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Man pleads guilty to smuggling in fellow Romanians

By TIMES WIRES
Published November 28, 2006

ORLANDO - A Romanian citizen living in Davenport pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court Monday to inducing aliens to enter the United States illegally.

In a plea agreement, Constantin C. Durbalau, 30, admitted that over three years he helped as many as 24 Romanians enter or remain in the United States through fraudulent means.

He and another person prepared visa applications that falsely stated they were circus performers coming to work in Florida, when, in fact, they were not circus performers and were not needed at any of the circuses listed.

Durbalau received a fee of $2,000 to $3,500 for each fraudulent application.

Durbalau has agreed to be deported to Romania upon completion of his prison sentence, which will be decided in February, and to forfeit about $50,000 he earned in smuggling fees.

TALLAHASSEE

Killer asks court to block execution

A death row inmate who fatally shot the manager of a Miami topless club nearly 27 years ago asked the Florida Supreme Court on Monday to block his execution next month.

Angel Diaz's lawyer, Suzanne Myers Keffer, said she has obtained a sworn statement from a witness who recanted his trial testimony that Diaz confessed to him while they were jail inmates in Miami-Dade County.

Diaz also is challenging Florida's lethal injection procedure on grounds it is unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment - an argument made unsuccessfully by three other inmates who have been executed this year.

Diaz is set for execution Dec. 13. He was convicted of murdering Joseph Nagy, who was shot when Diaz and two accomplices robbed the Velvet Swing on Dec. 22, 1979.

HOLLY HILL

Swingers' club legally operating, police say

A couple has upset some in the community by turning a rented house into a swingers' club.

But police say they can do nothing about Never Ending Bliss, so long as nothing illegal happens there behind closed doors among consenting adults. Its operators stopped requesting a donation or fee from patrons, which ended a code violation, City Manager Joe Forte said.

Never Ending Bliss is described on a Web site as a "very clean," private, invitation-only alternative-lifestyle club. Matthew Early, who operates the club with his partner, Nikki, said about 20 couples ranging in age from 21 to 75 meet on Friday and Saturday nights in the 3,800-square-foot riverside home.

NAPLES

Project to replant Collier beach dunes

Miles of Collier County beach dunes will be replanted early next year to repair destruction caused by hurricanes last year.

The $720,000 job will restore plants such as sea oats, panic grass, beach elder and others to provide shelter and food for beach animals and stem erosion.

CAPE CORAL

Vandals pronounce home in bad taste

Vandals apparently didn't like the color of a lime green home. They used black spray paint to cover it with phrases like, "Not in this neighborhood," "No alien green" and "Bad choice," along with some profanities. Police were investigating.

ORLANDO

Condemned man ruled unable to aid appeal

A judge ruled Monday that a man convicted in the 1997 kidnapping and murder of an Orlando woman is not competent to help appeal his death sentence. John Huggins, 44, will be treated within the state Department of Corrections and his mental health will be reviewed in the future, Orange-Osceola Circuit Judge Belvin Perry ruled.

If he is later found competent, he still faces the death penalty.

Huggins was convicted in Tampa in 2002 of killing Carla Larson, 30, who was kidnapped from a supermarket parking lot near Walt Disney World in June 1997. Her body was found two days later in a palmetto thicket.

[Last modified November 28, 2006, 01:05:07]