PORT ST. LUCIE — Alfredo Felipe opened his new barber shop in Port St. Lucie because he liked the hometown feel of the community.

Felipe, 33, never thought that a month after his grand opening, an odd theft would occur at his business, Fredo’s Barbershop Hair Trends International, 698 Southwest Port St. Lucie Blvd.

Felipe said his homemade, 7-foot barber pole, made out of Styrofoam, mesh, stucco and some light metal materials, was stolen between 12:30 and 1:30 p.m. Friday at his shop.
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FORT PIERCE — The Treasure Coast Opera Society will not perform for the 2009-2010 season. Finances are to blame.

“The New York State Opera closed. The Baltimore Opera closed. The Orlando Opera has closed,” said TCOS co-founder Anne Abood. “Everyone is skating on thin ice.”
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VERO BEACH — The first Treasure Coast drug dealer convicted of murder in a drug overdose death case got sentenced to 30 years in state prison Thursday, the maximum penalty.

Drug dealer William McCartney III, 23, will serve up to 30 years in state prison, Circuit Judge Robert Hawley ruled Thursday. McCartney was sentenced as a habitual offender, making it harder for him to earn parole.

Hawley ordered him to 30 years in jail for third-degree murder, 30 years for selling two capsules of methadone and 10 years for selling a number of pills of Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication.

But all the sentences will run at the same time, totaling 30 years. (more…)

VERO BEACH — The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles upheld its suspension of County Administrator Joe Baird’s driving license for refusing to take a Breathalyzer test May 16, a state official said Monday.

Vero Beach Police charged Baird with DUI and cited him for speeding. The cases are scheduled to come up for court review on July 22 in Indian River County Court.

Under state law, Baird’s license was automatically suspended for refusing to take a roadside breath test for alcohol. His attorney, Bobby Guttridge, appealed the ruling, saying Baird wasn’t properly advised of the penalties for refusing the test.
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MARTIN COUNTY — When Martin Memorial Medical Center hired a jet in 2003 to repatriate a brain-damaged patient to his native Guatemala, hospital officials “never took the law into their own hands,” according to documents filed ahead of a June 23 trial.

“They never stuffed Mr. (Luis Alberto) Jimenez in the back of a van under the cover of darkness and drove him out of town,” Martin Memorial attorney Scott Michaud stated in papers detailing Jimenez’s predawn flight to Guatemala City on July 10, 2003.

“When Martin Memorial discharged Jimenez to the facility in Guatemala,” Michaud noted, “Martin Memorial did so with the honest belief based on the evidence it uncovered, that the hospital in Guatemala was properly equipped to care for him.”
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PORT ST. LUCIE — Thousands of jobs will come to the Treasure Coast if Port St. Lucie gets the chance to live up to its first name.

The Port of Palm Beach in Riveria Beach is looking for a site in South Florida to build an inland port, or an Intermodal Logistics Center, that uses roadways and railways rather than congested waterways to increase transport efficiency.

Studies commissioned by the Florida Department of Transportation found that an inland port would bring at least 25,000 jobs to a community.
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PORT ST. LUCIE — One year ago, a 6-year-old autistic boy was brought to the front of his classroom. He left moments later feeling like an outcast.

For many, he became a symbol of how children with autism are mistreated and misunderstood.

Some experts say the case of Alex Barton, who was voted out of his kindergarten classroom 14-to-2, brought about change and awareness of how autistic children are educated. Others say there still is a long way to go. (more…)

VERO BEACH — A baseball-related organization is reportedly close to signing a five-year agreement for the use of Dodgertown.

County officials are declining to release the name of the proposed new tenant, although county officials previously met with Minor League Baseball President Pat O’Conner about the facility.

While the deal expected does not involve a Major League team, it leaves open the possibility of one using Holman Stadium for spring training in the future.
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Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City bombing

A jury has sentenced Ricardo Sanchez Jr. and Daniel Troya to death for killing the Escobedo family of four along Florida’s Turnpike in St. Lucie County.

The federal death penalty is different from the state of Florida’s death sentence in many ways.

Only 51 inmates are on federal Death Row in Terre Haute, Ind. Florida houses 392. Crimes punishable by the federal death penalty include genocide, killing witnesses, in a trial, terrorism and murder committed as part of a drug enterprise.

Florida has executed 67 men and women since the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976. The feds have executed three men since Congress reinstated it in 1988. Some of the more famous of those executed were Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of sabotage for selling atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.

Here’s some of those executed since 1927:

James Horace Alderman

1927: James Horace Alderman, known as “King of the Rumrunners,” was intercepted by a Coast Guard vessel 30 miles off Florida’s coast. His boat was laden with alcohol during the era of Prohibition. As Alderman boarded the vessel, he pulled out his pistol. When two Coast Guardsmen and a Secret Service agent rushed him, he shot them all dead. Later, his execution was scheduled for the Broward County Jail, but the county wanted it to occur on federal property. So a makeshift gallows was erected at the Coast Guard hangar.

“When this is read I will have passed over the brink of eternity into the Great Beyond. “I would like to state through the medium of The Miami Herald that I am feeling fine, physically, mentally and spiritually. With the wonderful comfort and strength that I received from Jesus Christ, I am assured that when tomorrow comes I will go with smiles of comfort on my face. … “As I sit here in my cell I can look back and see just what caused me to be where I am today. Drunkenness first starts a young man to gambling — and swearing grows on him — and from that step he becomes hardened in his heart in envy and hatred toward mankind. Then, as he grows up, he becomes what you would call educated to crime. Bootlegging and smuggling is the next step. And there are other angles of downfall that lead to the devil. “The money I made neither did me nor my dear family any good. We thought it did, but no. You can see what it has done — a death sentence by hanging — and a broken-hearted family.”

Read the 1929 Time magazine account of his hanging, here. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — A city police officer was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in prison for molesting a 15-year-old girl in a Hutchinson Island beach parking lot.

Chief Assistant State Attorney Tom Bakkedahl asked Circuit Judge Larry Schack to sentence Dwight Toombs, 34, to 35 years in prison after Toombs was convicted Jan. 22 on four felony charges stemming from the Dec. 18, 2007 incident.

Friends and family asked Schack for leniency after describing Toombs as a family man and a Christian.

Defense attorney Jack Fleischman said he plans to file an appeal.

“We expected a high sentence, and we feel pretty confident about the appeal,” he said.

Before sentencing Toombs, who did not speak on his own behalf, Schack said: “This is really a very sad day on two levels. One because of what was done to that young lady and two, because it was done by someone we all rely on to protect our children.”

Toombs was sentenced after being convicted of lewd or lascivious battery or molestation, attempted lewd or lascivious battery, sexual battery on a 15-year-old by a government agent and lewd or lascivious conduct. Schack also declared him a sexual predator.

Toombs faced a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison.

Authorities said Toombs came across the girl, who was naked from the waist down, and her 20-year old boyfriend in a parked car at the beach and that Toombs fondled the girl using a glove while she was handcuffed.

Bakkedahl said law enforcement agents must be held to a higher standard because of their status within the community and added officers committing crimes undermines the judicial system. (more…)