Tag Archives: kidnapping

Subscribe to The Point, arriving in your inbox Monday through Friday at 8 a.m. The stories near you • WUFT News: What’s happening with GRU? Here’s an explainer as its control shifts to new authority. “If the headlines about GRU from the last few months have left you scratching your head …

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with information from an interview with the doctor’s accuser. GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A former osteopathic physician who resigned from the University of Florida College of Medicine during a misconduct investigation has been ordered to attend mental health counseling and perform 15 hours of …

Danny Ross says he has at least three lives after multiple close calls.

Two men were arrested Tuesday and accused of running a human sex trafficking business in a Gainesville group home. The arrests happened at a Gate gas station on 3001 NW 13th Street at 4 p.m. The suspects' identities were confirmed as 20-year-old Kevarius Nyrtell King and 25-year-old Justin Terrel Hoyt. The victim was living in the Safe Hands Group Home, a housing service partnered with homeless shelters and co-owned by King since a little less than a year ago. The two men forced the victim into multiple sexual acts, sometimes without her consent, with dozens of men in the group home. Police were able to report the crime as the victim had told the staff at the Tower Road Branch Library that she was a victim of human trafficking and to alert the authorities. Through a search warrant of the group home, police were able to confirm the identities of King and Hoyt and later arrest and charge them with human sex trafficking. King and Hoyt are currently booked in the Alachua County Jail, each with release bonds set at $250,000.

Antwine Johnson, a 32-year-old Gainesville man, attended a short hearing Wednesday before Judge Phillip Pena for his felony cases involving an alleged kidnapping and rape. On Sept. 20, 2021, Johnson allegedly kidnapped and attempted to sexually assault a woman jogging on the side of the road. The same morning, he dragged a woman from her front doorstep, beat her behind bushes, raped her and stole her phone, leaving her unable to call for help. Later the same morning, he is accused of felony battery of his girlfriend. Johnson was arrested soon after and has been held in jail since. Johnson will appear in court again next week for misdemeanor charges for disobeying the judge’s orders not to contact any of the alleged victims when he tried sending a postcard to his girlfriend. Johnson will appear for a case management hearing on Oct. 26 for the charges of kidnapping, battery and rape.

Subscribe to The Point, arriving in your inbox Monday through Friday at 8 a.m. The stories near you • WUFT: First day of summer brings high temperatures and warnings of heat-related illness. “With soaring temperatures comes high heat that could prove a danger to vulnerable people like young children, the elderly …

The number of violent offenses in the city of Gainesville is on pace to exceed those reported last year, in 2020.