By Elliott Jones

FORT PIERCE — A federal district judge denied the U.S. Department of Justice’s attempt to make an Indian River County man pay about $3.5 million in financial damages to two young women in child pornography images he found on the Internet, according to court files. (more…)

Inmate Ricky Silva explains why he killed his cellmate at the Martin Correctional Institution. TCPalm.com

STUART — Not only does prison inmate Ricky Silva think the death penalty is too severe for his October confession to strangling his cellmate Terry Bell with a shoestring, but he’s proud of what he did.

And he wants you to be proud of him, too. (more…)

FORT PIERCE — “The Don Corleone of the Port St. Lucie marijuana grow house operations” was sentenced Wednesday morning to 45 years in prison.

Roberto Alberto Cepero

Sonia Del Risco Polls

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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…)

STUART — The image of a man’s arm wrapped around her front tire still haunts Jessica Leslie eight years later.

It was November 2001 when a 20-year old Leslie of Boca Raton was coming back from an evening of partying that she decided to drive home drunk. She told her story to a crowd of about four dozen at a Thursday community program at the Martin County Administrative Center on the dangers of drinking and driving.

Leslie never made it home but ran over Patrick McDonough, 41, killing him. (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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FORT PIERCE — Five men caught snipping “buds” off pot plants in a Port St. Lucie house in May 2008 face up to 11 years in prison after being convicted Friday of cultivating marijuana, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

After a four-day trial at the St. Lucie County Courthouse, a jury deliberated about four hours Thursday evening and Friday morning before reaching guilty verdicts for Reinaldo R. Ramos, 35, of Hialeah, and Jose V. Alvarez-Hernandez, 55, Luis O. Leal, 33, Manuel Gonzalez, 35, and Jose Antonio Blain, 42, all of Miami.
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STUART — A trial began this morning in the case of a 39-year-old man accused in the January 2008 shooting death of a 19-year-old church drummer who was a bystander during a fight.

Eric Lashawn Wiley could face life in prison if convicted on murder charges in connection with the death of Levi “Dwight” Starks.

Starks, 19, was a bystander while Wiley fought with another man, Aaron Stoudemire. Starks died shortly after the gun went off and hit him in the chest.

Wiley later called police and turned himself in. He told them he fought with Stoudemire, his sister’s boyfriend, because Stoudemire was beating his sister, who was pregnant at the time.
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STUART — A California woman arrested for defrauding a Palm City couple out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in furniture, flooring and home accessories was sentenced to 15 years in prison as part of a plea deal she struck with state prosecutors.

In addition to prison, Corrine Victoria Blakely, who pleaded no contest to first-degree grand theft, was also ordered to pay $267,508 in restitution to the couple and serve 15 years of probation after her release from prison.

Authorities said Blakely, 47, fraudulently posed as an interior designer in 2006 when she was hired by a 67-year-old Palm City man to do about $400,000 in renovations to a home in the 3200 block of Southwest Winding Way.

Court papers show the man never received $129,000 worth of furniture for which Blakely was paid. When asked when the goods would arrive, Blakely provided fraudulent invoices and “padded bills,” which she falsified to perpetrate the fraud, investigators concluded.

As part of her plea bargain, state prosecutors dropped a count of organized fraud, grand theft from a person 65 years of age or older and practicing interior design without a license.

Blakely, who at one point had promised but later failed to repay thecouple, was arrested in January and extradited from California.

By staff report, TCPalm.com