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Polk Sheriff: 92 arrested in online prostitution bust

Winter Haven, Florida -- The Polk County Sheriff's Office says nearly 100 people have been arrested in an undercover prostitution sting operation.

Deputies say a total of 92 people were arrested for offering to commit lewdness, along with other charges. The suspects allegedly responded to online ads posted by undercover detectives posing as prostitutes, or the suspects were prostitutes themselves who posted ads and came to the undercover location, offering their services.

The arrests include:

Cops: Polk bus driver stages fight between 2 students

Polk County, Florida -- A Polk County school bus driver has been arrested for allegedly forcing two students to fight outside her home Thursday.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd says 29-year-old Patrice Sanders of Lakeland drove a busload of middle and high school students to her house and staged a fight between two of them in her front yard.

Update: Man ties up elderly woman in her home, steals her car

Auburndale, Florida -- Auburndale Police officers are still searching for a man who tied up a 92-year-old woman in her home but they have found the stolen car. 

Police say Margaret Bair was working in her yard around 9:00 a.m. on May 9 when a man walked up to her door and went inside. The man tried to get Bair to come inside the house with him but she refused.

He then grabbed Bair into the house and tied her up with tape as he rummaged through the home. 

Lakeland man on trial for murder: 'It wasn't me'

Bartow, FL -- Timothy Carey took the stand in his own defense Wednesday and said he was at a party the night Tommy Eugene Smith was murdered.

Smith was a 37-year-old and a nursing supervisor at Lakeland Regional Medical Center when his body was found during the early evening hours of Oct. 11, 1996.
 
Smith's body was found in an orange grove off Edison and Old Berkley roads, near Auburndale. He'd been shot twice in the head and once in the neck. He had been last seen on Oct. 10, leaving his home around 8 p.m. in his Jeep.

Traffic stop reveals over $2M meth operation in Polk

Polk County, Florida -- Two Poinciana men have been federally indicted for possession of, and intent to distribute more than 500 Grams of Meth, Polk County Sheriff's officials announced Tuesday.

According to their report, 21-year-old Scott Eargood and 27-year-old Santos Zamora-Escobar were arrested after deputies discovered nearly 250 grams of meth and a little under $3,500 in cash during a traffic stop on Thursday, May 2.

Recent Bay area child deaths sadden advocates

New Port Richey, Florida -- Watching the news these past two weeks has brought Maureen Welch to tears.

"It's just so sad," Welch says of reports of a Tampa mother leaving her 7-month-old in a bathtub.

A Citrus mother accused of beating her 2-year-old daughter to death.

47 dogs found living in feces and urine; owners charged

Auburndale, Florida -- The Polk County Sheriff's Office says it found 47 dogs living in deplorable conditions inside an Auburndale home on Friday night. 

The pet owners, 49-year-old Randall Huggins and 55-year-old Bernice Walskey, have each been charged 40 counts of animal cruelty.

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