Clearwater Criminal Defense Law Blog

Authorities say a drug deal gone bad led to a fatal shooting at an apartment complex in the North Tampa neighborhood last week.Tampa police arrested Alexeis Perez whom they say killed Antonio Roman around midday last Wednesday. According to police, Perez traveled to Roman's apartment just before noon that day to buy two ounces of cannabis. Accompanied by two other men, Perez allegedly asked another individual present how much cannabis was in the apartment, and that individual allegedly told him that there was about half of a pound of the plant in the residence. Witness accounts differ at...

A Tampa man with a significant history in the Florida prison system was arrested last week, accused of a shooting death at a Busch Gardens hotel.Tampa police arrested Christopher Lee Carithers in front of an East Tampa residence on Thursday after tips from the Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force named him the prime suspect in the slaying of Yasmine L. Tyson earlier in the week.According to police, the 37-year-old Carithers fired the fatal shots at Tyson, whom officers found wounded after being dispatched to a local motel Monday evening. She was unconscious when they found her alone in a...

Evidently developing a rage that turned murderous, a Seminole woman was arrested late last week after authorities say she plunged a knife into her husband's chest, killing him.Fifty-one-year-old Mary Georgia Pender-Michielson of unincorporated Seminole dialed 9-1-1 early Monday morning to alert authorities that her husband Bruce Michielson had sustained the wound while in their home. The 41-year-old man was taken by ambulance to Bayfront Health St. Petersburg, succumbing to his injuries shortly after arrival.Mary was also taken for medical attention for a less serious complaint. While at the...

The former chief financial officer of a private agency dedicated to helping the mentally disabled will be spending two years in federal prison for allegedly illegally diverting Social Security payments from individuals under their care.Frank Pannullo was also sentenced to three years of supervised released and will also be jointly responsible with others convicted in the alleged scheme for reimbursing over $600,000 to those from whom the government says the funds were diverted. According to federal prosecutors, Pannullo conceived the scheme when the former head of Hillsborough Association...

The Tampa Police Department arrested a man last week they say is responsible for the death of a motorcyclist last November.Authorities accuse Nelson Froilan Massanet-Beltran of being inebriated when he was driving down Sheldon Road on a November evening last year. The 59-year-old was allegedly attempting a left turn onto Redwood Boulevard when the police say he failed to yield the right of way to Kenneth Hall, who was driving his Harley Davidson the opposite direction.The arrest report says Hall's motorcycle slammed into the passenger-side door of Massanet-Beltran's Mercury Grand Marquis,...

Little is known about the circumstances that led to the alleged attack, but Tampa police say that an armed altercation between a man and his girlfriend left her dead and him the perpetrator of her murder.Officers of the TPD were called to an East Tampa convenience store in the first hours of June 18. Upon their arrival they say they discovered the mortally-wounded Metosha D. Godwin. Though they administered aid, their efforts were ultimately in vain, as she expired at the scene. However, TPD officers say they identified their suspect almost immediately, and tracked down Sol William "Freddie"...

A now-former employee of the city of Gainesville is facing felony fraud charges after an investigation uncovered instances of her allegedly spending city funds on, among other things, buttock augmentation surgery.Initially described as a competent employee who was always eager to help, Natwaina Clark was fired on March 21 and arrested seven days later for allegedly spending around $93,000 of city money for the purchase of personal items.According to investigators, the 33-year-old Clark spent $61,000 from her own city-issued credit card, $31,000 from her supervisor's card, and almost $900...

Staring life in federal prison in the face, a Plant City man's tearful remorse for his crimes led the presiding judge to sentence him to seventeen years behind bars instead.Telling a story of an early life marred by grinding poverty in Mexico, Saul Velazquez-Bazan's attorney described his upbringing as one of ten children in a family that was forced to dig through the filth in trash receptacles behind grocery stores in order to stave off starvation. Luxuries his jurors took for granted were unknown in his life, his counsel told the court, pointing out that his client slept on a dirt floor...

Six Hillsborough county residents are facing fraud charges and a seventh individual is still being sought for the same for allegedly participating in a scheme to illegally harvest credit card numbers using scanning machines placed on gas pumps.Investigators with the Florida Attorney General's Office say that the group installed skimming devices without the station owners' consent at over forty gas stations in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. The devices captured at least forty individual credit card numbers. Though no numbers were released by the investigators, each one could potentially...

Pinellas County officials say an argument over illicit drugs precipitated a murder in a motel in Largo, and have charged a transient man in connection with the killing.Authorities say Angel Enrigue Martinez became enmeshed in a disagreement with Ricky Garland in the hotel room he had been calling home. Although the exact nature of their relationship remains a matter of speculation, PCSO deputies say that they failed to come to an agreement late in the evening of May 25th, and, according to investigators, Martinez ended the dispute by firing upon Garland in the parking lot in front of his...