St. Cloud woman arrested for Jan. 6 Capitol actions
The quiet quaintness of a Sunday morning in downtown Kissimmee was rocked by a fatal crash that killed the 19-year-old son of a Puerto Rican reggaeton and rap star.
Local TV affiliate Telemundo-31 reported (en Espanol) that Cheniel Capone Rivera Torres, the son of singer Kendo Kaponi, died around 5:40 a.m. Sunday when the car he was driving south on Main Street failed to negotiate the curve at Neptune Road and crashed into the CenturyLink building on Broadway just past the intersection. Capone was the vehicle’s only occupant.
Kissimmee Police’s Traffic Homicide unit is leading the investigation.
Diana Marrero-Pinto was setting up for an event downtown Sunday morning, and said she arrived at the Kissimmee Main Street office across the street from the crash to find people, later identified as family members, on scene and crying.
“There were people in our parking lot, so we opened our office to them,” she said. “When we came out to the front we saw more people outside looking on, and the crash. I hadn’t seen anything like that here before, and I live just a couple minutes away.”
Sentencing for local at Jan. 6 Capitol incident
A St. Cloud woman was sentenced for her role in the Jan. 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Monday, Leslie Gray, 57was sentenced to 12 months and a day in prison, 12 months of supervised release, $2,000 in restitution, and a $100 special assessment. She pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstruction of an official proceeding on June 1, 2023. She was arrested in June 2022.
According to court documents, Gray traveled to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 4, 2021, to protest Congress’ certification of the Electoral College. on Jan. 6, 2021, Gray went to the U.S. Capitol building and joined the crowd gathered at the premier of the East Front of the building, which was barricaded and patrolled by police officers.
After about an hour of protests, Gray joined the mob in surging forward, advancing past the barricades and up to the steps onto the East Front of the Capitol, ignoring United States Capitol Police (“USCP”) officers ordering the mob to stop. According to the Department of Justice, Gray live-streamed Facebook videos of her activity around and inside the Capitol that day and recorded her fellow rioters picking up and removing police bike rack barricades. Gray also reportedly encouraged other rioters to resist police as rioters pushed bike rack barricades, and as the rioters moved closer to the Capitol, Gray yelled, “We’re taking the house back now, we’re taking the house back!”
Once inside the Capitol, Gray filmed herself inside the Rotunda. With alarms blaring audibly, Gray physically forced her way past police officers who were attempting to stop her from entering a corridor. According to the DOJ, Gray was then ordered by an officer to exit the Capitol building but refused, before the officer then forcibly removed Gray from the building at approximately 3 p.m. After finally exiting the Capitol, Gray recorded yet another livestream video on the Capitol steps.
Since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,100 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol as part of the ongoing investigation.
Kissimmee sex felon sentenced to federal prison
A Kissimmee man has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for attempting to entice a 13-year-old child to engage in sexual activity.
Gabriel Almenas Carrasquillo, 35, was also ordered to serve a 10-year term of supervised release, register as a sex offender, and forfeit his cellphone. A federal jury had found Almenas guilty on July 12, 2023, and he has been in custody since that guilty verdict.
According to evidence and testimony from a August 2022 trial, an undercover agent with the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation in Orlando was posing as a 13-year-old child on a social media application (app) in an effort to identify individuals who were seeking to sexually exploit children. Almenas initiated an online conversation with the agent. When Almenas asked if “he” was 18, the agent advised that “he” was “a little younger,” and stated, “I’ll be fourteen in a few months.” Almenas responded, “I’m down to keep getting to know you more, “ and the two discussed meeting and Almenas confirmed that the “child” would be alone without adult supervision for that entire evening.
At Almenas’s suggestion, their online conversation moved to another social media app. Almenas then described the sexual acts that he wanted to perform on the “child,” and he sent the agent a video depicting Almenas’s genitalia. Almenas drove to an agreed-upon location in Orlando where he believed that the “child” was staying, and he was arrested.
In an interview, Almenas stated, among other things, he knew that the “child” was underage when he came to meet “him,” and acknowledged that he was arrested because he “tried to have sex with somebody that was not legal age.” Almenas also admitted that he brought the lubricant found in his backpack to use during sexual acts with the “child.”
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.
