Neptune Beach Police Officer Chris Ortiz was arrested on one count of grand theft after complaints came in that money had gone missing following routine traffic Enter Article DATE HERE JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office arrested a one-year veteran of the The Neptune Beach Police Department. On Tuesday, July 17, Neptune Bea...

Establishes mandatory minimum sentences for possession of certain amounts of fentanyl June 19, 2017 Gov. Rick Scott signed into law Wednesday a bill pushed by two Southwest Florida lawmakers that cracks down on fentanyl abuse. The legislation, HB 477, sponsored by Rep. Jim Boyd, R-Bradenton, and Sen. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, establishes mandatory m...

Evidence from nearly 4,000 cases sits inside two evidence vaults in the St. Lucie County Courthouse. Some have been stored there for decades. Enter Article DATE HERE Cute and ST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. -- They're the items behind some of the most haunting, shocking and tragic crimes in our community. Evidence from nearly 4,000 cases sits inside tw...

More than $130,000 in cash, 1,000 pills stolen from evidence room Enter Article DATE HERE HOLLYWOOD, Fla. - The Hollywood Police Department is continuing to work on correcting its mismanagement of its Property and Evidence Unit, the Broward Office of the Inspector General reported Thursday in a news release. The OIG reported in February that H...

Fingerprints found on a box of cake mix and a can of frosting prompted police to arrest the well-known French Quarter "human statue. May 24, 2017 Bobby Farah was a child when his father was shot and killed on May 22, 1974, in an attempted armed robbery at his Jacksonville grocery store. As the decades rolled by, the son, three sisters and Freddie F...

Being accused of a crime is pretty crappy, but that's no reason to poop on a search warrant. May 18, 2017 He's accused of attempted murder, but it's what allegedly did afterwards that's raising a stink. Being accused of a crime is pretty crappy, but that's no reason to poop on a search warrant. That's what a Florida man accused of shooting at a Dee...

The Zaagmans paid $24,800 in restitution prior to Monday's hearing, though they were initially suspected of stealing nearly $30,000 from the police department from 2011 until 2015. May 8, 2017 The husband-and-wife duo who bilked the Bradenton Police Department out of tens of thousands of dollars pleaded guilty to a second-degree felony scheming to ...

Jennifer Odom was 12 years old when she was abducted and killed in Hernando County. For more than 20 years, there has been no solid leads, no persons of interest in the case. April 27, 2017 Detectives believe a 17-year-old victim got off the school bus at U.S. 41 and Twin Oaks Drive and made her way along a dirt road when sje was grabbed by a suspe...

​Hevel pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to a single charge of theft of government property related to the disappearance of the $4,055 check. Enter Article DATE HERE TAMPA — A retired lawman and husband of a disgraced Tampa police detective admitted Thursday that he cashed a U.S. Treasury check his wife had stolen from an evidence room....

John Braman stepped down Monday after body cam video of the Aug. 1 incident clearly showed the deputy going through what appears to be a wallet and tossing something out. The wallet is put in an evidence pouch and a $100 bill is visible nearby. January 31 A central Florida sheriff's deputy has resigned after body camera video apparently showed him ...

The theft of $137,609 in currency and 1,096 pills from the evidence room went undetected from the HPD's custody prior to January 2012. ​ March 2, 2017 Broward Inspector General John W. Scott announced Tuesday, February 28 that the Broward Office of the Inspector General (OIG) had issued a final report finding that Hollywood Police Department (...

Rather, investigators believe Acosta was hunting for cash. And they say he found plenty of it on a few unsuspecting drivers — and an undercover agent. March 14, 2017 On the night he was arrested, rookie Wynwood-beat cop Jose R. Acosta was patrolling Miami's trendy arts district and making traffic stops — only police say he wasn't interested in enfo...

Testing by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement matched DNA from the nasal swabs to DNA on the flannel shirt found in the dumpster Enter Article DATE HERE Twenty-three years ago, 16-year-old Fred Paul Laster went missing, and ever since then, his family has prayed for answers. Those prayers may have been answered with the Tuesday morning ...

The discovery was made by the new sheriff, who's pointing the finger at former Sheriff Joey Dobson for losing nearly a dozen weapons, saying shoddy record keeping is to blame. March 9, 2017 The discovery was made by the new sheriff, who's pointing the finger at former Sheriff Joey Dobson for losing nearly a dozen weapons, saying shoddy record keepi...

Smith told investigators he was prescribed morphine and oxycodone for chronic back pain. His dependence on painkillers spiraled into addiction that "knows no boundaries and crosses socioeconomic lines October 13, 2016 LARGO — Supervisors noticed when former Deputy Steven Jared Smith's work performance started to slip. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gu...

The report found that the theft of $137,609 in cash and 1,096 pills went undetected because the department didn't establish proper security protocols and then didn't ensure compliance of the protocols that were established. Enter Article DATE HERE HOLLYWOOD, FLA. (WSVN) - The Broward Office of the Inspector General issued a report, Tuesday, de...

Sheriff says officers removed beer cans from undercover car after shooting February 16, 2017 JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Three veteran Jacksonville Sheriff's Office detectives were arrested Thursday, stripped of their police authority and placed on unpaid leave pending dismissal in connection with a fatal police-involved shooting last week. Sheriff Mike W...

The husband and wife are accused of stealing at least $20,000 in cash from the police evidence room. February 2, 2017 Two former civilian employees of the Bradenton Police Department - a husband and wife - have been accused of stealing at least $20,000 in cash over a five-year period from the department's evidence room. Several portions of the mamm...

The shooting and sex assault went unsolved for decades. But in 2010, it was assigned to a detective who resubmitted several pieces of evidence for forensic analysis. A DNA profile was developed from the evidence and, in 2012, the data was entered into CODIS, the national database for DNA. January 19, 2017 Florida investigators say they have at last...

A Stuart detective swabbed the bite mark from the pizza and sent the swab to a crime lab for DNA analysis. A search of the Combined DNA Index System identified Mackey as the suspect January 6, 2017 STUART A hungry Stuart man's bite from a slice of pizza led to his arrest this week on a burglary charge. City police arrested Jamar Mackey, 27, Thursda...

Detectives had already run a sample of the DNA found on the discarded sucker through a state database, December 28, 2016 And second, a lollipop stick was lying on a night stand. "When I saw it, I knew I didn't eat lollipops," she said. "So I saved it and gave it to the sheriff's department." Thomas Christopher Crews, 53, of North Naples, Florida to...

As blogger Al Crespo revealed last month, the container rusted, letting in water and pests that destroyed evidence in more than 500 cases. November 16, 2016 Murder evidence is pretty important, so you'd think the Miami Police Department would have a good place to store all of those key items in unsolved cases. But it turns out that for years MPD ha...

A former Pensacola crime lab supervisor has been sentenced to 15 years in state prison after pleading guilty to charges he stole thousands of prescription pills from a Florida Department of Law Enforcement evidence lockup. September 14, 2016 Joseph Wayne Graves, 35, was a supervisor at a FDLE crime laboratory where he tested the chemical makeup of ...

He said the Police Department has notified the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office so that together they can "minimize the impact on our current and future prosecutions." October 28, 2016 MIAMI - Miami police Chief Rodolfo Llanes released a video statement Friday, confirming that the structural integrity of a storage container containing homicide, u...

A new law passed in July now requires that all sexual assault kits in the state of Florida to be processed in the laboratory within 120 days. October 27, 2016 FORT MYERS, Fla. — A new law passed in July now requires that all sexual assault kits in the state of Florida to be processed in the laboratory within 120 days. Over 13,000 samples ...

Orlando police Chief John Mina announced Friday that exactly 15 years after Franke's death, a new step had been made in the case using DNA phenotyping Enter Article DATE HERE ORLANDO, Fla. - Thanks to new technology, the Orlando Police Department has used DNA evidence collected in 2001 to make a composite sketch of a man they believe to be a m...

Zieler was in Lee County jail on a felony aggravated battery charge for shooting his son with a pellet gun in August when a DNA test matched him to evidence found at the scene of the murders 26 years ago. September 29, 2016 Although Jan Cornell never stopped hoping for closure in the brutal 1990 murders of her daughter Robin Cornell and r...

It wasn't the first time someone claimed a Krispy Kreme doughnut was a type of drug. But the joke wasn't funny for a Florida man who was arrested when an officer mistook doughnut glaze for methamphetamine. September 29, 2016 It wasn't the first time someone claimed a Krispy Kreme doughnut was a type of drug. But the joke wasn't funny...

The department has been investigating the "internal theft" ever since Chief of Police Melanie Bevan was sworn in seven months ago September 22, 2016 BRADENTON — There is money missing from the Bradenton Police Department's property and evidence room. The exact amount is not yet known. The department has been investigating the "internal theft" ever ...

A former Pensacola crime lab supervisor has been sentenced to 15 years in state prison after pleading guilty to charges he stole thousands of prescription pills from a Florida Department of Law Enforcement evidence lockup. September 14, 2016 Joseph Wayne Graves, 35, was a supervisor at a FDLE crime laboratory where he tested the chemical makeup of ...

A police officer based in Wolverhampton has been sacked from the force after stealing drugs from an evidence room. July 8, 2016 Benjamin Hughes, formerly PC 20821 Hughes, had pleaded guilty to one count of theft by an employee and one of possession of a class 'B' controlled drug namely cannabis before magistrates in Coventry on June 16. He was dism...

Seminole County Sheriff's deputy was arrested Thursday on charges he stole prescription pain medication from a storage safe. August 26, 2016 Seminole County Sheriff's deputy was arrested Thursday on charges he stole prescription pain medication from a storage safe. Lt. Jason Bender, who is assigned to the Sheriff's Office City County Investigative ...

Thirty-nine years to the day that Coral Gables nurse Debbie Clark was viciously beaten and shot to death, her former lover is under arrest and charged with murder. August 8, 2016 By David   Thirty-nine years to the day that Coral Gables nurse Debbie Clark was viciously beaten and shot to death, her former lover is ...

"We're removing the subjectivity from the decision-making process." Mary Roberts, Phoenix police assistance chief July 1, 2016 The policy change comes amid mounting pressure from victims' rights advocates, who say uniform testing may lead police to serial assailants. After the kits are tested, the DNA will be entered into the FBI's Combined DNA Ind...

William Stinemetz also arrested in cold-case murder in Fulton County June 24, 2016 AMBOY – A Florida man accused of shooting and killing a 69-year-old Fulton County man and robbing a bank in 1997 has now been charged with robbing an Amboy bank just three months after the murder. William Stinemetz, 52, Palm City, Florida, was arrested in December af...

LAKE WORTH, Fla. - The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said Friday a suspect has been arrested in connection with the death of a Lake Worth mother 26 years ago. June 10, 2016 On Nov. 27 1990, Minerva Cantu, a 26-year-old mother, was found dead by her husband at their house on North F Street. Cantu, the mother of an 8-year-old daughter and 18-mon...

WTXL ABC 27, wtxl.comBYLINE: Kiki JonesSuwannee County, FLMGN OnlineTALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) - Agents have arrested a woman who they say has been stealing from the Suwannee County Sheriff’s Office evidence vault for 20 years. A...

The Suwannee Democrat, suwanneedemocrat.comBYLINE: Carl McKinney, County, FLSuwannee County Sheriff Tony CameronAn evidence custodian with the Suwannee County Sheriff’s Office was suspended ...

The Palm Beach Post, palmbeachpost.comBYLINE: Jorge Milian, Palm Beach Post Staff WriterRiviera Beach, FLClaudia V. HutchinsonRIVIERA BEACH — No criminal cases have been compromised by the alleged theft of more than $100,000 ...

WFTV9, wftv.comBYLINE: Tim BarberOrlando, FLEric BlackmonORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A former Florida Highway Patrol employee at the center of a missing drug evidence case struck a deal to avoid time behind bars.Eric Blackmon, 39, ...

The Gainesville Sun, gainesville.comBYLINE: Karen Voyles, Staff writerLink to ArticleAlachua County, FLCharles Allen SmithDetectives say he stole around $16,000 in seized cash this year.The Alachua County Sheriff's Office arr...

The Bradenton Herald (Florida), brandon.comBYLINE: BETH BURGER; County, FLMANATEE -- A judge gave the defense attorneys for a teen convicted of second-degree murder the green light to take deposit...

Sentinel Communications, Orlando Sentinel (Florida) FINAL, LOCAL & BUSINESS; FLORIDA; Regional Report; Pg. B3BYLINE: Anthony Colarossi, Orlando SentinelOrange County, FLThe attorney for a former Winter Garden teacher charged ...

St. Petersburg Times, tampabay.comBYLINE: Jamal Thalji, Times Staff WriterLink to ArticleSt. Petersburg, FLST. PETERSBURG — Law enforcement has the power to seize a lot of useful stuff from the bad guys: cash, cars and especi...

BYLINE: Jon ShainmanLink to ArticleLink to VideoSt. Lucie County, FLST. LUCIE COUNTY, Fla. - On the video screen is Henry Dreverrman. He's in the interrogation room. One moment he cries, the next he suddenly lunges at a detec...

The Ledger (Lakeland, FL), METRO; Pg. B1BYLINE: By SUZIE SCHOTTELKOTTELake Wales, FLLake Wales police say they cannot find lineup pictures used to identify defendant Leon Davis.BARTOW - Authorities may have lost the photos us...

The News Herald (Panama City, Florida), STATE AND REGIONAL NEWSBYLINE: Andrew Gant, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.Lynn Haven, FLMay 31 -- LYNN HAVEN -- A man cleared of a 2008 cocaine charge is being reimbursed for the ca...