Crime

In southwest Florida, communities are fighting with the growing fentanyl crisis. The powerful synthetic opioid has become increasingly prevalent, leading to a surge in overdoses. In response, local organizations and law enforcement are increasing efforts to address the crisis and support affected individuals.

An Ohio prison inmate already convicted of rape and kidnapping pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to threatening to kill a Florida judge and sexually assault the judge’s wife and daughter.Inside the courtroom at his plea hearing, Wayne A. Miller, 41, of Alliance, Ohio, sat slumped in shackles with prominent tattoos across his throat visible at the defense table near his public defender.

Florida Highway Patrol investigators said two Cape Coral men face multiple charges for a road rage violence incident on I-75 Saturday that involved handguns and children in one of the vehicles.The FHP reported the incident happened shortly after 9:30 Saturday morning, starting on Colonial Boulevard and continuing on Interstate 75.

A 25-year-old Cape Coral man is facing homicide, robbery and other charges in connection with a fatal shooting on Three Oaks Parkway Thursday.Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno reported the arrest of Khylil Draine came Saturday.“We knew our suspect in minutes, we arrested him in hours," the sheriff said. "This case still has a lot of work, it’s a fresh case.”

A man allegedly involved in a Estero shooting that left a Florida couple dead in April 2018 is being extradited from the Ukraine to the United States to stand trial on federal charges. Craig Austin Lang, 34, Surprise, Arizona, along with co-defendant Alex Jared Zwiefelhofer, 27, Bloomer, Wisconsin, was charged in 2019 in a conspiracy to commit robbery and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, robbery interfering in commerce, and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, which resulted in the death of of Brooksville, Florida, residents Serafin "Danny" Lorenzo, 53, and Deana K. Lorenzo, 51.

Florida Republicans on Thursday quickly attacked the conviction of former President Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records, while Democrats said the verdict showed nobody is above the law.A 12-member jury returned the verdict more than a month after the criminal hush-money trial began in New York and after just one day of deliberations. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime after leaving office.

Former President Donald Trump is convicted of all 34 counts in his New York hush money trial.

The rate of guns stolen from cars in the U.S. has tripled over the last decade, making them the largest source of stolen guns in the country, an analysis of FBI data by the gun safety group Everytown found.The rate of stolen guns from cars climbed nearly every year and spiked during the coronavirus pandemic along with a major surge in weapons purchases in the U.S., according to the report, which analyzes FBI data from 337 cities in 44 states and was provided to The Associated Press.

The sad and terrifying case of 9-year-old Diana Alvarez came to an end Wednesday with a life sentence in prison given to Jorge Manuel Guerrero Torres after he was found guilty of the child's 2016 kidnapping and murder.Diana disappeared from her Unique Circle home at the Sheltering Pines mobile home neighborhood off U.S. 41 in south Lee County early in the morning of May 29.

ond was set Friday at $350,000 for a Fort Myers woman who allegedly sexually battered a male teen when she worked as a teacher's aide in a Lee County School.Lauren Angelica King, 32, remains in custody at the Lee County Jail on charges of lewd lascivious behavior/molestation and lewd lascivious behavior/lewd or lascivious battery. A Lee County School District spokesman said King no longer works for the school. The spokesman would not say if she was fired or quit.