Your Florida Daily: Man who spent years in prison on wrongful conviction killed by deputy, kidnapping plot gone wrong

A Black man who spent more than 16 years imprisoned in Florida on a wrongful conviction was fatally shot by a sheriff’s deputy in Georgia during a traffic stop, authorities say.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation identified the man as 53-year-old Leonard Allen Cure.

Cure had been exonerated three years earlier with the help of the Innocence Project of Florida.

According to investigators, a deputy pulled over Cure as he drove along I-95 near the Georgia-Florida line. He got out of the car at the deputy’s request and cooperated at first but became violent after he was told he was being arrested.

The agency said preliminary information shows the deputy shocked Cure with a stun gun when he failed to obey commands, and Cure began assaulting the deputy.

They said the deputy then drew his gun and shot Cure when he continued to resist.

The agency didn’t say what prompted the deputy to pull over Cure’s vehicle.

Just two months ago, Cure received $817,000 in compensation for his conviction and imprisonment from the State of Florida.

Cure was convicted of a 2003 armed robbery of a drug store in Dania Beach, despite no physical evidence or solid witnesses to put him at the scene.

He had been released from prison after 16 years in April 2020.

Three Florida men accused of kidnapping and torturing the wrong target are now facing federal charges.

According to a federal complaint, the suspects kidnapped the man at gunpoint outside his apartment in Plantation on Oct. 13.

It says they drove him to a house where they threatened him, put an electric drill to his skin and pointed a firearm at him, before dousing him with water in what prosecutors said was a simulated waterboarding.

The kidnappers then realized they had the wrong person, mistaking him for his coworker, who was the intended target.

The men then hatched a plan to lure the coworker to them.

The plan could have worked, except the victim phoned a bomb threat to the coworker’s building in order to get police to respond immediately.

The suspects, identified as brothers Jeffrey and Jonathan Arista, along with Raymond Gomez were arrested and remain in jail.

A new addition to a Brevard County man’s backyard isn’t going over so well with his neighbors.

Some residents in Indialantic say four shipping containers stacked two by two are against the county’s zoning codes.

A realtor, who who says she knows what can hurt property values, reported the structure which appears to be for living space complete with running water and electricity.

“This needs to be dismantled and come down and that’s it,” Bofford said. “You’re only allowed to have one container in the back for storage purposes. That’s all code allows you to do,” realtor Bluma Bofford told News 6.

Bofford said she called County Commissioner Jason Steele’s office and was told the permit for construction was issued by mistake.

The county said it issued a stop work order on the shipping container home and that its owner seems to be willing to work toward a solution.

Random Florida Fact

In Florida, heart of palm has long been a fresh, local delicacy, distinct from the canned hearts of palm that are served in salads up North.

Bessie Gibbs and her husband made it famous in the South when they opened the Cedar Key’s Island Hotel in 1974.

Bessie, along with the hotel chef, created a heart of palm salad featuring colorful fruits, candied ginger and topped with green peanut-butter ice cream .

The result is a salad unlike any you have tasted before, and it’s still served today at the Island Hotel and Restaurant.