A teenage girl in Florida faces criminal charges for an alleged sexual relationship with a 15-year-old female student in a case the defendant’s family says stems from anti-gay prejudice.

Kaitlyn Hunt, 18, has been charged with two felony counts of “lewd and lascivious battery of a child 12 to 16 years old” related to conduct with a minor she met while they were both students at Sebastian River High School in Sebastian, Fla., according to an Indian River County Sheriff's Office arrest affidavit obtained by NBC News.

The younger girl's parents pressed charges against Hunt earlier this year, according to Thomas Raulen of the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office.

But Kelley Hunt Smith, Kaitlyn's mother, said in a statement on Facebook that 15-year-old's parents “were out to destroy my daughter” because “they feel like my daughter 'made' their daughter gay.”

Police have not identified the minor or her parents.

According to the arrest affidavit, Hunt told investigators that she began dating the girl last November, when she was just 14. By December, the affidavit says, the two girls were involved in a sexual relationship.

In a statement uploaded to Facebook, Smith said that her daughter’s friendship with the underage girl began when they were both players on the school basketball team and was at first platonic, but the two “eventually expressed their affection for one another in intimate ways.”

Smith said that when the girls’ basketball coach found out about the relationship, she booted Hunt from the team, and then contacted the younger girl’s parents. They pressed charges in February, according to Raulen.

In her statement, Smith said that an Indian River County judge originally ruled Hunt was not “any threat at all” and could remain at school — but the unidentified girl’s parents appealed to the local school board and had Hunt removed from Sebastian River High School.

School district officials did not return a request for comment Monday afternoon.

Authorities arrested Hunt at her family’s home in February, but she was later released on bail, according to Indian River County Sheriff’s Office records.

The state attorney’s office has offered Hunt a plea deal that includes recommendations for two years of “community control” — a variant of house arrest in which Hunt would be permitted to work as well as attend school and church – followed by one year of probation, according to Indian River County State Attorney Bruce Colton.

Hunt’s family has launched a social media campaign in her defense, Smith told NBC affiliate WPTV on Sunday.

“I just put our story out there on Friday,” Smith said. “I wanted people to know what was going on.”

“Free Kate,” a public Facebook support page started by Hunt’s family, had amassed over 20,000 members as of Monday afternoon while a petition on Change.org addressed to the Indian River County State Attorney's Office had nearly 70,000 signatures.

Colton, said the signatures did not make much difference saying, "The law is the law."

The clock is ticking for the luckiest person in America.

Whoever bought the winning $590 million Powerball ticket at a Publix supermarket in Florida has two months to come forward, a shorter window than in some other states.

But on Monday, the winner’s identity remained a mystery — and the subject of a guessing game that everybody was playing in Zephyrhills, a city of about 13,000 outside Tampa that is better known for its national brand of bottled water.

“I’m getting text messages and messages from Facebook going, ‘Uh, did you win the lottery?’” Sandra Lewis told The Associated Press. “No, I didn’t win, guys. Sorry.”

We know this much: Whoever bought the ticket beat odds of about 175 million to 1 to choose the winning numbers drawn Saturday night — 10, 13, 14, 22 and 52, with a Powerball of 11.

If it’s a single winner — not one ticket held by a pool at the office or among friends — that person will apparently claim the largest jackpot awarded to one person in American history: $370 million if he or she takes a lump-sum payment.

The largest jackpot was a $656 million prize last year in another multi-state drawing, Mega Millions, but that prize was split among three winners in Maryland, Kansas and Illinois.

In some other states, even for the same national Powerball jackpot, the winner would have a year to come forward. In Iowa in 2011, a winner waited 364 days and 22 hours to claim a $14 million state jackpot.

And Florida has no state income tax, so if the winner lives there — and wasn’t just in town for Zephyrhills’ popular skydiving tours — he or she will save millions more.

Lottery officials in Florida did not seem surprised that no one had claimed the prize in the first two days.

“It never happens this quickly,” said David Bishop, a Florida lottery spokesman. “If they know they won, they’re going to contact their attorney or an accountant first so they can get their affairs in order.”

Meanwhile, the jackpot would be enough to fund the city of Zephyrills for 12 years, based on their current budget — but the $148 million in estimated federal income taxes is only enough to power the U.S. government for about a half-hour.

The ticket is also good for an $85,000 bonus commission for the Publix supermarket. For thousands of other people, though, it’s good for nothing.

“I wish it was me,” Cindy Frappier said as she walked out of the Publix on Sunday. “But it wasn’t.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

This story was originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 9:00 AM EDT

Brian Blanco / EPA

Clutching the Powerball tickets that she estimates she won $8 on, Denise Godsey looks over at a gaggle of gathered television news trucks at a Publix in Zephyrhills, Fla.

The residents of a small Florida town known for its bottled water are now thirsty to know if one of their neighbors is the sole winner of the largest Powerball jackpot in history.

Lottery officials confirmed early Sunday that the one winning ticket for the estimated $590.5 million prize was sold at a Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, Fla.

But so far, only the losers have come forward.  

“I wish it was it was me. But it wasn’t,” said Cindy Frappier as she exited the lucky Publix on Sunday.  

“I’m happy for whoever did win,” said Roberta Cutting as she made her way into the store.

Zephyrhills is about 30 miles northeast of Tampa, and is where the popular bottled water that bears its name is produced.

It is also a hotbed for skydiving, and attracts thrill seekers from around the world — which increases the possibility that the lotto winner is not from the area, but an out-of-towner who just happened to drop in on the supermarket on while visiting.

Many of the shoppers on Sunday wondered aloud whether or not they know the soon-to-be millionaire, and many hoped some of the winnings would go back into the town with a population of 13,337. 

Joan Albertson drove to the Publix early Sunday morning with her camera in hand, in case the winner emerged. She said she had bought a ticket at a store across the street, and the idea of winning that much money was still something of a shock.

"Oh, there's so much good that you could do with that amount of money," Albertson said. "I don't even know where to begin."

Others, like local Danny Rike, are still holding out hope that they've actually won. Rike participated in a Powerball office pool, and though none of his co-workers have alerted him that they’ve won — no one has said they lost, either.

“It could be a good surprise for tomorrow when I go into work,” he said.

Crunching the numbers reveals that the enormous jackpot could fund the city of Zephyrhills government for 12 years. The $148 million in taxes on the gargantuan purse could fund the federal government for almost 27 minutes.

If the winner takes the lump sum, it will be a $370 million payday, the second largest ever in the U.S.

It traditionally takes days or weeks for big winners like the one on Saturday to come forward. "It never happens this quickly," Florida Lottery spokesman David Bishop told the Associated Press. "If they know they won, they're going to contact their attorney or an accountant first so they can get their affairs in order."

The winning numbers were 10, 13, 14, 22 and 52, with a Powerball of 11. The chances of winning were 1 in 175.2 million.

The country's largest ever jackpot was a $656 million Mega Millions jackpot in March 2012. But that prize was split between winners in Maryland, Kansas and Illinois.

The store where the winning ticket was sold will receive an $85,000 bonus commission, according to Shelly Gerteisen, a spokeswoman for the Florida Lottery.

Publix spokeswoman Maria Brous said that there are a lot of rumors about who won, but the store doesn't know. "We're excited for the winner or winners," she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

The label on the bottle said it contained a common antibiotic, but prosecutors say inside was a drug that's often used to induce abortions.

Remee Jo Lee, 26, was six weeks pregnant when her boyfriend gave her a pill he said was prescribed by his father, a Florida fertility doctor, to treat a bacterial infection, according to court papers.

Lee says she trustingly swallowed the pill, and within hours started bleeding. She went to the hospital, where she had a miscarriage and learned that her boyfriend had tricked her into terminating her pregnancy, her lawyer alleges.

Now the ex-boyfriend, John Andrew Welden, 28, is in county lockup, facing a civil lawsuit and a murder rap.

A federal indictment unsealed Thursday charged Welden with product-tampering and first-degree murder under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, charges that could carry a life sentence. 

Courtesy of Gil Sanchez

Remee Jo Lee says her boyfriend tricked her into taking an abortion pill and she miscarried at six weeks.

The lawyer who represented him at an initial appearance Wednesday did not return a phone call but said in court that the allegations were out of character for his client, according to The Associated Press.

In a civil complaint and statement, Lee's attorney described how an eight-month romance turned toxic when his client became pregnant in February.

Lee "was anticipating motherhood with great joy and excitement," but Welden begged her not to go through with it, lawyer Gil Sanchez said in a press release. 

"Everyone dreams of becoming a mom. This was my chance," Lee told told Tampa's WFTS-TV.

In late March, Welden took Lee to his father's Lutz, Fla., clinic for a prenatal examination, including a sonogram and blood and urine samples that confirmed a healthy pregnancy, Lee's lawsuit says.

The next day, Welden told Lee that his father had diagnosed her with an infection and prescribed Amoxicillin, the antibiotic, the suit charges.

In reality, the doctor's son had forged a prescription for Cytotec, an ulcer drug that can be used for non-surgical abortions because it causes contractions, Lee's lawyer said.

"He came to my house with the pills, his weapon of choice," Lee told WFTS.

"He told me to keep taking them. I was supposed to take three a day for days."

Welden later admitted to Lee that he had fooled her, the suit claims. It describes his actions as "outrageous, beyond the bounds of decency and utterly intolerable."

The suit seeks unspecified damages in excess of $15,000.

"We may soon be seeking redress for Lee against others who may have some degree of liability for this heinous act," Sanchez said, without identifying anyone.

Welden, who worked at his father's clinic but was not a doctor, is the only person charged with a crime. Workers at the clinic declined to comment.

Danny Izzi / www.AvantiLimoRide.com

A photo taken by Avanti Limousines and Airport Transportation owner Danny Izzi at the scene of the accident in Davie, Fla.

Cummerbunds and courage rounded out prom night for a group of 20 Florida teenagers who sprang from their limo to help the victims of an automobile accident on Saturday.

The high school seniors were gussied up to dance the night away in Fort Lauderdale when a van carrying a family of seven overturned in front of them on Interstate 595. A dramatic video captured the students from Western High School in Davie, Fla., as they helped pull five adults and two children from the vehicle.

The driver of the van, a Honda Odyssey, was traveling eastbound on I-595 when traffic slowed, said Sgt. Mark Wysocky of Florida Highway Patrol. The driver apparently veered to the left, bouncing off the divider and turning the van on its side.

The students were in their Cadillac Escalade limo directly behind the van when it flipped just before 6:45 p.m., Danny Izzi, president of Avanti Limousines and Airport Transportation, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

“I almost hit them,” Izzi, who was at the wheel of the limo, told the paper. “I had to slam on my brakes, but with 20 kids in there it’s really [difficult] to put the brakes on.”

Prom-goer Peter Kim told NBC Miami that he grabbed a young boy from the overturned van and helped calm the mother.

“We laid her down, and we tried to calm her down. She was just panicking, she was in shock,” Kim said. “She was screaming out, ‘Where’s my baby? Where’s my baby?’”

“I was just hoping that the people were OK,” said fellow senior Frank Tucker.

The students still made it to prom after what Tucker described as a “silent” ride.

“It felt great that we got to help someone out and that we didn’t just roll on by,” Kim told NBC Miami. “I’m happy that I had my peers that actually helped out instead of just sitting there and doing nothing.”

The professionals agreed.

“It was really amazing, because nowadays when people are so willing not to get involved they were ready to get involved,” Sgt. Wysocky said. “All the students and the limo driver should be commended for stopping.”

There were no serious injuries, Wysocky said, though a 2-year-old child was not secured by a seat belt at the time of the accident.

Authorities say a 3-year-old Florida boy has died after shooting himself with a gun he found in his uncle's backpack.

The shooting happened Tuesday night in a bedroom Jadarrius Speights shared with his uncle at an apartment complex in Tampa. Authorities say the uncle, 29-year-old Jeffrey D. Walker, has been charged with culpable negligence.

It wasn't immediately clear whether Walker had an attorney. His phone number was not listed and jail records didn't give a lawyer for him.

Police say he has a concealed weapons permit.

Hillsborough County sheriff's spokeswoman Debbie Carter says the uncle was not in the room when the shooting happened, but the child's parents were there. The boy was taken to a hospital where he died.

Last week, a 5-year-old Kentucky boy who received a .22-caliber rifle as a gift accidentally shot and killed his 2-year-old sister, according to state police.

Related:

Guns made for kids: How young is too young?

It's what relatives of so many missing people hold on to: the hope that their loved one will be found alive days, months, even years after disappearing. But for Brenda Heist, the Pennsylvania woman found this week in Florida 11 years after she vanished, the circumstances surrounding her disappearance have tainted the news for her family.

"I'm hurt so much that she got up and left me and my brother," Morgan Heist, Brenda Heist's 19-year-old daughter, told NBCPhiladelphia.com. "It's not that I hate her. It's just that I don't think she deserves to be in my life at this point."

Heist went missing from her Litiz, Pa., home in February 2002. Dinner for her two children — 8 and 12 at the time — was found defrosting in the kitchen on the day she disappeared, and the laundry had been started. Days later, Pennsylvania authorities found her abandoned car.

On Wednesday, Heist, 54, turned herself into a sheriff's deputy in Key Largo, Fla., telling him she thought she was wanted in a neighboring county. When authorities ran her name through their database, it came up as "missing and possibly deceased," the Monroe County Sheriff's Office said.

According to Lititz Borough police, Heist was overwhelmed with her life when she decided to abandon her family. She and her husband were going through an amicable divorce at the time, but she had just learned she had been denied housing support, police said.

“She explained to me that she just snapped,” Lititz Borough Police Det. John Schofield, who met with Heist on Monday, told The Associated Press.

Heist's hair, brown when she went missing, is now blond with gray roots. Her face is sunken. According to Lititz Borough police, feeling overcome by the pressures of her life, she went to a park near her central Pennsylvania home on the day she left her home in 2002. There, as she cried, she met a group of homeless hitchhikers who reached out to her, reported The AP.

She joined the hitchhikers, who were Florida-bound, and once arriving there, she slept under bridges and in tents, and ate food thrown out in restaurant dumpsters, according to what she told police.

Heist then moved in with a man in a camper in Key West for about seven years, working odd jobs, Lititz police said. She recently became homeless again, however, and according to Schofield, turned herself in because "she said she was at the end of her rope, she was tired of running."

Her husband, Lee, had briefly been investigated as a suspect in Heist's disappearance, but was cleared.

"I thought for probably about two years based on some of the information that she had been carjacked," he told NBCPhiladelphia.com after learning the woman he had asked courts to declare legally dead several years ago was still alive.  "I just wish her that she'll get well, whatever the problems are."

Lee Heist has since remarried.

"I think there's nothing we have to say to each other," Lee told NBCPhiladelphia.com.

Neither he nor his daughter Morgan have plans to reunite with Heist right now.

"I don't want her to tell me she missed me. I don't want her to tell me she loves me. I don't want a sob story," Morgan said.

Heist, who had worked as a car dealership bookkeeper, apologized for what she did to her family.

"She has a birth certificate and a death certificate, so she's got a long ways to make this right again," Schofield said.

Her daughter said an apology doesn't make up for her mom's absence.

"It was tough," Morgan told NBCPhiladelphia.com. "Every prom -- my brother graduated from high school and college, I graduated [from high school]. She wasn't there, you know? She wasn't there for the most important parts of my life."

It's unclear what's next for Heist, who was put in protective custody but did not require medical treatment when she turned herself in, according to the Monroe County sheriff's office.

"She appeared to be in relatively good health. She said she was tired," Becky Herrin, spokesperson for Monroe County sheriff's office, said.

Her mother, Jean Copenhaver of Brenham, Texas, told The AP she has spoken with her daughter since she turned herself in.

"She just said she thought the family wouldn't want to talk to her because of her leaving," Copenhaver said. "And we all assured her that wasn't the case and we all loved her and wanted to be with her."

Brian Hamacher of NBCMiami.com and Monique Braxton of NBCPhiladelphia.com contributed to this report.

Related content:

• Pennsylvania mom who went missing in 2002 turns up alive in Florida
• More on this story from NBCPhiladelphia.com
• More on this story from NBCMiami.com
  

George Zimmerman, charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin, waived his right Tuesday to seek immunity under Florida’s “stand your ground” self-defense law before his June trial.

His lawyers have said they may seek immunity later. 

Zimmerman, who has pleaded not guilty, is a former neighborhood watch volunteer of white and Hispanic descent who has maintained he shot Martin on Feb. 26, 2012, in self-defense after Martin attacked him.

The “stand your ground” law says people do not have to retreat if they believe they are in imminent danger of being killed or badly injured.

Kendall Coffey, a former federal prosecutor in Florida and an NBC News legal analyst, said before the hearing that it would be “very strategic” for the defense to waive the “stand your ground” hearing before trial.

“That way, they’re not going to have to show all their cards, and they avoid the risk that a judge might reject the self-defense claim,” he told TODAY.

Speaking softly and answering questions from the judge, Zimmerman said he understood and consented to his lawyers’ decision not to seek a hearing on immunity before the case goes to trial.

The judge, Debra Nelson of Florida circuit court, did not address with Zimmerman whether he might seek immunity during the trial itself.

Mark O’Mara, a lawyer for Zimmerman, complained to judge about what he described as insults and attacks in a pretrial motion of the prosecution. He asked the judge to strike that motion from the court record.

The judge declined but warned both sides that unprofessional behavior by lawyers “will not be tolerated in the future.”

Alluding to intense public interest in the case, O’Mara said the lawyers on both sides should be at their best.

“This is where people are going to think the criminal justice system works or not,” he said. “We’re going to have a verdict in this case, and that verdict has to be believed by everybody who hears about it, good or bad.”

Zimmerman has sued NBCUniversal for defamation in civil court, and the company has strongly denied his allegations.

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 30, 2013 9:12 AM EDT

Jaret Daniels / University of Florida via AP file

The Miami Blue butterfly, once common in the coastal areas of South Florida, is seen in Bahia Honda State Park on Bahia Honda Key, Fla., in May 2004.

ORLANDO, Florida — After six years of searching, an entomologist has concluded that three varieties of butterflies native to south Florida have become extinct, nearly doubling the number of North American butterflies known to be gone.

"These are unique butterflies to Florida. This is our biological treasure. Each unique species that we lose, we won't ever get that back again," Marc Minno, who conducted the survey for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, told Reuters on Monday.

The disappearance of butterflies should serve as a warning about the degradation of south Florida's environment, he said.

"It's indicating there are major problems, environmental harm to Florida. And this is an indication that quality for people is also degrading and people should be worried about that," Minno said.

Before Minno's survey, only four varieties of North American butterflies, all from California, were presumed to be extinct, and the last one added to the list was 55 years ago. Besides the three varieties which Minno concluded are extinct, two more native butterflies no longer exist in Florida but are living in the Caribbean, and two more are heading toward extinction, he said.

What is happening to the Florida butterflies remains an unanswered question. The Schaus' Swallowtail, found only in the upper Florida Keys, became in 1976 one of the first insects ever given legal protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. Minno said only six of the swallowtails were sighted in 2012.

Scientists began noticing a general decline in the butterfly populations in the 1980s, and Minno, like many scientists, assumed the spraying of pesticides to kill mosquitoes might be at fault. But his survey suggested otherwise.

In urban areas, such as Key West which has little natural habitat remaining and is routinely sprayed, Minno said, "There are so many butterflies flying you can hardly keep track of them all. There are just swarms of butterflies sometimes. You just wonder what the heck is going on. It's just the opposite of what you would think."

By contrast, Minno said he found few butterflies in vast conservations lands without mosquito control, such as the million-acre Everglades National Park and Biscayne National Park.

One of his theories is that mosquito spraying might bolster butterfly populations by killing off native and non-native parasitic wasps which feast on butterfly larvae and caterpillars. Another theory is that invasive predatory ants, such as the Mexican twig ant and fire ants, which were introduced to the area in the 1970s and are unrestrained by pesticides in conservation areas, might be overwhelming butterfly populations there.

Minno said the three butterflies that were found only in southern Florida and are now extinct are the Florida Zestos Skipper, the Rockland Meske's Skipper, and the Keys Zarucco Skipper. In addition, the Bahamian Swallowtails and the Nickerbean Blues are gone from Florida but alive in the Caribbean. Minno also expects the Shaus' Swallowtail and the Miami Blue, both of which continue to decline despite formal recovery plans, to become extinct soon. Of 120 varieties of butterflies documented in the Keys, Minno said 18 have become imperiled since the 1970s.

Minno said no state, federal or private agency has funded research to find out what is causing the decline.

Kevin Koscielniak

A man faces charges for breaking into his employer's business, beating the man's dog to death and then burying it, authorities in southwest Florida said.

Kevin Joseph Koscielniak, 52, faces charges including burglary of a structure, cruelty to animals and breaking or injuring fences. He was being held on $46,000 on Monday. It wasn't immediately known if he had an attorney.

On Sunday morning, the owner of John's Automotive in Sarasota, couldn't find his dog and called the sheriff's office to report the dog stolen, but at that point didn't want an investigation, according to the probable cause affidavit.

Later, the owner viewed video surveillance from his property overnight and saw Koscielniak, whom he has known for three years, climb over the barbed wire fence and beat the dog for several minutes, authorities said.

"The investigation determined that Koscielniak climbed over the barbed wire fence, killed the dog with a tire iron, wrapped the dog in a blanket, cut the fence to Casey's Auto, an adjacent business, dragged the dog onto that property and burried it there," the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office said.

Koscielniak was an employee who was asked to leave the business on Saturday after causing a disturbance, authorities said.

He was caught on video surveillance cleaning the blood, authorities said.

After a search, the dog was found in the shallow grave on the west side of the lot. The leash and collar were still attached, the affidavit said.