Crime – Page 60 – West Boca News

DUI Crackdown in Boca Raton

Please remember: All arrestees are innocent until proven guilty.

There must have been a crackdown on drunk driving this weekend because we see a lot of DUI arrests in the sheriff’s blotter, especially in the city of Boca Raton.
Above left, Nathan Donnini (age 20) was arrested for DUI, hit and run, and operating without a valid license. Boca PD indicates he refused a breath test. Many Florida DUI lawyers recommend refusing such tests. Donnini was held for over 24 hours. We’re not sure why it took so long to release him. Per court records, Donnini had a DUI arrest in 2012 and did probation for it, another arrest for driving without a valid license, and another for retail theft. DUI cases are surprisingly common, this is why if you are ever in a road accident involving someone under the influence. If you are in need of a DUI lawyer, your best bet is to visit sites like https://www.flcrimedefense.com/dui-lawyer/ to see how they can help you in this situation.

Caitlin Piegel (center, 26) was arrested early Friday morning on I-95 for DUI. The Boca High graduate and current Lynn student also refused a breath test. She was released in a few hours.

Court records for Piegel show a disorderly intoxication charge from 2006 which was dropped after she completed a diversion program.
Julio Romero (right, 49) was arrested late Thursday night for DUI. He was released in less than 12 hours. Court records show an odd case that looks like a DUI with injury and marijuana possession in 2002, but the records says the case was not resolved until 2006. That doesn’t make a lot of sense and we wonder if it’s an error.

Marco Mendezuraga (left, 21) was charged Friday morning with DUI, hit and run, and operating without a valid license. We’re not sure if the name is correct as the Sheriff has it, or if it’s really Mendez Uraga. We don’t see this case in the court records.

Warren Redlich is a DUI lawyer and the author of Fair DUI: Stay safe and sane in a world gone MADD.

Melissa Vomel (center, 25) was arrested early Friday for DUI. Her booking and release times were each within a few minutes of Piegel’s and Mendezuraga’s times, suggesting they were all brought to the jail in the same police vehicle. The FAU grad comes from Naples and works at one of our favorite pizza places. Court records show an underage alcohol possession case from 2009 that was dropped.

On the right, 36-year-old Cristiana Jaimeduarte (or Jaime Duarte) was booked Saturday morning for DUI. Court records show another charge from the incident for driving in the wrong lane.

Bruce Weitzner (left, 65) was arrested for BUI – boating under the influence – late Saturday night. He was released early Sunday morning. Whether he was impaired or not, this will hopefully not impair his work with trees. Court records show a disorderly intoxication charge for him from 2006.

Matthew Faranda (2nd from left, 29) of Addison Place was arrested early Sunday morning for DUI. The FAU grad works at a local country club. His court record is clean other than a few tickets, including a speeding ticket from a week earlier.
2nd from the right, Amane Abdi (28) of the Town Colony apartments was booked early Monday morning for DUI. Court records show several prior tickets including a string of three more serious ones in 2009.
Anthony Thomas (right, 25) was also booked Monday morning for DUI. His case does not show up in court records yet and we see no other cases for him.

10 Arrests: Burglary, Battery, DUI and Oops

We have 10 arrests to report this week. Note that two arrests have been removed pursuant to our arrest removal policy.
In the left of the top picture, Kathryn Wilson (also 44) was arrested early Wednesday morning for trespassing and released about 12 hours later. Her reported address is “At large” in zip code 33428. She’s had many cases and appeared in our pages last month for battery. Her address then was in the Sandalfoot trailers.
Bradley Newell (far right, 33) was arrested for possession of cocaine and marijuana. The courts show numerous cases for him between 2002 and 2007 in both Palm Beach and Broward, with a large gap until this latest incident. He made the Sun-Sentinel back in 2007 for what looked like sexual abuse. His reported address is near the YMCA north of Palmetto Park Road.

We see two cases of battery in recent days. Jamie Giannamore (above left, 29) was arrested Sunday night for battery. Her reported address is in the Three Lakes apartments north of the Sandalfoot plaza. From what we see in the probable cause affidavit, all she did was push her boyfriend in an argument and he didn’t think she should be arrested. We see no prior history for her.
Dieuseul Noelsaint (right, 40) was booked early Tuesday morning for battery and he remains in custody. His reported address is in the Sandalfoot trailers. Back in 2007 he was charged with a felony burglary but was found incompetent to stand trial. Since then he had a few traffic incidents in 2010 and 2011, but we see nothing else serious. This case is being treated as domestic violence.

We have three DUI cases to report. William “Billy” Hynes (left, 32) of Boca Lago was arrested Saturday morning. The probable cause affidavit alleges various signs of intoxication, and reports that he refused a breath test. That was probably a smart move.

Mr. Hynes had a felony narcotics arrest in 2011 that was dropped, and a 2012 felony arrest for “throwing deadly missile into occupied vehicle” and of course that was also dropped. He was released Saturday afternoon.
In the center mugshot, Julie Ann Clark (48) of Addison Place (near Mr. Hynes’ address) was arrested for DUI and booked early Monday morning. She had a previous arrest for DUI with injury in 2007 and got probation for that one. She also had a careless driving conviction from an incident in late 2013. We also see a Julie Ann Clark with two felonies in Broward but the dates of birth do not line up so we don’t think that’s her.
On the right mugshot, Brooke Sheppard (26) was arrested for DUI Thursday morning. A bartender, her reported address is in Chateau on the Knoll in Sandalfoot Cove. She had a DUI in 2009 and that led to probation. She’s also had some tickets in both Palm Beach and Broward.

In the “What?” category, Robert Santiago (left, 29) was arrested for driving an unregistered vehicle and for not having a plate on the car. We didn’t know you could get arrested for that. His reported address is in the Lakes at Boca Raton.
Emily Pirtle (center, 20) can’t get a break either. She was arrested again on an out of county warrant and was again released because whatever county it was didn’t want her. The same thing happened to her in February and you’d think they’d dump the warrant from the system and leave the West Boca High grad alone.
Finally, Alexander Drzewucki (right, 46) was arrested on an out of county warrant. His reported address is in Sandalfoot Cove, and he was released to the other county today. He had a high-profile stalking incident in 2012 that was eventually dropped. The warrant might be from Broward where he has a grand theft felony pending, though the timing of the incident, filing and arrest make us wonder if that’s a weak case against him.

9 Zip Codes: Crime Rates in Boca Raton

This is the second in our series on crime rates. Part 1 compared arrest statistics in West Boca with East Boca and with the rest of Palm Beach County.
In this second part, we will look at arrests in West Boca and East Boca only, by individual zip code. We’ve figured out which zip codes have the most arrests and which have the fewest.
As discussed in Part 1 there’s no perfect way to break down east and west. We generally define West Boca as including zip codes 33428, 33498, 33496, 33434 and 33433.

East Boca includes zip codes 33431, 33432, 33486 and 33487. The division is a rough compromise between the city boundaries and using Congress, Military Trail and/or St. Andrews Blvd. as the break line. One East Boca friend tells us that I-95 should be the divider. Others think it should be the Turnpike or Jog Road. But zip codes are useful so that’s what we’re doing.
Let’s start with the zip codes that have the fewest arrests. To be clear, we are referring to the address listed for the person arrested. We do not have information on where the arrests or alleged crimes took place, so this is what we have to go on.
Three West Boca zips are in a virtual tie. With only 1.1 arrests per thousand residents, zip code 33434 generally runs from 441 to St. Andrews between Yamato and Glades. Just barely higher at 1.2 arrests per 1000 is zip code 33496, a rectangle from 441 to Military Trail north of Yamato. Tied with that number is zip code 33498, west of 441 and north of Glades. That is using arrests per population. If we go by counts, 33496 is actually the lowest with 2 counts per thousand, just below 33434 with 2.1 counts per thousand and 33498 is a bit higher at 2.4 counts per thousand.
Mostly south of the 33434 zip code between Lyons and St. Andrews/Military Trail south of Glades Road, 33433 had more arrests with 1.6 per thousand and more counts with 2.6 per thousand. The highest arrest rate in West Boca is 33428, the home zip code for West Boca News. We had 2.4 arrests per thousand residents and 4.5 counts per thousand. The number of counts for 33428 was inflated somewhat by one man arrested for 36 counts of sexual assault on a child.
Our spreadsheet with the data is below, including some demographic statistics and numbers for East Boca as well.

While the numbers for 33428 might seem high, they’re actually in line with three of the East Boca zip codes, 33487, 33486 and 33431. The worst zip code in all of Boca Raton is 33432, with 4.2 arrests and 8.8 counts per thousand residents. Keep in mind that the rest of the county has an even higher crime rate with 12 counts per thousand. So even the worst zip code in all of Boca is significantly safer.

Demographics may play an interesting role in the numbers. Zip code 33434 has the lowest arrest rate and also has the oldest population with a median age over 62 years old. Approximately half the population of 33434 lives in either Century Village or Boca West, two very large developments filled with seniors. Meanwhile 33428 has the youngest population in West Boca with a median age of 41 years old.
Regular readers of West Boca News will have noticed a lot of arrests in the Sandalfoot area (and the Sandalfoot KKK guy). That area is mostly in 33428 but also includes the western edge of 33433. It may explain the higher arrest rates in those two zip codes, though on the other hand Sandalfoot may be unfairly stigmatized.

We’re not quite done with this project. In Part 3 we will be talking about the worst zip codes in the whole county. It’s going to take us a while to get through all the data so don’t expect that article for a couple weeks or longer.
To see Part 1 of the series, click this link: How bad is crime in West Boca?

Video: The Publix Prostitution Sting

We contacted the Sheriff and requested video from the arrests in the Sandalfoot Publix prostitution sting. Earlier we posted more details from the undercover prostitution operation.
There was some initial resistance over “active investigations.” The Sheriff’s office finally agreed to release the video to us from the case of Ruben Colon, whose case is already resolved and thus no longer active. We’re not thrilled with what they gave us as it’s very short:

It’s hard to hear on the video what police claim to have happened in the probable cause affidavit:

It sounds like they’ve obscured the undercover officer’s voice so we only hear clipped statements by the defendant. We do hear him saying something that sounds like it might be $15 for fun sex and everything.
On the bright side for Mr. Colon, he negotiated the best bargain. Others agreed to as much as $100.
West Boca News is not satisfied with this disclosure from the Sheriff. We understand obscuring the image of the undercover officer, and in fact we voluntarily obscured the names of all officers involved. The video of the incident has to be longer than the 50 seconds shown here. In addition, we learned that another of the defendants has resolved his case with “pre-trial diversion.” That video should now be made available as well.

If and when we find out more, we will let our readers know.

6 Arrests: DUI, Theft and More

All arrestees are innocent until proven guilty. We also remind our readers that West Boca has a very low crime rate compared to the rest of the county and the rest of South Florida. In the spirit of innocent until proven otherwise, those facing criminal charges are still afforded legal representation in order for their rights to be upheld.

We have a few more arrests to report from the past week. Above center, Jean Phillippe Gauthier (age 42) was arrested late Friday by Boca PD, and booked early Saturday morning, for DUI, drug possession, and possession of drug equipment. The drugs included Adderall, Oxycontin and Valium. This appears to be a “drug” DUI, which are difficult cases for the prosecution to prove.

Top left, Lucianne Morello (35) was arrested for DUI by Boca PD late Wednesday or early Thursday. Her reported address is in Villa San Remo off Lyons Road. In late 2011 she was charged with battery on a police officer. That charge was reduced and then resolved with “pre-trial diversion.” We’re not sure it’s the same person, but a Lucianne Morello was involved in a big federal mortgage fraud case in the greater NYC area a few years ago. She was apparently involved with AGA Capital/Lending Universe.
On the far right in the top photo, Robert Jones was arrested by Boca PD on Wednesday for some form of stalking. His address is listed only as “At Large” in the 33428 zip code. We reported last month that they arrested him for a non-moving traffic violation.

Jennifer Byrd (left, 31) was arrested Thursday for drug possession, fraud and petit theft. The court records indicate offense dates in September and November. That strikes us as odd, especially with drug possession. The prosecutor may have a tough time proving this one. She was released on Friday. Ms. Byrd had a felony charge back in 2007 that was dropped, and a misdemeanor theft charge in 2008 that was also dropped. The Spanish River grad’s reported address is southeast of the corner of Lyons and SW 8th St not far from Hammock Pointe Elementary.
Robert Lovin (center, 25) was arrested Tuesday for grand theft of a motor vehicle. His reported address is in Mission Bay near Boca Prep. He has a retail theft charge pending from a week earlier, and he had one in 2009 that was dropped by prosecutors. The Olympic Heights grad also studied at Palm Beach State.
Last, Johnathan Greenfield (right, 44) was arrested early Monday by Boca PD, also for grand theft of a motor vehicle. His reported address is in Seasons of Boca Raton. We’re not sure, but it looks like he is a psychiatrist operating out of St. Mary’s Hospital in West Palm Beach with a secondary office on 441 in West Boca. He was last in the news in 2010 related to an employee accused of writing bogus prescriptions.