Arrests Florida

Lawrence Singleton, say his Florida prosecutors, killed a prostitute with a dozen enraged stabs of a boning knife. Mary Vincent is not surprised. He took her life 19 years ago. "He really did," she says with a slight shudder, with awful pain in her words. "He destroyed everything about me. My way of thinking. My way of life. Holding on to innocence . . . and I'm still doing everything I can to hold on." Singleton also devastated a young dream.

A former Orange County attorney has been arrested on suspicion of killing his ex-wife for financial gain in 2006 by strangling her and throwing her overboard while on a cruise along the Italian coast, authorities said. Lonnie Kocontes, 55, a former Mission Viejo resident, was arrested Friday at his home in Safety Harbor, Fla., in connection with the death of Micki Kanesaki, 52, of Ladera Ranch, authorities said. He is charged with one felony count of special circumstances for financial gain.

A DEA agent was found dead in a car wreck with four shots to the head. His passenger, a fellow agent who told police he had been drinking heavily at a party they attended, was charged with murder. "Who did I kill tonight?" Richard Fekete, 55, asked officers who told him they found DEA agent Shaun Curl, 39, dead in a wrecked car Friday night in Miramar, Fla., according to a police affidavit.

Former California Department of Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush -- now working as a sheriff's deputy in Lee County, Fla. -- earlier this week shot and critically injured a man who allegedly resisted arrest, authorities said Friday. Quackenbush was trying to handcuff Teodor Buda, 57, Tuesday afternoon when a scuffle ensued, said Tony Schall, spokesman for the Lee County Sheriff's Department.

Two members of the rap group 2 Live Crew were arrested early Sunday morning after an X-rated, adults-only performance in Hollywood, Fla., in the latest legal move against the group on grounds of obscenity. Group leader and producer Luther Campbell, 29, and Chris Won Wong, 21, were stopped by Broward County sheriff's deputies shortly after leaving the Futura Club about 3 a.m.

A 14-year-old boy was arrested Tuesday in the stabbing death of an 8-year-old neighbor girl whose body was taped to the bottom of his water bed. The youth confessed and was charged with murdering Maddie Clifton, who lived across the street, Sheriff Nat Glover said. Maddie vanished after dashing out of the house the night of Nov. 3 to play with friends.

Police said Friday that a 19-year-old woman, angered when a German couple targeted as robbery victims refused to pull over after her boyfriend rammed their rental car with a truck, stuck a sawed-off rifle through her window and fired a single shot at the driver. The bullet struck Uwe-Wilhelm Rakebrand, 33, in the back of the neck early Wednesday, killing him instantly.

In his Granada Hills office, David Russell Miller surrounded himself with reminders of the things that meant the most to him. A fixture at civic and business functions across the San Fernando Valley, the former Chamber of Commerce president covered a wall in his office with the photos of the important people he knew and had met. There was the governor, local assemblymen, international figures such as Oliver North, even Desmond Tutu. But there was no photo of his wife, Dorothy.

When Forrest Tucker, at age 73, left prison in 1993, the storied career of this veteran bank robber and stickup man seemed finally over. He and his wife, Jewell, settled into a comfortable home here on a golf course. He puttered in the yard. He began writing his memoirs, a work he titled "The Can Opener," which includes an account of his 1979 escape from San Quentin by kayak. But late last year, a rash of bank robberies erupted within commuting distance of Tucker's house.

The FBI in Ft. Myers, Fla., arrested the younger of two brothers wanted for questioning in the firebombing of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office. The bombing caused $4 million in damage but no injuries, and came two days after the brothers were indicted on drug charges. John Lewis Ciganek, 22, was arrested on the drug charges. Authorities continued searching for Jeffrey A. Matthews, 23, formerly known as Jeff Ciganek.

Prosecutors are seeking the extradition of a woman in Florida accused of poisoning her husband -- a Marine sergeant -- and then using his life insurance to pay for breast enhancement and a libertine lifestyle. Cynthia Sommer, 32, moved to Florida from San Diego in 2002 with a new boyfriend, an ex-Marine, just weeks after an autopsy performed by a military pathologist found that her husband had died of a heart attack. Further toxicology tests determined that Sgt.

In the course of more than a decade, authorities say, Florida resident Douglas Staas racked up $200,000 in bad debts, was arrested at least three times and was slapped with a number of speeding and drunken-driving citations. But none of this tarnished his record. That's because Staas took the identity of California resident Clay Monroe Henderson for 14 years.

On the 14th floor of the federal courthouse here, a strange coda to the Cold War is playing out, its unwilling protagonist a Florida retiree who, until last year, was bagging groceries at a supermarket to help make ends meet. Frail and nearly bald, 74-year-old George Trofimoff would seem much more at home on a sun-dappled shuffleboard court than sitting in the chair of an accused criminal. But according to U.S.

To all but a small circle of federal agents, the sting operation seemed routine at first. After more than a year of negotiations, undercover agent Steve McKean, working for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, led his target to a nondescript warehouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where McKean produced the wares: Sixty AK-47 assault rifles and 10 submachine guns equipped with silencers--enough weaponry to stage a small coup in a small enough land.

A doo-wop singer was arrested in Florida and accused of escaping from a New Jersey prison in 1974 while serving a sentence for killing his girlfriend's 2-year-old son. Authorities said Elmer Edward Solly, 55, used a succession of false names, posing most recently as "Danny C. Catalano" and living in St. Petersburg, Fla. He promoted his career as Danny C., "The Bad Boy," claiming to be "the most controversial member" of the group Sha Na Na.

A Los Angeles woman wanted on drug charges since 1996 was arrested in Tampa, Fla., as she tried to reenter the country on a flight from Jamaica, an FBI official said Thursday. Bridgette Day, 36, was arrested Tuesday after a routine check at the airport, said FBI Agent James V. DeSarno.

To fight crime in the Edgewater neighborhood, police have traded in their uniforms for a sexier look: shorts, tight blouses and a come-hither smile. Some officers have parked their patrol cars to lean up against lampposts. Others not posing as prostitutes may be packing their service revolvers under the shabby clothes of a vagrant. "You see the homeless people out there? Well, many of those guys with shopping carts are my guys," said Miami police Lt. Mario Garcia. "Male and female.

A 78-year-old man who escaped from San Quentin prison in a makeshift kayak 20 years ago was arrested in Florida on bank robbery charges. Forrest Silva Tucker, whose criminal record stretches back to the 1930s, was captured last week in a school parking lot near Pompano Beach. He was jailed without bail in connection with a local bank holdup. In 1979, Tucker and two other inmates at San Quentin built a crude boat and set out from the beach.

Rapper Sean Combs was arrested Saturday and charged with driving with a suspended license after police pulled him over while he was riding a scooter along Ocean Drive, a South Beach strip. Police pulled Combs over about 6 p.m. for making an illegal lane change, said Miami Beach police Sgt. Peter Bitume. A driver's license check showed Combs' license was suspended, so he was arrested and released 20 minutes later after he signed a promise to appear in court, Bitume said.

The mystery of Darryl Strawberry's whereabouts was solved Monday night when he was arrested at a Tampa, Fla., hospital, ending another bizarre episode in the former major leaguer's life. The troubled star was taken into custody at St. Joseph's Hospital on a violation of probation warrant, said Debbie Carter, a spokeswoman for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Department. Strawberry, 39, had been missing since Thursday, when he failed to return to his apartment in a Tampa drug treatment center.