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Bea Lunardini/Fresh Take Florida

  • The entrance to the University of Florida on the corner of University Avenue and 13th Street in Gainesville, Fla. (Fresh Take Florida)
    Immigration
    UF international student detained by immigration agents now back in Colombia
    Bea Lunardini/Fresh Take Florida
    The University of Florida international student arrested near campus and sent to an immigration detention center has returned to Colombia, according to a new statement from his mother there.Felipe Zapata Velásquez, 27, was arrested March 28 for driving with a U.S. driver’s license that had been suspended since January 2024 and with an outdated vehicle registration. He was taken to Jacksonville by federal immigration agents after his arrest and told he could await his case’s resolution in jail in the United States or sign his self-deportation and return to Colombia, according to an interview on April 2 with his mother, Claudia Velásquez, by NTN24. The University of Florida international student arrested near campus and sent to an immigration detention center has returned to Colombia, according to a new statement from his mother there.Felipe Zapata Velásquez, 27, was arrested March 28 for driving with a U.S. driver’s license that had been suspended since January 2024 and with an outdated vehicle registration. He was taken to Jacksonville by federal immigration agents after his arrest and told he could await his case’s resolution in jail in the United States or sign his self-deportation and return to Colombia, according to an interview on April 2 with his mother, Claudia Velásquez, by NTN24.
  • A still from video of the arrest of
    Immigration
    New video shows police arresting UF student now held by immigration agents
    Bea Lunardini/Fresh Take Florida
    A University of Florida international student from Colombia who was renewing his student visa was arrested in a traffic stop and is being held by immigration agents in South Florida, his family says.A Gainesville police officer stopped Felipe Zapata Velásquez, 27, on March 28 driving near the UF football stadium and ticketed him because his sedan’s registration had expired in July 2024 and his driver’s license had expired in 2023, according to court records.
  • Maranda Malnory, 29, of Cape Coral, Fla., poses with her dog, Nilla Bean. Malnory is the daughter of a married couple who were murdered by James Ford, who Florida executed earlier this month. In a new interview, she says the first good night's sleep for her in years came the night Ford was executed. (Courtesy photos from Maranda Malnory/Fresh Take Florida)
    Crime
    ‘I grieve what I could have had,’ says daughter of murdered couple after killer’s execution
    Bea Lunardini/Fresh Take Florida
    The first good night's sleep in years for the daughter of a murdered couple came the night Florida executed her parents' killer earlier this month, she says in a new interview.“There’s a weight that’s been lifted off of us,” said Maranda Malnory, 29, of Cape Coral, in a phone conversation from her home. “We can move forward. We’re never going to move past it, but it’s not looming there all the time.”Malnory, 29, was less than one month away from her 2nd birthday when James Ford murdered her parents, Greg and Kim Malnory, in rural Charlotte County in southwest Florida. Malnory was left to the elements in a car seat in her father’s blue pickup after her parents’ murders, and police found her and her parents’ bodies the next morning.