Clearwater Criminal Defense Law Blog

Earlier this month, social worker Stephanie Ross died after allegedly being slashed multiple times with a large butcher knife by Dade City resident Lucious Smith. Ross was visiting with Smith to help him manage his Medicaid benefits. She had visited him on three prior occasions and there are conflicting reports as to whether she reported feeling unsafe on those visits.Witnesses told police that Ross ran screaming from the apartment on her final visit, with Smith chasing her and slashing at her with a large butcher knife. Ninety minutes later, she died at a hospital of multiple stab wounds to...

A Hernando County judge sentenced Mikell Begley of Brooksville to 11 years in prison last week for the April death of Begley's friend Gary Ziegler. The sentence came after Begley pleaded no contest to DUI manslaughter.Had he been convicted at trial, Begley faced a maximum prison term of 15 years. He has several prior arrests in Florida, including a burglary conviction in Hernando in 2007.Begley also pleaded no contest to a charge of battery on a corrections officer, which was filed after Begley spat on an officer at the Hernando County Detention Center earlier this month. He will serve a...

Jervis Wise, an attorney here in the Law Offices of Bjorn Brunvand, obtained a not guilty verdict this week for a client in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division. Wise's client was charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine. If convicted, he faced 10 years to life in prison. Fortunately, however, the client was acquitted and did not face sentencing.Mr. Courtney Allen, a 34 year-old father, was alleged to have conspired with at least one other individual to purchase a half kilogram of cocaine for sale...

Bruno Skoczynski, a 36-year-old mortgage broker from Dunedin, was sentenced this month by a Tampa federal court to two years in prison. Skoczynski owned E-Value Mortgage Services and E-Value Title Services. He pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud conspiracy charges in June 2012.According to court documents, Skoczynski was a licensed mortgage broker in the Tampa Bay area. His wife was a licensed realtor. From May 2007 through July 2008,, Skoczynski acted as mortgage broker and title company for the sale of some of Richard Cartagena's and Neil Ferrigno's properties, including some of the La...

Shaneva Boyd of Clearwater was sentenced earlier this month to 12 months and 1 day in federal prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release, for participating in a conspiracy to commit federal student financial aid fraud. The federal court in Tampa also ordered her to pay $77,364.00 in restitution and to forfeit substitute assets in the amount of $70,000.00. Boyd previously pleaded guilty in August 2012.According to the plea agreement, Boyd's husband formed "Graduate Assistance and Consolidations, Inc." (GAC), located in St. Petersburg, Florida in January 2006. GAC purported to be in the...

Local media reported another round of tax refund fraud charges in the Tampa Bay area recently. Federal prosecutors now claim that several former Hillsborough County high school football players participated in the scheme and even recruited students at the University of South Dakota to participate.Just a few weeks ago, we reported on a Palm Harbor man charged in a similar alleged tax refund fraud scheme. In late September, 39 other area residents were indicted in a large scale tax refund scheme.Now, prosecutors and IRS investigators accuse Alphonso Rico Valdez, a graduate of Chamberlain High...

A federal court judge in Tampa sentenced Cristie Fay Bottorff and Jerry Alan Bottorff of Brandon this week to three concurrent terms of life in federal prison for the contract murder of Cristie Bottorff's former husband, Thomas Lee Sehorne, of Lithia, Florida. The court also entered a money judgment in the amount of $1,043,517.99 against each defendant. This was the amount collected against Sehorne's life insurance policies paid after his death in 2007.The Bottorffs were arrested on May 23, 2011 and pleaded guilty on July 9, 2012. They testified against Luis Angel Lopez, who was allegedly...

Eighteen-year-old Benjamin K. Bishop of Oldsmar was charged this weekend in Pinellas County with killing his mother and her boyfriend in their Oldsmar home. He faces two counts of first-degree murder. According to the sheriff's report, Bishop has a history of mental illness, addiction to bath salts and violence towards his mother.Bishop reportedly returned home last month after 10 months in a rehabilitation center. He is accused of shooting Imari Shibata, his mother, and her boyfriend Kelley Allen with a sawed off 12-gauge shotgun. The sheriff's report suggests that Bishop fired a total of...

Albert Friedman, an 81-year-old Hudson man, was arrested last week in connection with an August 5th crash in Pasco County. Two people were killed in the crash, which occured on US Highway 19. Friedman has been charged with two counts of DUI manslaughter, two counts of vehicular homicide, and one count of DUI property damage.According to the Florida State Highway Patrol, Friedman was northbound on US Highway 19 in a 2013 Volkswagen in the center lane passing other traffic. Friedman swerved to the right and into the rear of a 1999 Saturn driven by Bridgette Ewing of Spring Hill in the outside...

Luke Frazier, a candidate for Hernando County sheriff back in 2008, was arrested and charged with fraud and perjury this week. Authorities say that Frazier forged a deed on a vacant two-bedroom house in Spring Hill in 2007. They also accuse Frazier of collecting rent on the property, which was actually owned by another man, from approximately 2006 until this year.According to the sheriff's department, Frazier's tenants stopped paying rent in November 2011, after Frazier failed to return their calls complaining about a leaky roof and overflowing septic tank. The tenants ended up moving out...