DAYTONA WEST
Observer YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.
VOLUME 1, NO. 3
Business Observer 6-8 FREE
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NOVEMBER 2019
It’s the law — for now Rep. Tom Leek files legislation to prevent sex offenders from going free while they’re appealing their convictions pending their appeals. JONATHAN SIMMONS NEWS EDITOR
Mark Fugler is supposed to spend 15 years in prison. He was charged with exposing himself to a young girl and showing her pornographic videos. He was tried, convicted, sentenced. And then, just a month later, a judge let him out — on bail, while he filed an appeal. The decision generated outrage and opposition from the victim’s family and from community members, including Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood, who wrote to the circuit’s Chief Judge Raul Zambrano to ask him to overturn Senior Judge Michael Hutcheson’s decision to allow bail for Fugler, an Ormond Beach resident and former Embry-RidSEE LEGISLATION PAGE 4
Home sweet home Photo by Carol Kaelson
Vanna White, Pat Sajak, Jimmy Buffett and “Home Sweet Home” winner Michael Corbett at Latitude Margaritaville Daytona Beach.
‘Wheel of Fortune’ fan moved from Ohio to Margaritaville after winning a house. JARLEENE ALMENAS NEWS EDITOR
INSIDE NO REGULATION
Event center restrictions rejected in 6-1 vote. PAGE 3
RESILIENCE TALK
Environmental awareness PAGE 5
Three phone calls brought Michael Corbett to Daytona Beach. The first call on Nov. 19, 2018, appeared as “unavailable” in his phone. Corbett didn’t answer it. He received another one a couple hours later, which he picked up. However, he only gave the representative on the phone from Interactive Solutions enough time to say his name and the word “Wheel” before Corbett hung up.
On the third ring, Corbett finally heard the representative out, and he found out he was the potential winner of a new home in Latitude Margaritaville. “I don’t think I believed it to begin with,” Corbett said. A few weeks earlier, Corbett, an avid “Wheel of Fortune” watcher, had entered the show’s “Home Sweet Home” sweepstakes. The show had partnered with Minto Communities and Margaritaville to give away a new $350,000 home. The sweepstake took part
around Corbett’s birthday. “The idea of winning a home in Florida was just crazy, but OK, I’ll enter the sweepstake and see what happens,” Corbett recalled. After all, his wife Vickie had been wanting to leave the Dayton, Ohio, winters for a year. In 2017, she packed up all her belongings and was ready to retire in Florida, leaving shoveling snow in the past. “There was nothing in her house,” Corbett said. “There were no dishes, there was nothing. And my daughter talked her out of it.” Fast-forward to that fateful phone call. As Vickie and his
“The idea of winning a home in Florida was just crazy, but OK, I’ll enter the sweepstake and see what happens.” MICHAEL CORBETT, Latitude Margaritaville resident
SEE HOUSE PAGE X
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Volusia sheriff, FBI dismantle meth distribution ring Over 20 pounds of meth and pills were recovered over the past year. JARLEENE ALMENAS
Local Postal Customer
NEWS EDITOR
A methamphetamine and pill distribution led from a Georgia prison cell has been dismantled by the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, Volusia Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Florida Attorney General’s Office. The organization is believed to be responsible for distribut-
Courtesy of VCSO
Some of the crystal meth recovered during "Operation Extended Day."
ing over 200 pounds of crystal meth in Volusia over the past year, according to a Nov. 11 press release. The dismantling is a result of a VBI and the FBI investigation called “Operation Extended Stay,” which began in December 2018. The ringleader of the organization was identified as 42-yearold Jeffery White, who is currently incarcerated in Georgia. White is serving a 20-year sentence for aggravated assault. He ran the organization by using a contraband cell phone, VCSO reported. Other upper and mid-level organization members where
operating out of cities including DeLand, Edgewater and Crescent City. Search warrants led to the recovery of about 20 pounds of crystal meth, 327 pressed fentanyl pills, 64 Dilaudids, other assorted pills, marijuana, five guns (one of which was stolen) and about $41,000 in cash. “Our job here isn’t done, but thanks to months of hard work by everyone involved in this operation, today there’s a little less crystal meth and fentanyl out on the street and a few more drug dealers behind bars,” Sheriff Mike Chitwood said.