tampabay.com
Gov. Ron DeSantis in a new court filing seeks a boost in his efforts to maintain the suspension of Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren by citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.In a paper filed Monday with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, an attorney for DeSantis pointed to an opinion the Supreme Court issued last week, which centered on whether government officials can block citizens from commenting on their social media pages. The ruling grappled with the circumstances in which thin…
about 1 month ago
tampabay.com
TAMPA — Hillsborough County prosecutors charged a man with murder Friday, alleging that the fatal shooting of a gay man last month at the West Dog Park in Tampa was a hate crime.Gerald Declan Radford faces a second-degree murder charge in the Feb. 2 death of John Walter Lay . Friends of both men told the Tampa Bay Times that Radford had been harassing Lay for months, hurling homophobic slurs and threatening him. Radford claimed the shooting was self-defense.The office of Hillsborough State Attor…
about 1 month ago
tampabay.com
TAMPA — Lawyers for Tim Burke, the Tampa-based media consultant indicted last month on charges related to alleged computer hacks of Fox News videos, say in a new court filing that government agents concealed critical information from a judge when they applied for a warrant to search Burke’s property.In particular, Burke’s attorneys argue that a 2023 search warrant affidavit concealed from the judge that federal agents wanted to seize a journalist’s reporting materials. The affidavit refers to Bu…
about 1 month ago
tampabay.com
The Pasco County School District has agreed to change the way its schools treat students with disabilities as part of a settlement related to a U.S. Department of Justice civil rights investigation.The Justice Department announced the settlement with the school district Tuesday after a lengthy investigation concluded that Pasco Schools engaged in disability discrimination.The department found that Pasco County schools routinely relied on punitive measures, like suspensions or calling police, to…
about 2 months ago
tampabay.com
If Tim Burke, the nationally recognized Tampa-based media consultant, happened to find the website where he obtained unaired Fox News footage and then published the videos, legal experts say his activity probably was not a crime.But if Burke obtained the videos through underhanded means — like working in cooperation with another person to hack into the website, as a federal indictment alleges — then he could be in trouble.That’s the general consensus among First Amendment attorneys who spoke wit…
about 2 months ago
tampabay.com
A 4-year-old boy was in critical condition Sunday after he was hit by an SUV on Clearwater Beach.The collision happened Sunday morning in the 400 block of Gulfview Boulevard, Clearwater police said. A medical helicopter flew the boy to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg with life-threatening injuries, authorities said.The vehicle that struck the boy was a 2024 Ford Expedition that was being driven by a valet driver at the Opal Sands, 430 S. Gulfview Blvd. Police said the dri…
about 2 months ago
tampabay.com
TAMPA — Stephen Paleveda drove drunk and caused a fatal wrong-way traffic crash in 2018 on the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway, a jury decided Monday.After deliberating close to five hours over two days, the panel of six women rejected arguments that Paleveda was not the person who was driving a Ford F-350 pickup truck when it slammed head-on into another truck, killing Bamnet Narongchai, 68. They found Paleveda guilty of DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide, leaving the scene of an accident involving…
2 months ago
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TAMPA — One early morning five years ago, the driver of a Ford F-350 pickup sped through the streets of South Tampa. The truck, its headlights off, rolled over a sidewalk, blew through red lights, weaved over lane markers and zipped north through bustling SoHo. It turned the wrong way down one-way Cleveland Street, moving as fast as 65 mph before ascending an exit ramp, heading east in the westbound lanes of the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway.It was there that the massive truck plowed head-on into an…
2 months ago
tampabay.com
CLEARWATER — One day a little more than three years ago, a man gripped a microphone as he stood before a stage inside a Pinellas County church and told his pastor and parish leaders he was sorry for what he’d done to the pastor’s 12-year-old granddaughter.Juan Martin Gonzalez said that he’d sinned. He apologized. He vowed to “face the situation.”People in the crowd demanded more. God wouldn’t forgive him, they said, unless he said exactly what he’d done wrong.Gonzalez kept talking. His words wer…
2 months ago
tampabay.com
CLEARWATER — Moments before a small airplane fell from the sky and plowed into a Clearwater mobile home park Thursday evening, the pilot made a panicked emergency radio call.“Coming to Albert Whitted (Airport),” he said, according to a recording of the transmission. “I can’t see the other airport.”Seconds passed, then the pilot spoke again.“I’m losing engine,” said Jemin G. Patel, who was identified by authorities on Saturday. There came an indecipherable noise, then several seconds of silence b…
3 months ago
tampabay.com
TAMPA — The Times Publishing Co. has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused the Tampa Bay Times of disclosing to Facebook its online customers’ identities and video viewing histories.The company announced Thursday that it expects to pay $950,000 to resolve the matter. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of subscribers to the Times’ digital products and involved allegations that a code embedded in tampabay.com, known as Facebook Pixel, shared subscriber information with Facebook.“Priv…
3 months ago
