FORT PIERCE — A local man was arrested after fleeing a deputy and bailing out of a Buick in which about 50 rocks of crack cocaine were found, according to an affidavit released Wednesday.

Eliezer Geneus, 22, faces charges including cocaine possession with intent to sell, driving while license suspended habitual offender and obstruction without violence following the Tuesday incident. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — The driver of a school bus involved in a Monday morning crash at 25th Street and Orange Avenue was at fault in the incident that sent a woman and a student to a local hospital, according to the Fort Pierce police.

The St. Lucie County school bus, driven by Maria Rossi, 60, was eastbound on Orange Avenue about 6:45 a.m. as a 1998 Nissan Sentra driven by 55-year-old Claudiette Compere traveled west. (more…)

A six-member jury took only two hours to find Indian River County Administrator Joe Baird not guilty of DUI late Wednesday afternoon.

Baird, noticeably jubilant, sat with his attorney Bobby Guttridge as the court clerk read the verdict at 3:57 p.m. Baird then hugged his girlfriend and deferred comments to his attorney, before leaving the courthouse. (more…)

VERO BEACH — The DUI trial of County Administrator Joe Baird continues today with more defense witnesses testifying about his physical condition before his arrest at 10:25 p.m. May 16 in Vero Beach.

Baird “appeared perfectly normal to me” around 10 p.m., Baird’s long-time friend John Binkley testified Tuesday at the end of trial testimony for the day.

Testimony is expected to end today, possibly in time for the case to go to jurors for a decision.
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VERO BEACH — County Administrator Joe Baird was a victim of police “rush to judgment,” his defense attorney said in the opening arguments of his DUI case Tuesday.

Bobby Guttridge told jurors when Baird stepped out of his Jeep when it was stopped May 16, Baird was wearing a flowered Hawaiian lei around his neck. Because of that, police “never gave Baird the benefit of doubt.”

Baird was arrested after attending a community fundraiser in Wabasso at which Guttridge said Baird had two beers. But Assistant State Attorney David Dodd told jurors Baird failed all of the police roadside sobriety tests. Baird couldn’t stand on one leg, walk a straight line, count backwards or follow the movement of a pen with his eyes.

Guttridge blamed that on Baird having physical problems, including vertigo.

Dodd also said an officer found an alcoholic beverage spilled on the floorboard of Baird’s Jeep.

Prosecutors Tuesday morning are putting the arresting police officers on the stand to testify. Vero Beach Police Lt. Matt Harrelson is first. He stopped Baird at 10:26 p.m. May 16 near the Miracle Mile Plaza on 21st Street.

Harrelson testified he could smell alcohol when he was within 6 feet of Baird. Because of Baird’s appearance, he called in a DUI investigator.

By Elliott Jones

PORT ST. LUCIE — A teen girl was struck by a pick-up truck Monday morning while she was at her bus stop, though the girl’s injuries were very minor, a St. Lucie County Fire District spokeswoman said.

The girl was at Northwest Bayshore Boulevard and Northwest Rainbow Street, Fire District spokeswoman Catherine Chaney said. Fire district crews responded just before 6:30 a.m., but were called off.

Nick Perslin, 37, said his 17-year-old son was driving the Toyota pick-up. Perslin said his son was on his way to pick up a friend to go to St. Lucie West Centennial High School at the time.
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VERO BEACH — Jury selection begins Monday in the DUI trial of Indian River County Administrator Joe Baird and prosecutors will get to use key evidence the defense wanted excluded.

County Judge David Morgan refused defense attorney Bobby Guttridge’s request Wednesday to toss out the May 16 arrest, which the attorney said was based on an invalid stop. (more…)

Note to teens facing a potential prison term: don’t use your MySpace page to post photos of police officers and wish “AIDS and genocide to all law enforcement.”

That’s what Stuart resident Jesse Alan Walker, 19, did while awaiting a June trial in which a jury convicted him of robbery with a firearm related to a 2008 home invasion armed robbery. At trial, he was accused of planning the robbery with two then-20-year-old co-defendants, who once played football for Jensen Beach High School.

“I hate the (expletive) police,” Walker posted on MySpace last December, along with photos of Stuart Police officers and derogatory comments.
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STUART — Nine years ago, a drunk Donald Flewellen drove a stolen van across the center line, causing a collision that killed two people and left illegal Guatemalan immigrant Luis Jimenez permanently brain damaged.

Less than four months after his December release from prison for two counts of DUI manslaughter, authorities say Flewellen, 52, was behind the wheel of a borrowed car and caused a hit-and-run crash with property damage in Fort Pierce.

Already charged with two counts of violating his supervised release, court papers show when Flewellen returns to court Aug. 17, he’ll face additional charges of leaving the scene of a crash with property damage and driving on a revoked driver’s license related to an April 5 traffic collision.
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If there was fun to be had, Nick Coady, Chris Briglio and Connor Graver were likely involved.

They were the ones to call if you wanted to know where the party was or if you were looking for something to do, even on an otherwise boring summer night in Martin County. Once they got everyone to play musical chairs. Often, they were together.

Christopher Briglio

Connor Graver

Nicholas Coady

“Those guys, you couldn’t help but have fun around them. They always lived life to the fullest,” said James Young, 18, a classmate at South Fork High School in Stuart.

So there was laughter mixed in with the tears Tuesday as their former classmates and friends at South Fork gathered near the spot along Cove Road, south of Stuart, where the three lost their lives in what authorities are calling an alcohol-related crash.

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Nick, 18, of Stuart, Chris, 18, of Tequesta, and Connor, 16, of Hobe Sound, died at about 2 a.m. Tuesday after the SUV they were in slammed head-on into a John Deere front-end loader at a construction site at Cove Road and U.S. 1, said Lt. Chris Cribbs of the Florida Highway Patrol.

Chris and Connor, who friends say were “inseparable,” died at the scene. Neither were wearing seat belts, according to the police report. Nick, the driver, died later at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach. He was wearing a seat belt.

Investigators also suspect Nick was speeding. The speed limit on Cove Road is 35 mph.

The driver of the John Deere, Pedro Perez-Espinosa, 25, of Okeechobee wasn’t hurt.

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Nicholas Coady
Christopher Briglio
Connor Graver

Construction crews were widening the road and installing drainage or sewage pipe at that intersection when the SUV, traveling eastbound, approached, Cribbs said. The loader had just dumped some dirt by the roadside and was backing off the road when the SUV struck. It hit the loader’s bucket, flipping the SUV, according to the police report. The crash destroyed the SUV.

There wasn’t much light in the area, he said, but crews said the front-end loader itself was well lit.

The crash closed Cove Road for hours as emergency workers cleared the wreckage.

A woman who answered the door at Nick’s house Tuesday said he was an “angel,” but said the family didn’t want to discuss the crash.

Chris’ grandmother, Helen Nekola, said the Briglios’ family members were gathering in Tequesta to mourn.

“He was a wonderful boy,” Nekola said by phone from Bethpage, N.Y. “We’re just trying to get around this.”

Classmates, who gathered at the site after the wreckage had been cleared, built a makeshift memorial for the trio. They left flowers, a football, a polo shirt and letters. They scrawled messages across a large poster as they might have a yearbook, covering it with signatures by mid-afternoon. And they talked about their friends. (more…)