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Truck theft reported to Homeland Security

DeLAND - Local law enforcement authorities have notified the Department of Homeland Security that a state-owned dump truck has been stolen.

The report was made to the federal agency because of the heightened threat level, Lt. Richard Gaylord, spokesman for the DeLand Police Department, said Wednesday.

One possible fear is that if terrorists stole the truck and packed it with explosives, they would be able to get past a building's security guards without scrutiny because of its state markings.

The truck, which is used to repair roadway asphalt, was stolen last weekend from a Department of Transportation facility.

MIAMI - The last of seven people accused of helping defraud Medicare of $5-million by staging the false delivery of expensive power wheelchairs has been sentenced to nearly 41/2 years in federal prison.

Todd W. Neff was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga to four years, five months in prison and ordered to pay $1.7-million in restitution. He must serve three years' probation after his release, the judge ordered.

Wheelchair scams are fast-growing among medicare fraud. Fifty separate investigations are under way in nearly two dozen states.

Neff and Chadd D. Miller co-owned or controlled two South Florida companies that supplied wheelchairs.

On Dec. 19, Altonaga ordered Miller to prison for seven years and three months. Miller was also ordered to pay $1.7-million in restitution to Medicare, give up $750,000 in fraud proceeds and serve three years' probation.

Five others have been sent to prison for terms ranging from one year to 61/2 years in the scam, which paid Medicare patients to pretend that they received the wheelchairs.

ROSEWOOD - A "peace and healing" ceremony marking the 81st anniversary of the Rosewood massacre, in which a black settlement in Levy County was destroyed by a white mob, will be held today to remember those killed and preserve their history.

Lizzie Jenkins, a Rosewood descendant and president of the Real Rosewood Foundation, called the attack "one of the bloodiest acts of terrorism in the state."

The horror began New Year's morning 1923, when a married white woman, Fannie Taylor, emerged bruised and beaten from her home and accused a black man of beating her.

As word spread, angry whites besieged Rosewood and its 120 residents, burning nearly every structure in a week of destruction.