SEBRING — A Sebring woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges of drug trafficking and forgery for using her employment at a local doctor's office to fax fake prescription papers to local Walgreens to obtain prescription medication. Ira Lorena Bareno, 28, of 1629 Lagrange Ave., entered a no-contest plea to charges that she obtained the drug Vicoprofen illegally. Bareno, who is currently out on bond, has a Dec. 17 sentencing date set before Judge Peter Estrada in the Highlands County Courthouse. ...more

November 2, 2007

Developing a statewide gang-reduction strategy will be the focus of a high-level state panel formed Thursday by Attorney General Bill McCollum. ...more

October 26, 2007

LAKELAND – Polk County sheriff's deputies busted two marijuana grow houses in north Lakeland Thursday, made three arrests and took more than 600 plants off the street, authorities said. The sheriff's office received information Thursday about the two suspected drug houses, a sheriff's release said. Undercover Polk County detectives and members of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force went to 1425 Hammock Shade Drive off Old Polk City Road and 8423 Tocoi Path off Kathleen Road to check out the tip. ...more

October 12, 2007

Fifty years ago this fall, in the tiny town of Apalachin, near Binghamton, N.Y., Americans were unexpected guests at the coming-out party for organized crime. American popular culture has never been the same since then. Neither has the psyche of Italian-Americans. ...more

October 12, 2007

Regarding 'Change Florida's Draconian Drug Trafficking Statute' (Other Views, Sept 26): ...more

October 1, 2007

It's normal to feel compassion for people so overcome by chronic pain from health problems that they break laws to obtain large quantities of the medicine they need, then, incredibly, are branded drug traffickers and sentenced to prison for at least 25 years. ...more

September 27, 2007

A man whose 2-year-old son shot himself to death after finding a gun between two couch cushions was sentenced to 10 years and 10 months in prison Monday on federal firearms and marijuana charges. ...more

September 25, 2007

TAMPA - A man whose 2-year-old son shot himself to death after finding a gun between two couch cushions will be sentenced today on federal firearms and marijuana charges. ...more

September 24, 2007