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NSBNews.net photo illustration by Sera Frederick 

OAK HILL -- Talk about the pot calling the kettle black: In a shocking turn of events, NSBNews.net has learned that embattled Police Chief Diane Young -- whose past use of cocaine and marijuana is well chronicled -- was the driving force behind Sheriff's narcotics investigators showing up at 84-year-old Mary Lee Cook's house last month to confront her about marijuana plants on her property.

Young had denied any involvement in the episode in media interviews, including NSBNews.net, which broke the story Monday night. The mayor was not charged and the marijuana plants were destroyed, but what remains a mystery is how they got there in the first place.

OAK HILL -- Oak Hill Mayor Mary Lee Cook's insistence that marijuana plants were placed on her property to frame her was reported in 181 media outlets nationwide Wednesday, two days after NSBNews.net broke the story live from Monday night's City Commission meeting.

Courtesy photos / The man shown in these gruesome photos is none other than Henry Ford Wheeler, greater New Smyrna Beach's notorious ex-con who got beat up in a beachside bar. Wheeler made headlines last year by costing then-County Judge Mary Jane Henderson her seat on the bench in the November elections after she tried to help him turn his alcoholic life around, only to see him continue getting into trouble, including being at the center of a murder.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- Henry Ford Wheeler, a career criminal with more than 60 arrests on his record, has actually found himself on the right side of the law in the wake of being beaten to a bloody pulp inside a New Smyrna Beach bar in April.

David Fernendez, the manager of Traders Pub on Flagler Avenue where the beating took place, was arrested Wednesday on a warrant charging him with felony battery.

Courtesy photo / If you know this man shown in a surveillance video from the Bank of America branch bank at 1454 W. Granada Blvd., please call Ormond Beach Police at 386-677-0731 or Crimestoppers at 277-TIPS or 1-888-277-TIPS.

ORMOND BEACH -- A robber claiming to be armed, fled the Bank of America, 1454 Granada Blvd. on Tuesday with an undisclosed amount of cash, Ormond Beach police said.

The man, approached the teller at 3:20 p.m. and showed her a note demanding money and implying he was armed.

"The teller complied and the suspect then walked out of the bank," Ormond Beach Police Lt. Kenny Hayes said.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- A water-main break on U.S. 1 near Douglas Street that forced the Utilities Commission of New Smyrna Beach to lower water pressure for 24,000 customers has now been repaired, a spokeswoman said.

"Everyone should be back up to full water pressure within the next 15 minutes," Utilities Commission spokeswoman Ellen Fisher reported in an e-mail sent to NSBNews.net at 5:36 p.m. in an e-mail. "No precautionary boil water notice is expected to be issued at this time."

Early this afternoon, a state Department of Transportation contractor working in the right of way near the intersection of U.S. 1 and Douglas Street hit a 12-inch potable water main and split the pipe lengthwise.

Fisher said crews had been working all afternoon to isolate the break and repair it. Water Resources crews lowered pressure to be able to access the break. As a result, many customers throughout the city experienced either low water pressure or none at all, especially on higher floors of multi-unit buildings, such as condominiums.

Customer service staff will be staying after hours until 7 pm to answer calls at 386-427-1361. Please check the Utilities Commission website for updates at www.ucnsb.org.

NSBNews.net file photo of Oak Hill Police Chief Diane Young

OAK HILL -- The Florida Department of Law Enforcement acknowledged for the first time that it has the Oak Hill Police Department on its investigative radar.

"We've received some information as it relates to the police department and we're looking into it," FDLE spokeswoman Heather Smith told NSBNews.net.

Smith declined to get into specifics except to say things are in the preliminary stages that "may or may not be criminal" in the small police force led by embattled Police Chief Diane Young, whose reinstatement of Sgt. Manuel Perez a week ago today after has been met with skepticism from some city officials and residents alike.

 NSBNews.net file photo of Oak Hill Mayor Mary Lee Cook

OAK HILL -- Mayor Mary Lee Cook wasted no time at tonight's meeting acknowledging Volusia County Sheriff's deputies confiscated marijuana plants on her property, but denied ownership and added she was set up by someone out to embarrass her.

"There would be criminal charges and I'd have to resign," the Oak Hill mayor said, declining to identify who her nemesis might be.

"They knew thay had an ace in the hole to force me to resign," she said, reading from a prepared statement at the beginning of the Monday commission meeting. "I'm fed up with this."

Cook claimed there were half dozen or so sickly-looking marijuana plants on her property and that the deputies destroyed them and told her they received an anonymous tip that the mayor was growing pot.

EDGEWATER, Fla. -- They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but not when it comes to the pageantry career of Tia Winn McDonald, the 18-year-old Miss Teen Florida pageant winner, who competed for the national crown in Las Vegas.

Let's get it on! Winning, after all, is the goal isn’t it? Do we really fight because we think "I want to lose this argument?"

Atlantis touched down flawlessly at 5:56 Thursday morning after three decades of space shuttle missions to the International Space Station and the Russian station Mir and the Hubble Telescope. I heard the sonic booms of re-entry for the final time outside my Edgewater home.