Lazaro Cancela was eating at a Cuban restaurant in Sweetwater when the meal was rudely interrupted: Gerard Brito, who was formerly married to Cancela’s mom, became enraged at the sight of his former step-son and decided to take action, according to a recent complaint reported on by Courthouse News. Cancela’s…
There was a brutal scene in front a Westchester strip mall Party City last night. A man gunned down his estranged wife in the busy parking lot while the couple’s 15-year-old daughter looked on. He then turned the gun on himself in an apparent suicide attack…
For two decades, Gerald Bailey compiled a sterling reputation with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, including over the past eight years as the force’s commissioner. Until last month, that is, when he abruptly and quietly left office. What happened? “He resigned,” Gov. Rick Scott told reporters yesterday after confirming…
The dead birds are back. A year after a slew of brown pelicans were found in the Keys with their pouches slashed, the bizarre bird mutilations have resumed. In recent weeks, more than a dozen pelicans have been found with their gullets fatally cut. “It’s a mystery,” Maya Totman, director…
In Miami, identify theft starts young. Brothers Stanley and Steven Fertil, now just 20 and 19 and who started an ID theft ring more than two years ago, have been sentenced to nine and 12 years in prison respectively…
Krishna Maharaj, the British millionaire imprisoned since 1986 for a double murder, won’t be getting out any time soon. Despite dramatic courtroom testimony from crooked cops and retired drug runners, circuit judge William Thomas shot down Maharaj’s motion to overturn his conviction for killing two businessmen in a downtown hotel…
Amid a roiling national debate about police oversight, the Miami City Commission last night voted to take away Miami PD’s ability to investigate its own police shootings. Instead, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement will probe those deaths. Miami’s police union president didn’t take the news quietly. Sgt. Javier Ortiz…
Ornan Antoine was just trying to get home. It was a rain-laced July night around midnight in 2013. The stocky, gap-toothed Haitian was pedaling down SW 28th Avenue, heading from a buddy’s house to his own sea-green single-story bungalow a few blocks over in the Melrose Park section of Fort…
Justin Robert Muoio pressured his victim for years to work as a prostitute while he lived off of her profits. When the woman got pregnant, Muoio didn’t relent. Prosecutors now say he advertised her services to fetish clients and made her work for two months while she was with child…
From the get-go, Major League Baseball made no secret that one of the costs of doing business with Tony Bosch was a promise to ask the courts to go easy when criminal charges came down. (You remember Bosch, the Coral Gables steroid dealer who snitched on Alex Rodriguez and more…
Sunday-afternoon visitors to Graceland Memorial Park were greeted by an unusually macabre scene. A small fire smoldered under a tree next to the cemetery’s stony entrance on Calle Ocho at SW 44th Avenue. Passing motorists who slowed long enough to look could just make out an all-too-familiar form: a charred…
Former Miami Police Officer Christopher Vital might have been 2014’s craziest local cop of the year, but he won’t face any charges. Instead, he’ll be forced to hang up his badge for good. In September, Vital was driving his BMW late at night with a lady friend when he roared…
This morning, New Times published a yearlong investigation into Taser abuse committed by local cops. Among our findings: Miami’s three major police departments have tasered more than 3,000 people in less than eight years. Eleven men — including teenager Israel “Reefa” Hernandez — have died after being stunned. Local cops…
Richard Rosengarten walked into Publix at 4:20 p.m. November 15, 2013. Normally, not even Rosengarten, a brilliant and bespectacled University of Miami law student, would remember the exact date and time he went grocery shopping. But it’s not every day you see cops electrify an innocent man. The supermarket’s automatic…
Long Beach Polytechnic Senior High has been named the “sports school of the century” by Sports Illustrated. It has sent more players to the NFL than any other high school, and multiple programs regularly snatch California state titles. The girls’ basketball program is no exception. The Jackrabbits are back-to-back defending…
It’s only natural that a group gathers in remembrance when its members believe one of their own was unjustly killed. So the Miami Fraternal Order of Police will host a rally this afternoon in support of the New York Police Department and the two officers who recently lost their lives…
Christmas Day turned deadly after a gunman opened fire at a group of people in Overtown last night. The incident happened just before 8:00 p.m. at 467 NW 8th Street. A crowd had gathered outside the Express Food Center when someone decided to pull out a gun. Update: The man…
A few years back, Florida passed a law allowing religious displays in public buildings. The legislators’ idea, as you might imagine, was mangers and crosses at Christmastime. But under the letter of the law, all religions had to be invited to the table, which has led to the delightful sight…
Former Miami Lakes Mayor Michael Pizzi won’t be heading back to office, but the Supreme Court has ruled that Governor Rick Scott must formally un-suspend him anyway…
What a week for crooked mayor news, even by Miami standards. After former North Miami Mayor Lucie Tondreau was found guilty on fraud charges earlier this week, another former area mayor received his sentence for an earlier corruption case. Steve Bateman, formerly the mayor of Homestead, will spend the next…
A former student who lost her virginity to her teacher in a classroom is now suing Miami-Dade County Public Schools for failing to properly protect her. The now-17-year-old victim says the teacher, 33-year-old Bresnniell Jansen, had previously been accused of sending an inappropriate text to another teen in 2008 but…
Former Miami Police officer Jose Maldonado-Dick will remain on lockup over the holidays. A judge ruled today during Maldonado-Dick’s second appearance in bond court that he will not be eligible for release before his January 25th, 2015 trial based on the severity of his crimes…
