JACOB CARPENTER

As Hertz's relocation announcement Tuesday was heralded as a watershed moment for Lee County, the residents of Park Ridge, who've become accustomed to major jobs shifts in recent years, had a more mixed response to the decision.

With the Everglades Wonder Gardens closed, its owners are going public with an asking price for the historic 3.5-acre property: $3.95 million.

Deputies were searching Tuesday for Richard Gamez, 31, who missed court appearances ahead of an online solicitation trial.

Zarb's son, Greg Lewis, spoke briefly in court, telling Lee Senior Circuit Judge Thomas Reese the case has been "emotionally exhausting and draining." "I hope the rest of his life is filled with heartbreak and misery," Lewis said.

A year-long investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement yielded no charges against Julian Stokes, in part because special agents found no evidence of bribery or corruption, according to a report obtained this week.

The murder case against a Golden Gate Estates man accused of shooting his estranged wife at a hospital has been delayed for a competency and psychiatric evaluation.

The trial for a former Collier County sheriff’s deputy accused of sex crimes against a teenager has been pushed back to August at the earliest.

A Bonita Springs man will serve 364 days in jail after pleading no contest Monday to a vehicular homicide charge in the April 2011 death of his wife.

North Naples fire commissioners have agreed to reach out to the East Naples and Golden Gate fire districts for talks about consolidation.

Risner survived a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head and was found incompetent to proceed in July 2010. By January 2012, Risner had been transferred from a state hospital to the Naples Jail Center and found competent to proceed.

Kevin Risner, 46, faces life in prison following his second-degree murder conviction in the death of 43-year-old Laura Vroman.

The Eagles were ousted from the NCAA Tournament, but FGCU officials have been handed a once-in-a-university's-lifetime opportunity with the men’s basketball team’s success. With that comes a challenge offered only a handful of universities: how to best capitalize on the ...

ARLINGTON, TEXAS -- Somebody needs to get Dave Horton a ticket to tonight’s game.

"I hope that he takes away that we really want him, we want to give him the respect he deserves, and want to try to get him to be the highest paid coach in the Atlantic Sun," Brian Rasnick said.

A Collier judge has ordered $100,000 bond for an East Naples woman accused of shooting and killing her husband Monday night.

Alexander "Sandy" Getta, said the school's coach has already been reimbursed by the airline in the form of travel vouchers, adding in an email it's "absolutely ridiculous what Serra is trying to accomplish."

A 57-year-old Bonita Springs woman died when a Ford Mustang jumped the median and hit her SUV Wednesday morning.

In a series of Facebook messages, a Pine Ridge Middle School science teacher graphically described sex acts he wanted to perform on an underage former student and acknowledged the taboo nature of the conversations, according to an affidavit.

The way Shane Simpkins saw it, if he and his paralyzed father wanted to live, he had to follow the plan set by Christopher Neuberger.

Shane Simpkins, on trial for murder in the April 2011 death of Mary Ann Zarb, will no longer serve as his own lawyer.

He mumbled. He fidgeted. He spat out only a couple of short sentences at a time. Christopher Neuberger was hardly the perfect star witness for prosecutors, but the 27-year-old felon provided the one and only firsthand account Wednesday of the ...

Simpkins' lawyer pinned the murder on Christopher Neuberger, who worked with Simpkins and is a co-defendant in the case. "(Neuberger) tells Mr. Simpkins, 'Shut up. I'll kill you. I'll kill your family. You're going along with what I say,'" Smith ...

Shane Simpkins, 26, of Cape Coral, faces life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder in the killing of Mary Ann Zarb, whose body was found hidden near the Lee-Charlotte county line after a two-week search.

The second-degree murder trial for Shane Simpkins, charged in the 2011 killing of Mary Ann Zarb, will start Tuesday, a judge said Monday.

Florida has handed out nearly $700 million in economic development incentives over the last 17 years. Collier County's share: $15,000. Or 0.00002 percent.

In a rare ruling that hinges on when and where somebody can flee law enforcement officials, a judge on Tuesday suppressed a weapon found on Lonnie Small, a 53-year-old felon who fled from city police responding to a September 2012 ...

Spurred by a decline in robberies and property thefts, the crime rate in the Collier County Sheriff's Office jurisdiction fell nearly 13 percent in 2012, the sharpest drop since 2004.

A Lee County jury's guilty finding against Dustin McIntyre, 23, effectively ends the prosecution of six men tied to the deaths of Daniel Leonor, 24, of San Carlos Park, and Israel Ponce, 20, of Fort Myers.

An East Naples man faces a life felony charge of sexual battery after a now-17-year-old girl told deputies she had been raped several years ago.

A Fort Myers man has been found guilty on two counts of second-degree murder in an August 2010 double-homicide in Bonita Springs.

“Let’s just hope it’s for a long enough period of time,” assistant state attorney Tammy Wilson said after Tuesday’s sentencing.

Jonathan Rowles, the East Naples teen held criminally responsible in the August 2010 shooting death of his mother, will serve at least six months in a moderate-risk juvenile justice facility, a sentence that seeks to balance public protection and Rowles' ...

An arrest involving punches, vulgarities and use of a Taser following a high-speed motorcycle chase will be examined by internal investigators at the Collier County Sheriff’s Office.

“I think there’s a misconception that everybody in nonprofits is giving away their time and it’s not like a business,” Dan Summers said. “But believe me, it’s every bit of a business.”

The total crime rate in areas covered by the Lee County Sheriff's Office fell about 12 percent in 2012, but the violent crime rate rose by 2 percent.

Brian Bigelow, already facing a cocaine charge following his Jan. 18 arrest, is in a Lee County jail facing a charge of violating terms of his pretrial release.

Frank Oakes, the gregarious local farmer who founded Oakes Farms and Food & Thought, died in his sleep Sunday, his brother said.

The system, installed parallel to canals running alongside Interstate 75, has successfully kept vehicles out of the water about 81 percent of the time.

Florida Department of Transportation officials said the cables prevented 77 of 91 vehicles from going into canals running alongside Interstate 75. Of those 14 crashes involving vehicles that blasted through the barrier, two resulted in fatalities.

An appeals court has denied former Gulf Coast High School band teacher Robert Hamberg's request for a new trial on sexual battery charges.

Juan Jose Barrientos Jr., is accused of robbing and stabbing an East Naples man to death in 2009, and Kevin Eric Perry, is charged in the 2006 shooting that officials say led to the death of an Immokalee man.

In the months leading up to the Gulfshore Invitational, a newly rebranded local prep basketball tournament, organizer Alexander "Sandy" Getta made a grand pitch to potential participants.

Jean Leandre was arrested in October 2009, accused of having sex more than 10 times during the course of several years with the girl, who said she was first raped at age 5 or 6.

Lee County sheriff's sergeants will have to revote on whether to disband their union after a state commission found Sheriff Mike Scott engaged in unfair labor practices.

Former Lee County Commissioner Brian Bigelow had 11 small bags of cocaine on him when he was arrested Friday morning, according to arrest reports.

Jurors learned the couple met in the mid-1980s when he was a band teacher in Georgia and she was a high school student, showing it wasn’t the first time Hamberg had been linked to a former pupil.

Oral arguments Tuesday in former Gulf Coast High School band teacher Robert Hamberg's appeal on sexual battery charges focused only on whether jurors should have heard details about how Hamberg met his wife in the 1980s.

Robert Hamberg, 55, is serving a 30-year prison sentence after he was convicted in April 2011 on eight counts of lewd and lascivious battery for carrying on a sexual relationship with a then-15-year-old freshman.

With the help of a bloodhound, a deputy found a little girl out in a field off Esperanza Way near the home on Wells Street.

“This is injustice and we have the power to change this,” said Perry, who learned about the cases while watching a cable series featuring the men last January. “We have the power to see someone brought to justice."