Richard Chouquer has been charged in the death. He arrived Wednesday afternoon in Polk County after being extradited from Hurricane, Utah. He and his pregnant girlfriend, Amandy Lawrence, were arrested there July 10, one day before Alfredo's body was found off Interstate 275 in Tampa.

Chouquer, charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse, was being held without bail and will appear in court today, said Polk County sheriff's spokeswoman Carrie Rodgers.

Lawrence is charged with being an accessory to first-degree murder. She is in the Polk County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

The couple were babysitting Alfredo for Swallows, who told police she left her son and Rheyna in their care June 28.

Candidate voted before he was citizen

MIAMI -- A candidate for the Florida House of Representatives who voted twice in the 1990s before he became a citizen says he didn't know then that it was illegal.

Rafael Velasquez, a Democrat challenging Republican incumbent Gustavo Barreiro of Miami Beach, said he voted in the 1996 and 1998 elections because of a misunderstanding.

"They sent me something, so I registered," Velasquez told the Miami Herald.

Under Florida election laws, it can be a felony for a non-U.S. citizen to vote.

Velasquez, 29, was born in Germany, raised in Peru, moved to the United States in 1993 and became a U.S. citizen in May 2001, he said.

According to voting records, he registered to vote in 1995 and voted in 1996 and again in 1999. He removed himself from voter rolls in 2001 and reregistered later that year, records show.

Velasquez was unknown on the political scene until he announced his candidacy against Barreiro last year. He lost a bid for chairman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party in April.

John Walsh's wife seeks divorce

VERO BEACH -- The wife of America's Most Wanted host John Walsh has filed for divorce and seeks custody of their two underage children.

In a petition filed last month, Reve Walsh said her 31-year marriage was irretrievably broken.

The Walshes' son Adam, then 6, was abducted July 27, 1981, from a Broward County Sears store. His head was found 14 days later and 120 miles away in a canal on the west side of Vero Beach. Adam's death led his parents to co-found the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va., in 1984.

John Walsh acknowledged in court documents that "there are marital difficulties at this time" but denied the marriage is irretrievably broken. He asked for a delay of proceedings until he and his wife can attend marriage counseling.

Miami philanthropist Batchelor dies

MIAMI -- George Batchelor, aviation entrepreneur and philanthropist who is the namesake of the Batchelor Children's Research Institute at the University of Miami's School of Medicine, died Monday (July 29, 2002) of lung cancer. He was 81.

A pilot for 65 years, Mr. Batchelor founded Arrow Air in California in 1947 and moved it to Florida in 1964.

Mr. Batchelor is believed to have donated more than $100-million to South Florida charities.

His $15-million gift to the University of Miami Medical School built the Batchelor Children's Research Institute. Other benefactors included Metrozoo, the Miami Museum of Science, Community Partnership for the Homeless and public television.

In 1985, a plane leased from Arrow Air crashed in Gander, Newfoundland, killing all 248 U.S. military personnel on board. The Federal Aviation Administration then grounded 10 other Arrow DC-8s. The company lost its business from the Air Force and soon filed for bankruptcy.

Born in Shawnee, Okla., the American Indian descendant married five times, most recently three weeks ago to Amanda Rodgers, 41, of Houston.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk