DUI, Drugs, and a Deadly Weapon

We have about 20 crimes to report this week including a few DUIs, some drug cases, battery, fraud, larceny, some weapons, and a SWAT team in Concord Greens.

Our reports go into depth including the person’s criminal history and details of the current incident. For example, one of the women arrested for DUI is clearly innocent but she was still charged. And a resident of the Estates subdivision of Boca Falls was arrested for cocaine possession outside a Sandalfoot establishment. You won’t get this kind of thorough reporting anywhere else.

As usual we have to put this content behind our paywall for a few reasons. If you are a paid subscriber please login.

Anita Mandeville, who looks a lot younger in this photo than the reported age of 54, was arrested for DUI after an accident on Military Trail near Clint Moore. She is a bartender at Burt & Max’s in Delray Marketplace, and lives in Paradise Palms off Military near Palmetto.

Mandeville refused the breath test. She may have a fighting chance on this case as she denied drinking anything and claimed she was working before the incident. If true that means she should have several witnesses to her sobriety. We see no other court history for her, not even a traffic ticket.

Just after midnight on the 15th, Heblin Rivas-Almendares was pulled over on Forest Hill Blvd. in West Palm Beach. Deputies called in a DUI specialist, Investigator Jacob Frey. He had her perform several field sobriety tests and concluded that she failed all of them. At the station she blew a 0.03, less than half the legal limit and consistent with the 2 beers she admitted drinking. She was sober.

They still charged her with DUI. If you believe the police only arrest and prosecute guilty people, this should make you think again.

Tuesday afternoon Boca PD arrested Lauren Schanke, a resident of the Paseos neighborhood off Powerline just south of Glades. The police paperwork suggests she was badly impaired including a report from her ex-boyfriend. Schanke refused the breath test. She may have more difficulty finding supportive witnesses but it’s hard to say.

We don’t see any prior criminal cases but the same ex-boyfriend filed a petition against her in 2015 for stalking him. He called police this Tuesday because he said she was trying to get into his house.

Greg Ward (58) was arrested after the same accident as Ms. Mandeville above, and he also refused the breath test. If these two worked together they could testify to each other’s sobriety at trial. That’d be something to see. Ward has had a few traffic tickets in the past but nothing more serious. He lives in East Boca not far from the Panera on Yamato

Leading off our drug arrests is Joshua Egerman (27), who was in our crime report two weeks ago on a similar case. We see a pretty substantial change in that time, but maybe it’s just a shave and a haircut for two bits (of crack).

Egerman has had 11 misdemeanor cases in the Palm Beach courts since 2013. In this incident Delray police saw him riding his bicycle the wrong way on a street, creating a traffic hazard. He admitted he had just smoked crack cocaine and they found a crack pipe on him. He showed up to court, pled guilty, and Judge Paul Damico let him go. This has happened at least a few times before.

Disclosure: The author knows Egerman’s father, who is a really nice man.

Matthew Flanders (21) is the one with the bandage on his head. Delray police saw him in a “known narcotics area” with another man and confronted them. If the police telling the truth, Flanders admitted to possessing drugs. During the arrest process Flanders started running, apparently after he had been handcuffed. A Taser ended the pursuit and probably led to the head injury.

The big charge in this case is felony heroin possession, along with marijuana, paraphernalia (needles) and resisting. The court file suggests the heroin charge is with intent to sell, but that doesn’t show up in the arrest paperwork.

Flanders lives in East Boca near Camino Gardens. We see no criminal history for him.

East Boca resident Joshua Viles (29) of Camino Real was charged with felony possession of hash oil along with driving under suspension/revocation. He was stopped for making an illegal right on red. During the stop it came out that Viles had been ticketed just a week earlier for driving with a suspension. A search of the car revealed a pipe with hash oil in it.

Pro tip: Don’t leave your hash oil pipes in your car. Or maybe don’t smoke hash oil. On the other hand it might work for you if you carry a crack pipe on a bicycle in Delray.

We see no criminal history for Viles.

Bridgett Walsh (37) of the Coach Houses at St. Andrews and Palmetto was arrested for heroin trafficking. PBSO was notified of a package containing white powder, addressed to Walsh from her boyfriend. It turned out to be 28 grams of heroin. They went to the house where Walsh admitted the package was for her and consented to a search. Deputies found Xanax and marijuana and she was charged for those as well.

The trafficking charge, for more than 4 grams of heroin, carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 3 years. Deputies also charged her based on warrants from suspended driving cases in 2008 and 2009. Those charges should be dismissed on speedy trial grounds, but we could be wrong.

Walsh had a burglary arrest in 2008 that was resolved quickly with a lesser offense. She had a string of court cases from 2005 to 2008 and then a huge gap. We don’t see anything else since 2009, though it’s possible she had problems elsewhere.

Lee Stransky (29) was arrested for drugs and a firearm offense. He lives in the Concord Green townhomes across Glades from the Boca Municipal golf course. PBSO investigators detected a suspicious FedEx package at the airport and obtained a search warrant for the address, Stransky’s home.

On Tuesday afternoon an undercover investigator left the package at the front door and rang the bell. A minute later Stransky came out and picked it up. The search warrant was then executed, presumably by a SWAT team. They found over 1.7 kg of marijuana, vape cartridges and pens (containing 2 grams of hash oil), Anavar tablets (a steroid), two handguns and a Defense Distributed DDM4 rifle chambered in 5.56 (similar to an AR-15), all in Stransky’s bedroom. Oddly there’s no indication they found any ammunition.

He was charged with felonies for possession of marijuana with intent to sell, and possession of hash oil, along with possession of a firearm during commission of a felony. The latter charge carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years. We see no criminal history and a mutual friend was very surprised to hear the news.

Christopher Hawkins (34) was arrested for felony defrauding an innkeeper. He allegedly refused to pay a nearly $400 tab after he bought a round for everyone at the bar at the Park Tavern in Delray Beach. Hawkins claimed he had already paid.

The police report indicates an address at the Pak & Ship at Boca Rio and Glades. His most recent previous arrest (DUI on 441 in 2018) shows an address in the Gables Palma Vista apartments between West Boca Medical Center and Home Depot.

Hawkins also had a felony arrest in 2017 when he rented a trailer and didn’t return it. Police found it at an entrance ramp to I-95. So basically the guy can be a real dick. He’s also a licensed home inspector and founder of “American Home Detectives Inc., South Florida’s leading 5-Star real estate inspection company.”

We don’t see any other criminal history, though we do see that he is being sued by Boca accident lawyer Eric Pintaluga after defaulting on a loan. The Court ruled against Hawkins awarding a judgment of $65,000. But the docket in that case includes a “suggestion of bankruptcy” so the dick may have stiffed a lawyer as well. It does make us wonder why an accident lawyer is lending $62K to a home inspection company.

Jasper McDuffus (35) is a resident of Gables Boca Place in Boca Del Mar. This is one we haven’t seen before. McDuffus allegedly bounced a $395 check to oral surgeon Gary Wayne on Military Trail. This was back in 2016. Dr. Wayne filed a complaint with the State Attorney almost immediately. Dave Aronberg’s crack team got right on it and filed a case against McDuffus … in 2019. We see no criminal history for McDuffus.

East Boca’s Segler family makes its 3rd appearance in West Boca News for 2019. Roselynn Segler (49) was arrested this time for stealing a $1300 necklace from Curtis Jewelers in Palmetto Park Square (east of I-95). Last week she was popped for stealing groceries from Publix. And in February her dentist husband Charles was arrested for choking her. Let’s hope 2019 gets better for this couple.

Jose Luis Soto (57) lives in Century Village’s Brighton section. He was arrested for shoplifting at Macy’s in Town Center after walking out with two pairs of sunglasses and three Estee Lauder gift sets. It’s a felony because of prior offenses. In January he was arrested for stealing from the Macy’s in Wellington. He has had a few incidents dating back to 2013.

Paul Walter Foschini (58) makes sure we keep the Watergate Estates trailer park in our crime reports. He was arrested for threatening his neighbor with a “small black handgun.” The gun was not recovered. Foschini reportedly told deputies it was a BB gun and he threw it in a lake. It’s not clear to us if the charge of assault with a deadly weapon can be sustained on a BB gun.

There are dozens of cases in the Palm Beach County courts with the name Paul Foschini and we think all or most of them are for this man. Many are traffic infractions but we also see felony domestic battery by choking and sexual battery, felony driving while revoked – habitual, felony grand theft, and more dating back to 2001. We see no criminal history for the neighbor.

A roommate argument ended with one getting a CAT scan, staples and stitches and the other facing a felony battery charge. Mohamed Abdulahadi was drunk and hit his roommate for no apparent reason. The two live in this house near Federal Highway:

We see no prior history for Abdulhadi.

Marcelo Da Silva Anton (21) of the Bella Vista apartments on Town Harbor in Boca Del Mar was arrested for pushing his wife after an argument. We see no other criminal history for him.

Jacob “Jake” Ghanem (26) was arrested for battery on his girlfriend. He works for the family business, Domani Motors. He appears related to two older Ghanems who have past federal racketeering convictions and one has a more recent felon in possession of a gun conviction, though it doesn’t appear that Jake has any criminal history other than minor traffic tickets. He has a nice house.

The incident took place in downtown Delray. His girlfriend got a flat tire and called him for help. They argued about how to fix it and Ghanem is accused of grabbing her and/or throwing her into his car.

Jacqueline Ouellette (52) of East Boca was arrested for hitting her teenage son in the arm for disrespecting her. We see no criminal history for her.

Boca Isles South’s Alphonso Ruvalcaba (53) was arrested for domestic battery after allegedly pushing his wife in the back during an argument about money for a school field trip. We see no criminal history for him