Note: All those arrested are innocent until proven guilty.
Nakia Gordon (above left, 33) was arrested early this morning on many counts of sexual assault on a minor. He’s being held on bond of $50K per count, which adds up to well over $1 million total.
The charges are not completely clear. As written, it covers assault on a minor under 18 years old but 12 or older, and suggests that Mr. Gordon had some kind of custodial authority over the child. That could mean he’s the father, adoptive father, guardian, or something else. The Sun-Sentinel has some additional details, but not much. They indicate the victim is a girl who was 12 when the incidents began and is now 13.
Also arrested today were Rebecca Ward (above center, 34) and Brooke Helwig (above right, 30). Their two cases may be connected, though Ms. Helwig vigorously denies that in a comment on our Facebook page. The two were booked at almost identical times shortly before noon. Their reported addresses are about a half-mile of each other, off Lyons in or near Sandalfood Cove. Their alleged crimes seem related – fraudulent use of a credit card by Ms. Ward and dealing in stolen property and some kind of fraud in pawning items by Ms. Helwig.
Both also seem to have lengthy connections in the area, with Helwig a Spanish River High graduate and Ward a Coconut Creek High grad.
Update
Ms. Helwig seems to feel we got some facts wrong. This prompted us to do additional research, so here are some more facts. Ms. Helwig appears to have been arrested four previous times in Palm Beach County between 2003 and 2008, including on felony charges.
She also had a case in Broward back in 2004:
Ms. Ward has three previous cases, all more recent:
Update 2
And thanks to a reader tip we heard, and then confirmed, that Ms. Helwig was or is in a relationship with none other than recent arrestee Nick Maida.
And WPTV has an update on the Maida story, alleging that he robbed a jewelry store.
Category: Crime
Editorial: The War on Drugs and Martin Luther King Day
West Boca resident Serge Sando was arrested by Boca Raton city police last night on marijuana and other apparently minor drug charges. He was released early this morning.
A black man spending time in jail on Martin Luther King Day is just one more example of the negative consequences of the War on Drugs. From what we can see in our research, Mr. Sando is a hard-working young man trying to earn a living. In fact, it looks like he works two different jobs.
Our policy of drug prohibition, like alcohol prohibition back in the 1920s and 30s, is an absolute failure. Gambling was also outlawed during this period. Despite this, respected hotels would often allow punters to gamble illegally on their premises. You can learn more here about how prohibition affected The Sagebrush Inn during its colorful history. Thankfully, visiting a Judi Bola (Gambling Ball in English) website is no longer a criminal offense in most civilized nations. Prohibition did not work in the slightest. It does nothing to protect anyone from drugs and indeed pushes them into our schools. Meanwhile it creates more crime. Instead of 1000 points of light, we get thousands of Al Capones. And MLK Day is a good day to highlight the well known racist consequences of the drug war.
We see promising changes. Colorado has legalized marijuana, a drug that is less harmful than alcohol. Other states are allowing medical marijuana. Florida may do so soon.
But that’s not enough, some states and countries can purchase marijuana from internet based dispensaries, while in other locations people are getting thrown in a cell for less than a gram. For example, in the UK having any amount of marijuana on your person results in arrest, whereas in the US there are companies like hytekmed that help you find out if you are eligible for a medical marijuana card in your state, and then provide doctors who can prescribe the drug. Additionally, in Canada, you can buy marijuana products easily online from sites like togoweed (Read More about that here). Voters need to recognize that prohibitions don’t work, and that they cause more crime. The criminal law should be limited to real crimes, especially violent crime. If we stop wasting police resources on the failed drug war, our cops would be freed up to investigate burglaries, home invasions, car break-ins, domestic violence, car jackings and more. Let’s put the real criminals away and stop destroying innocent lives.
Please consider the words of our friend Cliff Thornton, in the interview below:
Editorial: Crime Reporting on West Boca News
A SWAT raid is news anywhere, especially in a suburb like West Boca. A reader notified us of a raid. When we posted on Facebook about what was then an unconfirmed rumor, two other readers commented guessing correctly that a man named Nick, who has a twin brother, must have been involved.
After our investigation, we wrote up the story – Twins Arrested in SWAT Team Bust – and the Facebook post was one of the most popular we’ve ever seen – nearly half the people who saw it clicked on it. For those familiar with the concept of “click-through-rate”, that’s astonishing. It’s news. People want to read about it.
In the story we wrote sympathetic comments toward the pair, especially in the final paragraph. Without reading the whole story and thus missing the sympathetic part, one sent us a message: karma is a bitch, just remember that!!
We’ve had other complaints, and they are usually rude. One brother complained that we mentioned his sister’s arrest for breaking into a car, offended because she has a drug abuse problem. We have long been critics of the War on Drugs and we touch on that in some of our crime articles. We believe that ending the drug war would reduce other crimes. But criminals should still be held responsible for the crimes they commit.
Another story we did – Spanish River Thugs? – provoked a flurry of comments (at the bottom of the linked article) from one of the arrestees, at least one of the girlfriends, and other friends, all indignant that we covered their alleged misdeeds and republished their “interesting” Facebook photos. They’re all really nice people apparently. Four days after his comment, the sweet and gentle arrestee posted this photo of himself as his profile, smoking and giving the finger to the camera:
He called us “unprofessional.” He’s right actually. We don’t claim to be professional journalists. West Boca News is an attempt at citizen journalism, and we don’t make money at this.
These complainers are unaware that crime reporting is a small part of what we do at West Boca News. Crime stories account for less than ten percent of all stories we’ve written, and about twenty percent of stories in the last few months. Recently we’ve written a lot about various store and restaurant openings and closings – especially the soon-to-reopen Palmetto Walmart – as well as road construction on Glades Road and a major project on I-95 at Spanish River Blvd. They are also uninterested in our crime coverage until it’s about them, reflecting a selfishness that has become all too common in America.
The internet is full of various mugshot websites. The Sun Sentinel posts them too. Once the Sheriff puts it out there, it’s out there. Unlike other media, our approach is to investigate the story and provide more context about the people, the places and more. It’s not “entertainment”. People in West Boca want to know about crime here because it affects us. Some live in gated communities with guards, home alarm systems, double deadbolts, and firearms at the ready, all to protect themselves from a crime threat that is very real.
We see many cases of serious crimes (like robbery, burglary, and assault) dropped by prosecutors with either a “No File” or a “Nolle Prosse”. In many of our stories the person arrested has had multiple previous arrests with charges often dropped or reduced to little or no jail time. In a story we did in October, a father-son duo allegedly assaulted a man at a local Subway. The pair had 43 different court cases dating back to 2002. Their daughter/sister had the following delightful comment:
“It was just an ass whooping … It was just a normal fight like a regular fight between two men and it wasn’t that big of a deal.”
There are two possible sides and both may have some truth to them. On the one hand it’s possible that deputies are arresting far too many people without justification. On the other hand it’s possible that our so-called criminal “justice” system is failing to hold criminals accountable for their crimes.
I’m a criminal defense lawyer. I have many friends who are police officers, prosecutors, judges and of course other defense lawyers. I’m known for being pro-defense. Yet from what I’m seeing here in Palm Beach County, it is my opinion that the larger problem is not police making bad arrests, but rather the failure to hold criminals accountable. We think the responsibility for that falls mainly on the State’s Attorney, including the current one and his predecessor.
We will continue to report on crime news in West Boca. Our readers want to know. Perhaps there’s hope that the public attention drawn to arrestees, that they apparently don’t like, will discourage people from committing crimes in the first place.
Twins Arrested in SWAT Team Bust
Last night we heard a report of a big police operation on or near Ohio Place and Westbrook. The source said there were SWAT officers, a crime scene investigation team and more. We did not see any announcement from the Sheriff on this but we did find an arrest that fits the location.
First, the area mentioned was Ohio near Westbrook. As you can see from the map below, it’s between 441 and Lyons, just south of Yamato and just north of New England Blvd. The red line indicates the section of Ohio Place in question.
Two people commented that they figured a guy named Nick, or Nicky, would be involved. Sure enough there was an arrest of a man named Nicholas on Ohio Place, booked early this morning. One commenter referred to a twin. Sure enough, another man with the same last name, address and date of birth was booked at the same time.
Pictured at the top are the booking photos of Nicholas and Paul Maida, both 29 years old. Nick was arrested on several different charges including selling methamphetamine, a few other drug charges, possession of a weapon or ammo by a convicted felon, obstructing police, destroying evidence and larceny. He is still in the jail at the moment. Paul was arrested on two counts of possession of a controlled substance without a prescription and was this afternoon without having to post a bond.
Paul has had several court cases but they were generally not serious. Nick’s problems date back in the court system as early as 1999 when he was only 14 years old, adjudicated guilty on several offenses including reckless driving and attempting to elude the police.
He has had several other incidents in court, including a felony burglary charge in 2006 for which he was sentenced to a year in jail but may have served only a month or so.
That jail time may also have covered another felony for trespassing in 2005.
Then in 2007 he was charged with robbery, armed burglary, grand theft and aggravated battery. Three of those charges were dropped and he appears to have spent several months in jail on the robbery charge.
He moved on in 2008 to another burglary and this time appears to have been sentenced to a just short of 5 years, but got well over a year of “credit time”.
Since that time he hasn’t had anything up until this latest incident. That is likely due to his time in prison. HE was released in August:
We do notice that many of the charges in the past and present were drug offenses. The drug war has been a colossal failure and we suspect that our prohibitionist policies contributed to Mr. Maida’s propensity to commit other crimes. We also wonder whether our state prison system did anything meaningful to rehabilitate him, treat any mental illness, or prepare him for life after release. Whatever was done apparently didn’t help much, as he committed these new offenses only a few months after his release.
Crime Week: Austin Powers?
It was a quiet weekend, but Austin Powers was arrested in West Boca early in the morning on Saturday. No, not the movie character. Austin J. Powers (above left, 25) was previously involved in a shooting in Delray Beach back in 2010. Powers was not the shooter then, but rather appeared to have been one of the targets. He seems to have had over 20 court cases in the county since 2008. His reported address is off Boca del Mar Drive just west of Powerline. This recent arrest relates to a charge from July for driving with some kind of license problem (perhaps a suspension or revocation). Court records indicate he was going through a pre-trial intervention and that must not have gone well, as a “capias” warrant was issued for not appearing.
Andrew Gribben (above right, 40) was arrested on Friday evening on a warrant from another county. We think it’s from a credit card case in Broward. Mr. Gribben, of Island Lakes, was previously mentioned in West Boca News in October, on a low level larceny charge.
The area just west of Cain had its share in the last few days. Zoltan Stein (above left, 59) of Boca Isles was arrested Saturday for battery. Dana Lipsic (center, 37) from The Lakes at Boca Raton, was arrested Thursday for grand theft of a motor vehicle. And John Sedita (right, 19), also from The Lakes and a former West Boca High student, was arrested Friday morning on marijuana charges. Mr. Sedita was also arrested on New Years Day in 2013 for burglary of a conveyance (presumably a car). That felony charge was later reduced to a misdemeanor and then dropped by the prosecution.
Jacob Shai (above left, 57) was arrested Thursday evening for battery. His reported address is behind the Shops at Loggers Run, near Judge Winikoff. Mr. Shai and his wife run Auto Clinic of Boca Raton with a partner. They had a brief moment of minor celebrity in the world of divorce law when a Circuit Court judge refused to divorce them, sentencing them to stay married. Kudos to our neighbor Boca News Now for breaking that story back in November.
We also have two Sandalfoot arrestees. First, Michael Schale (above right, 49) who lives near Boca Rio and SW 18th, was arrested Friday afternoon for battery.
Finally, Kelly Ferguson was arrested on Wednesday for a larceny charge. Her reported address is only a few hundred feet from Mr. Schale’s, though we don’t think there’s any connection between the two cases. We should note that larceny cases are often difficult to prove and in our experience those accused are often innocent.