Crime

Polk Sheriff: 92 arrested in online prostitution bust

Monday, May 13th, 2013, 5:40pm

Winter Haven, Florida -- The Polk County Sheriff's Office says nearly 100 people have been arrested in an undercover prostitution sting operation.

Deputies say a total of 92 people were arrested for offering to commit lewdness, along with other charges. The suspects allegedly responded to online ads posted by undercover detectives posing as prostitutes, or the suspects were prostitutes themselves who posted ads and came to the undercover location, offering their services.

The arrests include:

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Cops: Polk bus driver stages fight between 2 students

Submitted by Gillian Finklea, Web Producer, 10 News In Your Neighborhood

Friday, May 10th, 2013, 11:46pm

Polk County, Florida -- A Polk County school bus driver has been arrested for allegedly forcing two students to fight outside her home Thursday.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd says 29-year-old Patrice Sanders of Lakeland drove a busload of middle and high school students to her house and staged a fight between two of them in her front yard.

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Lakeland man on trial for murder: 'It wasn't me'

Submitted by Eric Glasser, Anchor/Reporter

Thursday, May 9th, 2013, 10:00am

Bartow, FL -- Timothy Carey took the stand in his own defense Wednesday and said he was at a party the night Tommy Eugene Smith was murdered.

Smith was a 37-year-old and a nursing supervisor at Lakeland Regional Medical Center when his body was found during the early evening hours of Oct. 11, 1996.

Smith's body was found in an orange grove off Edison and Old Berkley roads, near Auburndale. He'd been shot twice in the head and once in the neck. He had been last seen on Oct. 10, leaving his home around 8 p.m. in his Jeep.

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Recent Bay area child deaths sadden advocates

Submitted by Eric Glasser, Anchor/Reporter

Monday, May 6th, 2013, 6:27pm

New Port Richey, Florida -- Watching the news these past two weeks has brought Maureen Welch to tears.

"It's just so sad," Welch says of reports of a Tampa mother leaving her 7-month-old in a bathtub.

A Citrus mother accused of beating her 2-year-old daughter to death.

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DUI driver who allegedly killed 3 appears in court

Submitted by Eric Glasser, Anchor/Reporter

Friday, May 3rd, 2013, 7:34pm

Mulberry, Florida -- A Lakeland man charged with killing three people in a drunk driving accident last weekend was out of the hospital and in a jail cell.

Edward McCoy, 21, had a blood alcohol level (BAC) so high, it might leave most people struggling to walk, much less drive.

That led the Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd to ask: if McCoy didn't have enough sense not to drink and drive, why did nobody else stop him?

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Foot fetish arrest, 10-year-old child a victim

Submitted by WTSP Web Staff

Thursday, April 25th, 2013, 12:19pm

Polk County, Florida -- Deputies have a man in custody they say victimized women under false pretenses to touch their feet for sexual gratification -- and they are looking for more victims to come forward.

Deputies say 23-year-old Reginald Cruz, of Dundee, approached a 10-year-old child as recently as January of this year and asked to touch her toes.

He has been charged with lewd lascivious conduct on a person less than 18 years old, obtaining property by fraud, two counts battery and attempted battery.

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Man used hidden camera to film girls undressing

Submitted by Gillian Finklea, Web Producer, 10 News In Your Neighborhood

Thursday, April 25th, 2013, 11:55am

Mulberry, Florida -- Polk County Sheriff's deputies have arrested a man for taping underage girls while they undressed.

Deputies arrested Dewey Norris after 53 videos of nude girls were discovered by his friend. When the friend discovered video clips of young, nude girls, he immediately turned the DVD's over to police.

Reportedly, Norris placed a pen camera in a bathroom he had access to before each girl went in. The pen camera is a device that looks like an ink pen but has a camera inside of it.

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