Immokalee man arrested for child porn possessionCaught on Camera: Teen catches alligator while fishing for Peacock Bass
IMMOKALEE Immokalee man arrested for child porn possession An Immokalee man has been arrested and charged on ten felony counts after allegedly being in possession of child pornography.
ESTERO Caught on Camera: Teen catches alligator while fishing for Peacock Bass A 15-year-old teenager from Estero bit off more than he could chew while fishing for Peacock Bass as a hungry alligator chased after the fish and him.
Gainsville Gov. DeSantis to hold news conference in Gainsville Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is set to hold a news conference in Gainsville.
The Weather Authority Hotter and drier Wednesday with a few inland storms this afternoon The Weather Authority is tracking a mild and drier Wednesday morning with rain expected inland this afternoon.
Cape Coral City Council to discuss repairs for yacht club pier The Cape Coral City Council will discuss and possibly decide upon three options to repair the damaged yacht club pier.
LEHIGH ACRES Kitchen fire causes substantial damage to a home in Lehigh Acres The Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue responded to a kitchen fire at a Sunset Boulevard home on Tuesday night.
FORT MYERS Lee County making changes to fix bus issues In the past, the Lee County School District struggled to find enough bus drivers.
NAPLES Naples man gets original Bob Ross paintings appraised Bob Ross took this blank canvas in a small studio in Muncie, Indiana, and transformed it into a beautiful masterpiece.
Lee Schools board considers full-day phone bans The biggest talking point in a Lee County School District safety presentation wasn’t about violence or drugs, it was about phones
PORT CHARLOTTE Fallen officer ceremony in Charlotte County commemorates those who lost lives in line of duty The emotional ceremony was held at the William R. Gains Veterans Memorial Park in Port Charlotte.
SAN CARLOS PARK Lee County couple suspected of drugging and sexually abusing child Neighbors say a home in San Carlos Park was just another house before Tuesday.
PINE ISLAND FDOT asking you if bike and pedestrian lanes should be added to busy road The Florida Department of Transportation is asking you if bike and pedestrian lanes should be added to the busy road.
Food drive for mental health awareness While someone may look healthy, they may be fighting a real inner battle.
FORT MYERS Overbilled for overflow of water; Residents stuck with hefty water bill The Moore’s make ends meet living at The Cove for almost a year.
ESTERO Scoreless Eagle up for award at NIL Summit FGCU’s Brandon Dwyer is one of the big time performers in NIL despite having never scored a single point in his entire Eagle career.
IMMOKALEE Immokalee man arrested for child porn possession An Immokalee man has been arrested and charged on ten felony counts after allegedly being in possession of child pornography.
ESTERO Caught on Camera: Teen catches alligator while fishing for Peacock Bass A 15-year-old teenager from Estero bit off more than he could chew while fishing for Peacock Bass as a hungry alligator chased after the fish and him.
Gainsville Gov. DeSantis to hold news conference in Gainsville Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is set to hold a news conference in Gainsville.
The Weather Authority Hotter and drier Wednesday with a few inland storms this afternoon The Weather Authority is tracking a mild and drier Wednesday morning with rain expected inland this afternoon.
Cape Coral City Council to discuss repairs for yacht club pier The Cape Coral City Council will discuss and possibly decide upon three options to repair the damaged yacht club pier.
LEHIGH ACRES Kitchen fire causes substantial damage to a home in Lehigh Acres The Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue responded to a kitchen fire at a Sunset Boulevard home on Tuesday night.
FORT MYERS Lee County making changes to fix bus issues In the past, the Lee County School District struggled to find enough bus drivers.
NAPLES Naples man gets original Bob Ross paintings appraised Bob Ross took this blank canvas in a small studio in Muncie, Indiana, and transformed it into a beautiful masterpiece.
Lee Schools board considers full-day phone bans The biggest talking point in a Lee County School District safety presentation wasn’t about violence or drugs, it was about phones
PORT CHARLOTTE Fallen officer ceremony in Charlotte County commemorates those who lost lives in line of duty The emotional ceremony was held at the William R. Gains Veterans Memorial Park in Port Charlotte.
SAN CARLOS PARK Lee County couple suspected of drugging and sexually abusing child Neighbors say a home in San Carlos Park was just another house before Tuesday.
PINE ISLAND FDOT asking you if bike and pedestrian lanes should be added to busy road The Florida Department of Transportation is asking you if bike and pedestrian lanes should be added to the busy road.
Food drive for mental health awareness While someone may look healthy, they may be fighting a real inner battle.
FORT MYERS Overbilled for overflow of water; Residents stuck with hefty water bill The Moore’s make ends meet living at The Cove for almost a year.
ESTERO Scoreless Eagle up for award at NIL Summit FGCU’s Brandon Dwyer is one of the big time performers in NIL despite having never scored a single point in his entire Eagle career.
In this image from video, Michael Avenatti, attorney and spokesperson for adult film star Stormy Daniels, listens to a reporters’ question during an interview at The Associated Press, Wednesday, March 21, 2018, in New York. Avenatti is seeking to depose the president and his attorney. Avenatti filed the motion in federal court in California. In the documents he seeks to depose President Donald Trump and his attorney Michael Cohen about a $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels days before the 2016 presidential election. (AP Photo/Joe Frederick) A year ago, Michael Avenatti’s star was rising as the combative, media-savvy lawyer representing porn actress Stormy Daniels in her legal battles against President Donald Trump. He hammered the president as a regular fixture on cable news and baited and bashed critics on Twitter while flirting with his own run for the White House. Those days seemed like a distant memory as Avenatti was arrested Monday and federal prosecutors on both coasts announced charges that could send him to prison for the rest of his life. Avenatti tried to shake down Nike for as much as $25 million by using his prominent position to threaten the company with bad publicity, federal prosecutors said. He was also accused of stealing a client’s settlement money to pay his own expenses and filing fake tax returns to get $4 million in loans from a Mississippi bank to fund a lavish lifestyle. He was arrested at a New York law firm where he had gone to meet with Nike executives. It was just minutes after he tweeted that he planned to hold a news conference Tuesday to “disclose a major high school/college basketball scandal perpetrated by Nike that we have uncovered.” “When lawyers use their law licenses as weapons, as a guise to extort payments for themselves, they are no longer acting as attorneys. They are acting as criminals,” said Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. attorney in New York. Prosecutors in New York said their investigation began only last week while California investigators had been building a tax case against Avenatti for more than a year. The allegations “paint an ugly picture of lawless conduct and greed,” said U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna in Los Angeles. Avenatti describes himself on Twitter as “fighter for good,” but the accusations describe “a corrupt lawyer who instead fights for his own selfish interests.” Avenatti, 48, was ordered released on $300,000 bond after a brief court appearance Monday evening in New York. He did not enter a plea. Emerging from the courthouse, he said he expected to be cleared of the charges. “For the entirety of my career, I have fought against the powerful. Powerful people and powerful corporations. I will never stop fighting that good fight,” he said. “I am highly confident that when all the evidence is laid bare in connection with these cases, when it is all known, when due process occurs, that I will be fully exonerated and justice will be done.” Avenatti’s fame from the Daniels case made him a leading figure in the anti-Trump movement, with relentless cable news appearances, a hard-punching style and a knack for obtaining information about others’ wrongdoing. His sharp reversal of fortune led critics to hit back on Twitter. Donald Trump Jr., whom Avenatti inaccurately predicted would be charged in the investigation into ties between his father’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia, gloated. “Good news for my friend MichaelAvenatti, if you plead fast enough, you might just get to share a cell with Michael Cohen!” he wrote, referring to the former Trump lawyer set to go to prison next month for crimes that include orchestrating hush-money payments to Daniels. Trump Jr. mocked Avenatti by ending with the lawyer’s trademark hashtag #basta, an Italian word meaning “enough.” Prosecutors said Avenatti and a co-conspirator initially approached Nike on behalf of a client who coached an Amateur Athletic Union basketball program sponsored by the company in California. They claimed to have evidence of misconduct by Nike employees and threatened to hold a news conference last week on the eve of a company’s quarterly earnings call and the start of the NCAA tournament. Avenatti told Nike the company could either pay them $15 million to $25 million to investigate the allegations, or pay him more than $22 million for his silence, the criminal complaint said. Two people familiar with the investigation confirmed the unidentified co-conspirator was Mark Geragos , a Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer known for his work with celebrities. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not made public by prosecutors. Geragos, a CNN contributor, has a client list that has included Michael Jackson, Winona Ryder, Scott Peterson, Colin Kaepernick and most recently Jussie Smollett, the actor accused of fabricating a racist, anti-gay attack in Chicago. Geragos did not respond to messages seeking comment. Within hours, CNN cut ties with him. While lawyers sometimes make demands to seek out-of-court settlements, it crosses the line to extortion if they threaten to go public with damaging information to get something of value or gain leverage in a civil dispute, attorney Neama Rahmani said. “The Department of Justice historically has been very cautious when charging attorneys, so they likely have evidence that Avenatti seriously crossed this line,” said Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor. Nike officials told investigators Avenatti claimed to know of rules violations by an amateur basketball team sponsored by Nike. Executives immediately reported the threats to federal authorities. The company “firmly believes in ethical and fair play, both in business and sports, and will continue to assist the prosecutors,” Nike said in a statement. Avenatti rose to national prominence by representing Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, in a lawsuit to break a confidentiality agreement to speak about her alleged affair with Trump. He also made headlines in recent weeks representing two women who accused R&B star R. Kelly of sexual abuse. Daniels said she was “saddened but not shocked” by the arrest. She issued a statement Monday on Twitter saying she fired Avenatti a month ago after “discovering that he had dealt with me extremely dishonestly.” She said she would not elaborate. While Avenatti’s lawsuit effectively tore up the gag order that threatened financial penalties if Daniels spoke about the case, a defamation lawsuit filed on her behalf against Trump backfired, and a court ordered her to pay the president’s $293,000 in legal fees. Avenatti himself has been dogged with tax and financial troubles in recent years. A U.S. bankruptcy court ordered his former firm to pay $10 million to a lawyer who claimed it had misstated its profits. The bank fraud case involved $4 million in loans he got from The Peoples Bank in Biloxi, which prosecutors said he obtained by filing fraudulent tax returns claiming $14 million in income over three years. However, he never filed tax returns those years, nor paid the $2.8 million he reported on the forms. In fact, he still owed more than $850,000 to the IRS at the time for previous income. Mark Pearson, the assistant agent in charge of IRS criminal investigations in Los Angeles, said Avenatti’s crimes supported a $200,000-a-month lifestyle, a car racing venture and pricey homes in the wealthy Orange County communities of Newport Beach and Laguna Beach. Convictions on all charges carry up to 47 years in the New York case and 50 years in the California case, prosecutors said. ___ Melley reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Jim Mustian in New York, Michael Balsamo in Washington and John Antczak in Los Angeles also contributed to this report. (Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)