authorities say a 25-year-old described as an Islamic extremist was arrested in a plot to attack sites around Tampa, Fla., after taking possession of disabled guns and bombs The U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrest of Sami Osmakac on Monday. Authorities say Osmakac is a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in the former Yugoslavia. He has been charged with one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. His first appearance in federal court is scheduled for Monday afternoon.

Pinellas County Sheriff's detectives have caught the man responsible for two recent bank robberies in Seminole and Largo. Investigators say they were able to identify 49-year-old Raymond Shaeffer as the robber from fingerprints found on a demand note used in the Seminole bank robbery. After fleeing the Cornerstone Bank in Seminole on Jan. 4, Shaeffer dumped the orange jacket and baseball cap he wore in the dumpster behind the Treasure Island Fun Center near the bank. Detectives were able to lift the fingerprints from the demand note found in one of the pockets of the jacket. Detectives found Shaeffer at...

A Brevard County family and the NAACP call it injustice. A 16-year-old Palm Bay High football player faces attempted second-degree murder charges of a law enforcement officer. It all stems from a high speed chase. Even though Darrick Washington and his family admit wrongdoing, they said the charge does not fit the crime. Washington, an unlicensed teen, led police on a chase in Indian River County on Oct. 24, 2010. Deputies said Washington topped 100 miles an hour while his car was full of Brevard County teens. He admits running from police and driving without a license were wrong, but...

Man in 'Star Wars' mask attacked trooper: FHP.Darth Vader may be able to handle most lightsaber-wielding Jedis, but he's met his match when it comes to Florida Highway Patrol troopers with pepper spray. Authorities say a drunk man wearing the "Star Wars" villain mask was arrested Thursday in Orlando after he tried to punch and kick an FHP trooper near a construction site. The trooper responded to the area of Summerlin Avenue and Anderson Street around 2:45 a.m. when he was advised by construction workers of an intoxicated man walking in the roadway in the mask, according to the FHP....

Call University of Florida football players a bunch of classless trash talkers if you want. Call them dirty if you want. But racist? For using the term "cracker"? That seems a stretch.

A 45-year-old woman who said she called 911 because she "ate too much food" was arrested following an encounter at a Traveler's Inn in Fort Pierce, according to a recently released affidavit. A St. Lucie County Sheriff's deputy on Dec. 18 went to the motel in the 3400 block of South U.S. 1 and saw a woman "jumping up and down and yelling in room #108." A man walked out and said the woman was his girlfriend, Mary Ellen Lisee. He said Lisee wouldn't stop talking and that he was leaving so he could sleep in peace. When Lisee, who...

Marine Lt. Col. Karl Trenker has a message for the criminal who shot him. “If he didn’t have a pistol I would’ve whipped his butt,” the Miramar resident said. Trenker’s fiancé advertised a gold necklace on Craigslist, hoping to drum up a little more cash for some Christmas presents. When Trenker went to the arranged meeting place outside an apartment complex in Deerfield Beach, the would-be buyers snatched the chain and took off running. Trenker gave chase. “I did not perceive any danger, and being a Marine and all I’m not one to back down from a fight, so I...

WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. — The truth is sometimes stranger than the fiction you see at the movies. Deputies in Florida say a man stole a woman's car while they were on a date at a Tampa area movie theater. The St. Petersburg Times reports that 27-year-old Michael Pratt told the woman he needed to get something from the car while they were watching the movie. She gave him her keys. When he didn't return, she called him. Authorities say Pratt laughed, then told the woman he had stolen her car. Pasco County Sheriff's deputies say he now faces grand theft...

PORT RICHEY — Debra Jackson was tired of a neighbor's dog defecating in her yard, authorities say. So when she saw the dog and his owner Wednesday afternoon, she grabbed her shotgun. "I'm having a bad day," said Jackson, 50, according to a Pasco County Sheriff's Office report. "I'm gonna shoot you and that dog."

An Orlando-area man who confessed to fatally stabbing his live-in girlfriend because of her Voodoo spells was ordered held without bond today. Leonce Charles, 48, made his initial appearance before a judge today after being with second-degree murder this weekend. He was arrested Saturday for allegedly killing Cecile Freus, 46. SNIP Charles told investigators he 'blacked out from anger" and stabbed Freus to death with a knife he found on the floor of their bedroom during a confrontation about alleged infidelities, an arrest report said.

WESLEY CHAPEL — A 78-year-old man was shot in a bizarre accident early Saturday when a dog bumped a rifle and caused it to fire, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Billy E. Brown of Dade City, a friend and a bulldog set out before dawn to hunt deer, which has been a tradition of theirs for more than 25 years. They were traveling down a bumpy, rocky road in a pickup truck to their hunting stands when the dog got excited and bumped a high-powered Browning .308-caliber rifle. The bullet struck in the right thigh as...

The story of the vandal squirrel lives on in the Manatee County School District. Long after the rascally rodent pulled his stunt — setting off a fire alarm that led to the evacuation of an elementary school last year and an investigation into who pulled the false alarm — the squirrel's actions came up at a School Board budget meeting this week. In defense of why the district maintenance department needs a contingency fund, an official pointed out that almost anything can happen at any time in a school district with 44,000 students and 60 schools and other buildings. Such...

Woman who drove into Palm Beach County canal had just finished Black Friday shiftA tired Target worker who was heading home after an early morning Black Friday shift had to be rescued by a deputy after she drove her car into a canal in Pahokee. The unidentified woman somehow lost control of her car and drove into the canal near Much City Road and Connors Highway at 7:46 a.m., Palm Beach County Sheriff’s spokesman Teri Barbera told the Palm Beach Post. Luckily, Deputy Frank Mayo, who was also on his way home after working his shift, responded and jumped into...

Landlord John Miller will miss Thanksgiving at home this year after what may be Central Florida's first case of eviction rage ending in attempted-murder charges. Miller remains held without bail in the Orange County Jail after crushing a mobile home with a large front-end loader while a terrified child cowered inside as a woman tried to save her, according to Sheriff's Office records. "Good, then I got what I wanted," Miller, 51, said after deputies told him the roof had collapsed and the small trailer was uninhabitable. The attack began Tuesday afternoon on West Ponkan Road near Apopka when 911...

A kiss between two 12-year-olds is under investigation by authorities in Fort Myers. Deputies said they were called to Orange River Elementary School after a girl kissed one of her classmates during physical education class last week. The school reported the incident as a possible sex crime, and the Department of Children and Families was called in. Investigators said the girl could be charged with battery if the boy didn't consent to the kiss.

A Fort Myers principal involved Lee County sheriff’s deputies in an elementary school crush. Deputies were dispatched Wednesday to Orange River Elementary School in reference to what Assistant Principal Margaret Ann Haring called a “possible sex crime” — two students kissing. “This incident is more of a simple assault, though by definition there would have to be a victim,” Sgt. Stephanie Eller said. Haring told deputies she had two students, both under 12, who kissed while in physical education class, reports said. Haring said one of them was debating about who liked who more. The student then went over and...

Disturbed by the prospect of lambs and goats being slaughtered in her city, Sunrise Commissioner Sheila Alu single-handedly blocked a Muslim religious ceremony set to take place on Sunday. "Yes, I was trying to stop it," Alu said on Wednesday. "It's shut down. I'm trying to protect innocent animals. This is not an appropriate setting for the slaughtering of animals in an open field in a city that's as populated as Sunrise. Usually these religious ceremonies take place in a rural area."