Sea search goes on for boat's missing
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. -- The Coast Guard battled time and currents Wednesday as its planes and ships searched for 38 people missing off the coast of Florida, four days after a suspected human smuggling boat capsized in a storm.
The accident killed at least one person and left a single known survivor, and U.S. authorities launched a criminal investigation.
Capt. Jo-Ann F. Burdian said the survivor told rescuers that the boat capsized Saturday evening shortly after sailing from the Bahamas into a storm. The Coast Guard was alerted Tuesday morning after the crew of a merchant vessel spotted the man sitting alone on the overturned hull of the 25-foot boat.
Crews searched around the clock, extrapolating from where the wreck was spotted about 40 miles off Fort Pierce. By Wednesday morning, crews on at least four ships and five aircraft scanned a vast area about the size of New Jersey, Burdian said.
Homeland Security Investigations opened the criminal probe, said Anthony Salisbury, special agent in charge of the agency's Miami office. Salisbury would not identify the man or his nationality, nor reveal the nationalities of any others believed to have been on the vessel.
N.J. man admits murder-for-hire role
NEWARK, N.J. -- A New Jersey political consultant and one of the two men he reportedly paid to kill a longtime associate nearly eight years ago have admitted to the plot in court.
During a video conference Wednesday before a judge in federal court in Newark, Bomani Africa, 61, pleaded guilty to helping carry out the murder-for-hire scheme. A day earlier, Sean Caddle of Hamburg, N.J., a longtime operative in northern New Jersey political circles, appeared in court and pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit murder for hire.
A motive in the scheme was not immediately clear.
According to authorities, Caddle solicited a Connecticut resident, identified by Africa during his plea hearing as George Bratsenis, in April 2014 to commit the killing in exchange for thousands of dollars. Africa, a Paterson, N.J., native and former Philadelphia resident, acknowledged that he and Bratsenis went to the apartment of Michael Galdieri in Jersey City the next month and killed him. The two then set fire to Galdieri's apartment, according to prosecutors.
No charges had been announced against Bratsenis in the murder-for-hire case as of Wednesday afternoon.
Man tied to Gaetz inquiry pleads guilty
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A former employee in the office of a Florida tax collector whose arrest triggered an investigation into U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz has pleaded guilty to fraud and drug charges.
Court documents showed that Joseph Ellicott pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and honest services fraud and distribution of a controlled substance. Ellicott was a friend of former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg and was hired as a special projects manager in the tax collector's office.
Greenberg is currently in jail awaiting sentencing in federal court in March. He is facing up to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty last May to six federal crimes, including sex trafficking of a child, identity theft, stalking, wire fraud and conspiracy to bribe a public official.
Greenberg's plea agreement with prosecutors also requires continued cooperation with an ongoing probe into sex trafficking. Gaetz, a Republican who represents much of the Florida panhandle, was accused of paying a 17-year-old girl for sex. He has denied the allegations and previously said they were part of an extortion plot.
Cut prison term rankles prosecutors
DENVER -- The reduction of a 110-year prison sentence to 10 years by Colorado's governor for a trucker convicted of killing four people in a fiery interstate crash is hurting prosecutors' efforts to negotiate sentences in other cases, according to two district attorneys.
The Dec. 30 commutation by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis for the trucker was "unprecedented, premature and unwarranted" because Rogel Aguilera-Mederos' case was still active, with a judge scheduled to review a prosecutor's request to reduce the sentence, said Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty and Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein.
Dougherty and Rubinstein told Polis in a Jan. 20 letter that his decision "is having a substantial ripple effect" on other cases, The Denver Post reported Wednesday. The Post obtained the letter through an open records request.
Polis spokesman Conor Cahill said the governor reduced the trucker's sentence because "there was clearly an urgency to remedy this sentence and restore confidence in the uniformity and fairness of our criminal justice system."
Aguilera-Mederos testified that he was hauling lumber when the brakes on his semitrailer failed as he was descending a steep grade of Interstate 70 in the Rocky Mountain foothills. His truck plowed into vehicles that had slowed because of another wreck, setting off a chain-reaction crash and a fireball that consumed vehicles and melted parts of the highway.
U.S. Coast Guard Captain Jo-Ann F. Burdian details the search of 38 missing migrants at a news conference, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022, in Miami Beach, Fla. One migrant was found clinging to the hull of an overturn vessel and one body was recovered off the coast of Fort Pierce, Fla. The migrants left the Bahamas on Saturday in what the Coast Guard suspects is a human smuggling operation. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
U.S. Coast Guard Captain Jo-Ann F. Burdian details the search of 38 missing migrants at a news conference, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022, in Miami Beach, Fla. One migrant was found clinging to the hull of an overturn vessel and one body was recovered off the coast of Fort Pierce, Fla. The migrants left the Bahamas on Saturday in what the Coast Guard suspects is a human smuggling operation. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Coast Guard Cutter Ibis' crew searching for people missing from a capsized boat off the coast of Florida, Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022. The Coast Guard searched through the night Wednesday for 39 people missing from a capsized boat after a solitary survivor was found clinging to the overturned hull. Crews on at least four ships and five aircraft already scanned a vast area about the size of Rhode Island on Tuesday after the man was pulled to safety. (U.S. Coast Guard via AP)