Free Republic

Multiple Central Florida men have pleaded guilty to being involved in a drug trafficking operation, “Titan Fall,” the U.S. Department of Justice said. A total of 13 men were charged in August with two indictments for being involved in the operation. Members Carlos Alberto Roman, 56; Kenneth Angel Vera, 31; and James Richards Howell, 37, have all pleaded guilty, according to the DOJ. The DOJ said that Roman supplied fentanyl and cocaine to Howell and Vera for resale, and regularly communicated with them. Roman was arrested at his home with 19 firearms, six silencers, three flash-bang grenades, and thousands of...

A gun-toting father and son duo shot at an innocent woman they mistakenly believed wanted to break into their Florida home in what authorities characterized as a “really, really stupid” incident. “This ranks among the craziest stuff that I have seen in a while and I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said of the Saturday morning incident. Gino Colonacosta, 73, and son Rocky, just 15, thought an intruder was lurking when it was just a good neighbor who dropped off a package of medicine at their door that was sent to the wrong home...

HERNANDO COUNTY, Fla. (Gray News) – Three men in Florida have been charged after attempting to steal traffic lights using a saw, officials said. According to the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office, a detective was driving home around 1 a.m. Tuesday when he noticed a suspicious van stopped at an intersection with its headlights turned off. The detective then noticed sparks coming from the area where traffic lights were in the process of being installed. Additional deputies arrived at the scene, where they said they found three men using a saw to cut the traffic lights off the poles. By the...

VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — Two Volusia County men whom deputies say severely beat a Lake Mary man at a wedding on Sept. 3, have been arrested. Deputies said Joel O’Grady, 38, and his son Julian Falkinburg, 21, both of Sanford, were arrested by Daytona Beach police late Friday night. According to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, O’Grady and Falkinburg were at a wedding reception in Lake Helen when they got into a fight with another man in a parking lot. Deputies said the pair struck the victim several times in the head and face until the victim became unresponsive. Investigators...

A man who tried to burn down his ex-boyfriend’s house with a pot of boiling spaghetti sauce was arrested along with an accomplice in DeLand last week, according to Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Derrick Irving, 36 — who had an intimate relationship with the 50-year-old owner of the home on Evergreen Terrace — and John Silvia, 28, broke into the victim’s house and took a flat-screen TV, a vacuum, an air conditioning unit and a heater on March 13, according to an arrest report. The victim, who was at work, called authorities after getting an alert on his phone that...

POLK COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – Seven people were arrested in what authorities are calling the “largest seizure of heroin” by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office. According to a news release, it all started when deputies learned someone was sending methamphetamine to Polk County by mail from southern California. Detectives began working with a task force in Bloomington, California and had undercover detectives buy 100 pounds of “Mexican methamphetamine” from a supplier based in California.