By Janet Begley

Posted March 4, 2010 at 5 p.m. , updated March 4, 2010 at 5:28 p.m.

VERO BEACH - Nicholas Potvin, 5, lays with silver lab puppies outside of his home in Vero Lake Estates. The dogs used to belong to his grandmother who died last week. Potvin's family is trying to sell the AKC registered puppies to help pay for funeral expenses. Photo by Sam Wolfe/TCPalm.

Susan Beaudoin, 58, of Vero Lake Estates died suddenly last Thursday from undetermined causes, leaving behind her four adult Labrador retrievers and their silver and yellow puppies, according to her son Mitchell Potvin.

“My mom was an animal lover all of her life,” said Potvin, who also lives in Vero Lake Estates with his wife Laurie, and sons Nicholas, 5, and Jack, 5 months. “She raised all kinds of animals, from prize-winning chickens to pot belly pigs, but she really fell in love with the labs.”

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By Keona Gardnerm, Lamaur Stancil

MARTIN COUNTY — Deputies took two men into custody after they fled authorities and crashed a SUV into the South Fork of the St. Lucie River on Friday.

Antonio Tukes

Antonio Lenorris Tukes, 31, of Lauderhill, is charged with aggravated fleeing and eluding, burglary, grand theft, giving a false name to law enforcement and violation of probation.

His cohort, Jashun Omar Lindsay, 25, of Fort Lauderdale, is charged with aggravated fleeing and eluding, burglary and grand theft.

The Martin County Sheriff’s Office was called about a suspicious person in a newer model white Cadillac sport utility vehicle about 10:45 a.m., spokeswoman Rhonda Irons said. The driver fled when a deputy attempted to make a traffic stop, and he drove recklessly at 100 mph or more, weaving in and out of traffic, running vehicles off the road and running a red light and colliding into a vehicle at SE Cove Road and U.S. 1, the arrest report states.

Jashun Lindsay

Tukes and Lindsay were found in the river attempting to hide under a houseboat, about 150 yards north of the crash scene, Irons said. Deputies used a helicopter, the Sheriff’s Office marine unit and K9s to search for Tukes and Lindsay.

Allegedly the men had stolen a red Dell laptop computer, a pearl bracelet, a pink jewelry box and a gray pillow with the initials “DTW.”

The men are being held in Martin County Jail without bail.

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — A small white and turquoise plane crashed Friday afternoon near 12th Street and 34th Avenue in the Sun Villas subdivision.

About 2:40 p.m. Friday, authorities received a call about a plane crash in a residential area. Two people were “seriously injured,” said Kathleen Bergen, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman. Two trauma helicopters landed about 3:15 in a field near 20th Avenue and 12th Street to transport them.

The Piper Seneca plant crashed in a small, wooded area near a canal and several houses, just south of 12th Street. Several emergency vehicles from the Sheriff’s Office, Fire Rescue and FAA were in the area.

Officials closed 12th Street from 34rd Avenue to 27th Avenue while they investigate.

The plane, a 1979 Piper PA-34-200 T, is registered to Lois Aviation, LLC of Brooklyn, N.Y., according to FAA records. However, it was unclear whether he was on board.

It took Denise Brown more than a decade to deal with her anger from her sister’s highly publicized death.

But only last year was she able to start sharing her family’s experience of losing Nicole Brown Simpson in June of 1994. Read the rest of this entry »

A federal judge overseeing the Kobie Gary pot-growing case handed his attorneys a defeat by refusing to order the government to hand over materials they’ve said were needed to prepare for his April sentencing in Miami.

In his order, U.S. Magistrate Judge Frank Lynch Jr. ruled Gary’s lawyers had not shown proof the government had failed to provide all evidence he is legally entitled to, including the statements of co-defendants and witnesses, and copies of surveillance video. Read the rest of this entry »

By Eve Samples

MARTIN COUNTY — Denise Krochta was consumed by her son’s drug abuse. Her professional life was suffering because she couldn’t stop thinking about his OxyContin habit. Severe headaches plagued her, and she was eating poorly. She was so on edge that the chime of a doorbell or the ringing of a phone gave her a shock. Put simply, Krochta was addicted to the addict in her life.

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STUART — All 139 charges filed against an attorney’s legal assistant arrested in June 2008 on suspicion of stealing from her boss were dropped Monday, according to the Martin County Clerk of Court Web site.

Port St. Lucie resident Wandalyn Jackson of Port St. Lucie was arrested by Stuart Police Department detectives on suspicion of writing herself more than 50 checks totaling more than $15,000 from her employer’s probate law firm in Stuart. The case was scheduled to go to trial Monday.

The 139 counts against Jackson were a combination of charges of grand theft, petit theft, forgery and uttering, or using, a forged document.

FORT PIERCE — Two co-defendants arrested in the Kobie Gary marijuana growing case were sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court.

David Jeffrey Grant of Jensen Beach was sentenced to five years in prison followed by four years’ supervised release, and Steven Shepherd of Hobe Sound was sentenced to 15 months in prison followed by three years’ supervised release, both after pleading guilty to similar charges of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute 100 or more marijuana plants.

Grant was arrested in December after authorities matched his fingerprints to light tubes found in a Hobe Sound house that were part of a lighting system used to grow pot plants. Shepherd and Gary, 30, the son of prominent Stuart attorney Willie Gary, were arrested Oct. 27 at the same house.

Gary pleaded guilty in January to a similar charge of conspiracy to grow and distribute marijuana as part of a deal in which federal prosecutors agreed to dismiss two charges related to maintaining a place to cultivate, possess and distribute more than 100 pot plants.

He faces at least five years in prison when he’s sentenced April 7 in Miami by U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore, who sentenced Grant and Shepherd.

Gary’s attorney, Richard Kibbey has filed paperwork claiming his client was singled out for prosecution and has said he’ll ask for a “safety valve exception” that would allow a shorter prison term by showing Gary wasn’t a ringleader or used guns in the offenses.

Updated March 4, 2010, 2:15pm

By Melissa E. Holsman

STUART — A judge this week ordered a Stuart man arrested in July for possessing 20,000 pounds of fireworks inside his garage to spend 25 years behind bars for trafficking in morphine.

James Buhs, 46. a convicted felon with a history that includes possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a machine gun, was arrested at his East Ocean Boulevard home in Stuart as state and federal authorities seized about $100,000 in illegal fireworks, explosive materials and several weapons.

Members of the Martin County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Division, Tactical Unit, SWAT Team, Bomb Disposal Team and Special Investigations Section served a search warrant at the address.

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FORT PIERCE — The mystery of convicted Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein’s whereabouts may be solved.

Authorities at the St. Lucie County Jail in Fort Pierce confirmed Tuesday that an inmate with Rothstein’s name and date of birth is being held there “for housing only.” The jail database does not list what charges the inmate is being held on.

The federal Bureau of Prisons Web site listed Rothstein as having been “released” from the Miami Federal Detention Center on Friday. However, federal authorities said he’s still in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.

Rothstein pleaded guilty in January to masterminding a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme and he is facing up to life in prison when he is sentenced on May 6.

Rothstein’s defense attorney Marc Nurik said Monday that Rothstein had an unspecified “medical incident” last week and was taken to a hospital for treatment, and that Rothstein was either still receiving medical treatment or is being moved between detention centers.

“I was advised he’s in transit, that he’s in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service,” Nurik said Monday. “He’s not with prosecutors, he’s not talking to the government. He had a medical incident last week and he was taken out to the hospital.”

Nurik was able to provide only a few more details Tuesday morning. He said he still had not learned what medical condition Rothstein had, but that it was not life threatening.

“He was not beaten up, attacked, or whatever,” Nurik said. “He had some kind of medical incident. I have not seen the records yet, but apparently it was not life threatening. He was experiencing some distress and was taken out of the facility for tests and observations.”

Rothstein has said in court that he is taking medication for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. He is also taking Zoloft for “anxiety,” he has told the judge in his case.

Federal prosecutors and marshals are typically tight-lipped when it comes to the movements of federal detainees and inmates, for security reasons. Alicia Valle, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and Barry Golden, a spokesman for the Marshals Service, would say only that Rothstein remains in federal custody, without offering any more details.

The federal government contracts with jails to hold detainees, and Nurik said Rothstein may have been moved to free up space at the Miami detention center.

“It could be as simple of bed space. He is not needed again until May,” said Nurik, before making light of the situation with a reference to Rothstein’s expensive taste in cars, including a $1.5 million Bugatti seized by authorities.

“I am not overjoyed that he is now in St. Lucie County because now I have to take my Bugatti, and I don’t want to put the mileage on my Bugatti,” Nurik joked. “If he were cooperating, he would be at the Fountainebleau, or the W. at least. He is not cooperating. He is out of sight and out of mind, right now.”