Florida man pleads guilty to killing wife, leads police to remains

The lawyer for a Florida man pictured last week inside the U.S. Capitol carrying the lectern of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as rioters stormed the building told reporters Monday that the photo may be problematic for his client’s defense and acknowledged that he is "not a magician." Attorneys Dan Eckhart and David Bigney appeared outside a Tampa courthouse on Monday with their client, 36-year-old Adam Christian Johnson.

A Florida man was seriously injured after he apparently set himself on fire while allegedly trying to torch a home in the Tampa area on Sunday morning, according to a report.  The suspect, Scott Anthony Massa, 51, allegedly broke a window and dumped a bucket of accelerant into the residence, which ignited and set him ablaze, Fox 13 of Tampa Bay reported.  Massa allegedly fled the scene and was detained after an officer spotted him at Tampa's St. Joseph’s Hospital, the report said.

Authorities have arrested two Florida men for stealing the remains of veterans from a local cemetery for ritualistic purposes, according to reports. Brian Montalvo Tolentino, 43, of Davenport and Juan Burgos Lopez, 39, of Lake Wales were arrested in connection to remains missing from vaults at Mount Dora’s Edgewood Cemetery, Lake County authorities said.

A Florida man fatally shot his friend during a dispute, telling police the friend threatened him with a pitchfork, officials said Saturday. The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said the incident took place outside a home in Ormond Beach around 8:30 p.m.

 Alex Ferrer is a retired judge and lawyer from Florida who began cutting his chops as a cop at age 19, well before he was legally able to purchase his own firearm. (He had to have his mother do it for him.) At one point in his career, Ferrer oversaw the 1998 trial of the Sun Gym Gang, a group who spent their days pumping iron and their nights carrying out gruesome and grisly tortures and murders -- all for capital gain.

As the FBI seeks the public’s help in identifying the rioters who stormed Capitol Hill on Wednesday, the man captured in a viral photo smiling and waving as he makes off with the U.S. House lectern has reportedly been identified by residents of his Florida community.

An Indiana man was sentenced to prison on Tuesday for a serial campaign of harassment against his ex-wife that lasted years and included mailing a dead rat to her home in Florida, authorities said. Romney Christopher Ellis, 57, of Indianapolis, will serve four years and 10 months in federal prison, the U.S.

Three men accused of attacking a Florida wildlife officer and leaving him for dead at a desolate hunting ground over the weekend have been taken into custody, authorities said Monday. Lazaro Milian, 50, Michel Amalfi, 45, and Rodrigo La Rosa, 27, face multiple charges, including attempted murder of a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest.

A Florida man who went missing with his girlfriend under suspicious circumstances last week was found dead Saturday as deputies continue searching for the woman, investigators said. Trodarius Rainey, 26, was found dead in a wooded area at Lake Jesup Park, about eight miles from where his car was found abandoned on Thursday, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office said.

A 23-year-old Florida man is now out of isolation after being the first person in the state to test positive for a new and more contagious strain of COVID-19, health officials said Saturday.  The presence of the new strain in Martin County, on Florida's Treasure Coast, was first discovered Thursday through the CDC's random sampling of COVID-19 tests.  The CDC is now working with the Florida Department of Health to examine more cases in the area and ascertain how much the new strain has spread. 

A Florida man once arrested as a teenager for posing as a doctor was taken into custody again in Palm Beach County Thursday on charges of fraud and grand theft, according to police. Malachi Love-Robinson, 23, was arrested, accused of stealing money from customers while working as a contractor for United States of Freight in Delray Beach, WPTV, the NBC affiliated TV station in West Palm Beach, reported.

After being laid off by Disney, a Florida man turned his hobby of making handcrafted wooden American flags into a source of income. "I had always dreamed of and wanted to make a flag for our house," Mark Newman told "Fox & Friends" Tuesday.

Nobody likes dealing with a canceled flight, but it’s probably not worth going to jail over. A traveler at a Florida airport was arrested after punching another traveler after reportedly becoming upset that his flight was canceled and then being told to quiet down by the victim.

A man was killed Monday morning during an altercation outside an Orlando, Fla., Waffle House restaurant, police said.  The victim was shot in the chest and pronounced dead at a hospital, an Orlando police spokesperson told Fox News.The case is being investigated as a homicide, authorities sad.  Information on the shooter was not available. The restaurant chain's locations have been the site of several shootings recently.

Graphic bodycam video shows Florida officers shooting a man who charged at an officer with what police said was a knife. Two Daytona Beach officers shot Andrew Mansilla, 25, in the neck Thursday night, critically injuring him.

In a second act of kindness, a Florida business owner is covering the overdue utility bills for 114 families at risk of losing service so close to the holiday season.  Michael Esmond's act of giving is a repeat of last year when he paid the utility bills for 36 families in the panhandle city of Gulf Breeze just before Christmas. Esmond, who owns Gulf Breeze Pools & Spa near Pensacola, told Fox News he donated $7,615 this year as the city faces an economic downturn caused by the coronavirus

A Florida man was arrested Wednesday in the 1998 kidnapping and rape of a 22-year-old woman after DNA collected from a discarded cigarette last month linked him to the case, investigators said. James Byrd, now 60, was arrested in Marion County on charges of armed kidnapping and sexual battery in the 22-year-old case, Tampa police said.

Lil Wayne pleaded guilty Friday in Miami federal court to illegally carrying a loaded handgun while traveling to Florida on a private plane last December, CBS Miami reports. On Dec. 23 last year, an anonymous tip led officers to Opa Locka Executive Airport where Lil Wayne, 38, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter, had arrived from California.Carter told officers he had a gun in his bag.

Lil Wayne has entered a guilty plea in his federal weapons case.

A Florida woman has been charged with storing a dead man’s body in a trash can in order to collect his Social Security benefits. Michelle Haney, 49, of Bradenton, was arrested and charged Wednesday with abuse of a dead body in connection with the death of 40-year-old Jon Christopher Leonard.