FORT PIERCE — Shelitta Woods calls the past six months “miserable.”

“You got to understand, it’d been like 13, 14 years before I had another child,” Woods said. “It was just me and Lil’ Bo, just me and Lil’ Bo, everywhere I go, me and Lil’ Bo.”

Woods’ 16-year-old son, Torenda “Lil’ Bo” Youngblood Jr., was fatally shot at his bus stop March 9, two days after Demetrius Wells, 18, sustained fatal wounds in a drive-by shooting. Two men also were hit by gunfire during separate shootings between the homicides. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — City property owners may be able to avoid a proposed 26 percent increase in their property taxes.

During a special meeting Wednesday, the City Council unanimously agreed to use half of the city’s general fund reserves to keep the property tax rate at its current rate of $4.22 per $1,000 of taxable value. The council will formally vote on setting the property tax rate during scheduled 7 p.m. public hearings Sept. 14 and Sept. 28 at City Hall.

Using the city’s median home price of $112,000 with a $50,000 homestead exemption, an average city property tax bill using the current rate would be $261, excluding taxes from other agencies, such as the school and fire districts.
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STUART — A Martin County jury tomorrow will likely begin deliberating the case of former Jensen Beach pastor Rodney McGill and his wife, Shalonda McGill, accused of orchestrating a real estate scheme that ended in more than $1 million in foreclosed property from three unwitting investors.
After a week on the other side of the witness stand, the former pastor and real estate investment pitchman took the stand in his own defense Monday, telling a jury that unscrupulous mortgage brokers were the ones to blame for an alleged mortgage scheme that ruined the credit of the women he and Shalonda helped invest in local properties. (more…)

Residents may see their annual storm water fees increase by about $16, according to city officials.

The council gave preliminary approval at its Monday night meeting to move forward with a project that improves the drainage system and purchases land to resolve flooding issues the east side of the city dealt with during Tropical Storm Fay.

The project would benefit the residents east of U.S. 1 and south of Jennings Road. Cooper said the residents in the western part of the city may have complaints.
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STUART — An alleged crack dealer’s plan to allow a client to buy him shoes in exchange for drugs was stopped short by Stuart police Friday, according to an affidavit released Monday.

Michael Deshawn Harris, 30, of the 7900 block of Southeast Kingsway Street in Hobe Sound, was charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and resisting arrest without violence.

Police had been watching a foreclosed home in the 800 block of Southeast Nassau Street after a suspicious vehicle was reported parked in the driveway several times that day.
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STUART — A Martin County grand jury on Wednesday returned first-degree murder and robbery indictments against two Stuart residents accused in the April 5 beating death of Keith A. Hall, who died three days after being attacked.

Charged are James Louis LaForteza, 29, and Kobi Anderson, 15, who authorities say beat Hall into unconsciousness to steal $40 he’d shown the man and teen in an attempt to buy drugs. (more…)

Port St. Lucie’s next biotech institute is one step closer to reality.

Oregon Health & Science University’s Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute signed a deal this month to design and build its new $30 million laboratory in the Tradition development west of Interstate 95.

The institute tapped Baltimore-based Whiting Turner Contracting Co. to oversee construction of the 105,000 square feet of laboratories and offices. The building is on target to be completed in May 2011, said Andrew Favata, vice president for Tradition’s developer, Core Communities LLC.

VGTI Florida, as the local campus has been dubbed, will be built on eight acres at Core Communities’ Florida Center for Innovation at Tradition, a fledgling research park that’s now home to another biotech outfit, the Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies. (more…)

STUART — A judge Wednesday ordered the former owner of Arthur’s Dockside restaurant to spend a year in the county jail on a tax fraud charge, prompting his wife to burst into tears and break down outside court.

Arthur Dombrose, 71, was also ordered to serve two years of community control and two years of probation.

Standing before Martin Circuit Judge Sherwood Bauer, Dombrose showed little emotion as deputies fingerprinted him and led him away.

Last July Dombrose entered a plea of no contest to a first-degree felony tax fraud charge after failing to pay $187,000 in sales tax collected from customers between March 2005 and April 2006. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — It’s a 20-year-old dream come true.

Richard “Rick” Hartley and his wife, Ann, picked up the phone last week in their Maryland home and heard Robin Sutherland on the other end telling them they had just won the YMCA Easter House.

The drawing was on Thursday, but the family couldn’t be reached when Sutherland, the YMCA’s house planning consultant, called to let them know of their big win.
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VERO BEACH — In a rare criminal case, a jury convicted a Vero Beach man of murder and selling drugs in the drug-overdose death of one of his customers.

William McCartney III, of Vero Beach, was convicted Wednesday of murder and illegally selling drugs, including two capsules of methadone that Nolan Adams, 19, took before dying at his home early Jan. 25, 2005.

Adams died in his bed several hours after buying the potent drugs at McCartney’s apartment along Indian River Boulevard. (more…)