Handan Kabba of suburban Boca Raton, Florida is accused of crashing her car into another vehicle while under the influence and then leaving the scene of the accident. There were two kids in the backseat of her vehicle at the time of the crash, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said. It is unclear if anyone was injured.

Kabba, 32, is being charged with DUI, leaving the scene of an accident, and child neglect. She was taken to Palm Beach County Jail and was released on September 30 on $6,000 bond. The press did not name an attorney for her.

According to the arrest report, the alleged hit-and-run crash occurred just after 10:30 p.m. on September 29 near the intersection of State Road 7 and Boynton Beach Boulevard. Kabba, who was reportedly driving a red Nissan Altima, rear-ended a vehicle and then fled south on State Road 7.

Deputies eventually found a Nissan Altima with front-end damage parked on the side of the road. Kabba was behind the wheel with two boys, aged 11 and 7, in the backseat. Kabba’s relationship with the children is unclear.

The deputy who questioned Kabba reported smelling alcohol on her breath and that she slurred her words and had glassy eyes. Kabba told the deputy that she was waiting for someone to come get her and the children.

She later submitted to two Breathalyzer tests and the results showed that her blood-alcohol level was 0.150 and 0.146 respectively, the report said. Both readings are almost double the legal intoxication limit of 0.08.

Florida has some of the toughest DUI laws in the country because of all the deaths that have been caused by DUI accidents. Police are required to use a zero tolerance standard when enforcing those laws, and as a result, the state prosecutes an enormous number of DUI cases every year.

Hit-and-runs are also a bit problem in Florida. Statistics from the Florida Highway Patrol show that the number of hit-and-run accidents in South Florida has steadily increased every year over the past decade. The numbers went up from 72,000 in 2012 to just over 99,000 in 2016. Palm Beach, Miami-Dade, and Broward counties have the highest number of hit-and-run crashes in the region.

“I know hit-and-runs continue to be a problem,” FHP spokesman Sgt. Mark Wysocky. “Unfortunately they continue to go up from previous years.”

Earlier this year, the Florida Highway Patrol launched a “Stay At The Scene” campaign to encourage drivers to remain at the scene of the crash, but it’s still too soon to tell if it had any effect. Drivers flee the scene for several reasons. Sometimes it’s because they don’t have insurance or their driver’s license is suspended, or they may be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. In many cases, the driver responsible for the accident is not at fault and would face little or no penalties if they stayed at the scene.

Source: Handan Kabba of Boca Raton, Florida Arrested After Hit-and-Run DUI Crash With Two Kids in Backseat.pdf

Scott Edward Nelson was arrested in Jacksonville Sunday as a suspect in the murder of Florida nanny and mother Jennifer Lynn Fulford.

Nelson, 53, was arrested without incident as the police evacuated the Sunshine Inn motel and surrounded his room with guns drawn.

Records show that Nelson has an extensive criminal history including kidnapping, assault, substance abuse and bank robbery. Nelson was on supervised release after serving five years in federal prison for a bank robbery in 2010 and has no known home address.

Fulford’s disappearance was first noted last Wednesday, when she failed to pick up her client’s child from school. That’s when her family knew that something was wrong. “It’s just not like her to disappear,” her husband Robert Fulford told new outlets the day after she vanished. “I can’t get her on her cellphone,” he continued, “Her phone is off. She’s not answering texts. She’s the nicest last, most responsible last on the planet.”

Fulford was last seen in a surveillance video leaving her dentist’s office in Winter Park at 11:40 a.m. on Wednesday. The next day, a statewide manhunt was launched to locate Fulford. Winter Park Police Chief Michael Deal announced that police had found video footage of a person of interest using Fulford’s ATM card, after which the Winter Park Police Department took to Facebook, posting a series of photos of the then-unidentified Nelson and asking Facebook users for assistance in identifying Nelson.

On Saturday, police broke the news that Fulford’s body had been found in a wooded area outside of an Orlando suburb. Fulford’s employer shared in her family’s grief: “We are heartbroken to learn of Jennifer’s death and find it difficult to understand why and how she became a victim of such a heinous crime,” employer Reid Berman said, “Jennifer was kind and loving. She cared for her family deeply as she did ours. We will miss her and simply have no words to describe this loss and our grief.”

After Nelson’s capture, Chief Deal thanked the other law enforcement agencies who helped in the manhunt, including the U.S. Marshals who made the arrest. Details on how the whereabouts of Nelson were discovered have yet to be disclosed by police. Deal said in a press conference on Monday, “While we’re thankful for the excellence in law enforcement that led to the capture of this individual, please keep the Fulford family in your thoughts and prayers. The Winter Park Police Department also thanked citizens over Facebook for sharing the pictures of Nelson, which might have aided in his capture.

Nelson could potentially go through the federal system for violating his probation from the 2010 bank robbery before facing homicide charges. He is scheduled to appear in an Orlando federal court this Friday for a detention hearing, and the federal case will take precedence unless U.S. attorneys file a motion and a judge agrees to transfer Nelson to state custody before addressing his probation violations, spokesman William Daniels said.

Sources:

Arrest Made in ‘Random’ Killing of Missing Florida Nanny

Suspect in Altamonte Springs woman’s killing to be in court Friday

Tammy Lynn Hopkins Lysak of Deerfield Beach, Florida was arrested on September 27 for allegedly stealing more than $400,000 from her employer over a period of two years.

Lysak, 52, faces charges for criminal use of personal identification information, grand theft, and organized fraud. Court records show she has also violated the terms of her probation for a 2008 grand theft conviction in Palm Beach County. The press did not name an attorney for Lysak.

According to the arrest report, Lysak was employed as a personal assistant to a man from Lighthouse Point whose identify has not been released. She purportedly worked in her employer’s home in the 2300 block of NE 25th Street and had access to his signature stamp and bank account.

Between January 2015 and May 2017, Lysak allegedly made 57 unauthorized withdrawals from her employer’s bank account totaling $414,750. Lysak deposited the money in her personal bank account, her American Express account, and Florida Power & Light. $397,230 of the total amount stolen was paid to American Express, the report said.

The victim was unaware of the alleged embezzlement until June this year when he noticed a $9,879 check from his account was written to and later withdrawn by Lysak. His bank reportedly provided surveillance photos showing Lysak accessing the account via an ATM.

“We’re very proud of Detective Andrew Gianino’s work on this large-scale embezzlement fraud case,” Commander Jack Vaccaro of the Lighthouse Point Police Department told the press. “His lengthy investigation led to presenting three felony criminal charges to the state attorney’s office.”

Another embezzlement case was reported in Fort Lauderdale on September 21. Gerard Anthony Brady of Palm Beach County was arrested for allegedly embezzling at least $5,000 from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. Brady, 34, was an employee of the agency until March this year.

Brady was charged with theft concerning programs receiving federal funds. He pleaded not guilty in federal court on September 18 and was released on $100,000 bond. It is unclear if he has acquired the services of an attorney.

According to the court records, the alleged theft occurred between January 2016 and December 2016. Brady, who was hired in 2010, worked as a forfeiture coordinator for the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. He was in charge of overseeing money and property confiscated by police using asset forfeiture laws.

“As police forfeiture coordinator, Brady’s duties at the police department included storing and caring for confiscated and seized property, coordinating the deposit of confiscated and seized monies, and overseeing vessels, places, vehicles, and other property seized by the Fort Lauderdale Police Department,” federal prosecutors said.

Asset forfeiture laws are controversial because they allow law enforcement to seize property from persons suspected of committing crimes without necessarily charging them with wrongdoing. Property subject to seizure is broadly defined and can include practically anything a person can own.

Brady’s alleged theft of $5,000 was discovered by the IRS. If convicted, he faces a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Sources: 9.28.17 Tammy Lynn Hopkins Lysak of Deerfield Beach Arrested for Grand Theft.pdf & 9.21.17 Gerard Anthony Brady Arrested for Embezzlement.pdf

Civil asset forfeiture laws were originally intended as a way to fight drug trafficking. The laws originated and grew in the 1970s and 1980s as law enforcement agencies lacked a way to diminish the operations of resilient drug trafficking operations.

But the laws have also created for law enforcement agencies a lucrative stream of revenue, and the numbers show just how common civil forfeiture has become in the United States.

The monetary value of assets seized by law enforcement has shrunk in recent years due to eased regulations introduced under the Obama administration, but current Attorney General Jefferson Sessions has hinted at a reversal of these policies, saying that he encourages the seizing of assets “whenever appropriate in order to hit organized crime in the wallet.”

However, like many things that are theoretically a force for good, civil forfeiture laws have the potential for abuse. In some cases, the targets of civil forfeiture are completely innocent and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The amount seized can even sometimes be so low that it isn’t worth hiring the necessary legal representation to get the property back.

Between the years 1989 and 2010, U.S. law enforcement seized an estimated $12.6 billion in asset forfeiture cases, seeing an annual increase of 19.4% during that time period. From 2009-2010, there was a 52.8% increase, making 2010’s total six times larger than 1989. Then, by 2014, the number reached $4.5 billion for the year, meaning this 35% of the entire number of assets collected from 1989 to 2010 in a single year.

The year 2014 marked a major milestone in asset forfeiture – the value of assets seized by the government had, for the first time, surpassed the total value of goods stolen by criminals in burglary offenses. With the total amount of stolen goods at $3.9 billion, the amount seized by law enforcement exceeded this number by over $500 million.

In this same year, Washington, D.C. paid out $855,000 to settle a class action suit involving civil forfeiture. The class argued that their constitutional rights were violated by the city’s policy of seizing and taking cash, and in the end, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper approved the disbursement of $500,000 to the 1,377 claimants, with another $300,000 being allocated for attorney’s fees and expenses. Some of the claimants had as little as $100 in their pockets when their property was taken by law enforcement, so it was likely that for some claimants, their only recourse was a class action lawsuit. Under D.C. law, owners whose property has been seized have 30 days to file a claim to get their property back, while the city has one year to file a civil forfeiture action.

The total amount of assets seized by law enforcement agencies grew from $94 million in 1986 to $4.5 billion by 2014. Even when adjusting for inflation, this is a huge increase. Although the amount seized in 2016 was nearly half of what was seized in 2014, it is still likely that the value of assets reported by states are not entirely accounted for, due to varying levels of detail required by those states. Regardless, with asset forfeiture expansion on the Justice Department’s agenda, it’s possible that those numbers could rise again.

Sources:

After Cops Seized and Kept Cash, Washington, D.C. Settles Almost Million-Dollar Forfeiture Class Action

Law enforcement took more stuff from people than burglars did last year

Civil asset forfeiture: Tracking the cash seized by police in a Deep South state where transparency is not required

Middle school teacher David Michael Stokes of North Lauderdale, Florida was arrested on September 22 after he allegedly intoxicated two 16-year-old students at a Pompano Beach park.

Stokes, 45, is being charged with two misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. It is unclear if he has acquired the services of a lawyer.

According to the arrest report, Stokes was found with the students by deputies from Broward Sheriff’s Office after 2 a.m. Friday in a closed park near the Pompano Beach pier. The deputies wrote that both teens appeared “visibly intoxicated with slurred speech” and were unsteady on their feet in the report. The report did not specify the gender of the students.

The students reportedly told the deputies that Stokes picked them up at their homes without their parents knowledge and gave them alcohol. One of them had also taken two dozen cough drops, provided by Stokes, to enhance the effect of the alcohol, the report said.

The deputies arrested Stokes for trespassing in the closed park and later charged him with two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Stokes is a history teacher at Ramblewood Middle School in Coral Springs. A spokesperson for the Broward County School District told the press that Stokes has been removed from his teaching position and reassigned.

Another incident of misconduct involving a teacher and a student was reported in Pembroke Pines last week. Drama teacher Sylvers Robinson of Miami was arrested on September 18 for allegedly sending porn and sexual texts to a 14-year-old student.

Robinson, 29, faces three charges, including transmission of material that is harmful to minors, directing or promoting sexual performance by a child, and using a computer to solicit or lure a child to engage in sexual conduct. The press did not name an attorney for Robinson.

According to the arrest report, Robinson is a teacher at Harvard International Academy in Pembroke Pines. He allegedly took a special interest in a male student and would stand close to him and make comments about his clothing.

“He liked me more than the other kids,” the student told Local 10 News. ‘He treated me different. He would be mean to the other kids, but he would treat me like I’m a king.”

Robinson’s inappropriate communications with the student reportedly began on September 5 when he took the teen’s cellphone and dialed his own phone number. Later that day, he allegedly began sending the teen text messages calling him “cute” and asking if he was a virgin. He also purportedly sent the boy a pornographic image on Instagram.

The teen informed his mother about Robinson’s texts and she called the police. A detective posing as the teen continued texting Robinson using the teen’s phone. Robinson sent more inappropriate texts as well as a picture of himself in his underwear to the detective, the report said.

After his arrest, Robinson told police that the text messages were taken out of context. He said he was trying to be a “big brother” to the teen and did not believe he did anything wrong. He also accused the student of targeting him because of his sexual orientation.

Source: 9.20.17 Middle School Teacher David Michael Stokes of North Lauderdale, Florida Accused of Intoxicating Students.pdf