Daytona Beach

FAST FACTS

DAYTONA BEACH -- Biketoberfest 2010 roared out of Volusia County with one fatality -- that of a pregnant 21-year-old Port Orange woman Friday night.

Though tragic, the carnage was greatest in 2000 when six Biketoberfest-related fatalities occurred, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. And that was three times the number of deaths in 1999.

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Joshua Baldes, 27, of Daytona Beach, was charged with vehicular manslaughter and other felonies in a deadly crash that resulted from veering left and direcctly into the path of three motorcycles, killing a pregnant passenger on one of them Friday night in Daytona Beach, according to police.

DAYTONA BEACH -- A 21-year-old pregnant Port Orange woman thrown from the back of a motorcycle Friday night is the first Biketoberfest-related fatality with the four-day rally that ends today.

DAYTONA BEACH -- Passenger traffic at Daytona Beach International Airport increased 46 percent in September, compared with September 2009.

Airport officials attributed September’s traffic surge to competitive fares and increased capacity being offered by the airport’s two principal air carriers -- Delta Air Lines and U.S Airways.

DAYTONA BEACH -- A pilot's keen sense of smell was enough to do an emergency landing of a single-engine plane at Daytona Beach International Airport at 8:20 p.m. Saturday, officials there said, adding they had discovered a bird got caught in the engine.

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Andrew J. Riddener, 22, of Holly Hill, was found guilty of sexual battery of a 12-year-old girl and faces up to 16 years in prison when he is sentenced next month. Click on the attachment to read the charging affidavits and police reports.

DAYTONA BEACH -- A jury deliberated for 1 ½ hours Thursday before finding Andrew J. Ridener guilty as charged to felony lewd or lascivious battery of a 12-year-old girl he met at at a local park and befriended as a youth minister.

The video and audio evidence against Mainland High School football Coach John Maronto released Monday by the State Attorney's Office leads to Volusia County's winningest coach stepping down today, though his criminal defense attorneys maintain his innocence. Maronto was scheduled to take his Mainland squad in two weeks to play at New Smyrna Beach against his former team, the Barracudas. He was New Smyrna Beach's coach in the mid 1990s.

DAYTONA BEACH -- Mainland High School football coach John Maronto abruptly resigned today, two days after release of a Daytona Beach police surveillance video by the State Attorney's Office that accuses him of soliciting sex from an undercover Daytona Beach female cop posing as a prostitute during the Labor Day weekend.

DAYTONA BEACH -- One hundred World War II veterans and their escorts will board a US Airways’ Airbus charter plane at Daytona Beach International Airport bound for Washington, D.C., at 6:26 a.m. Saturday. The group is the sixth from Central Florida to travel to the nation’s capital through the Volusia Honor Air program, which is organized by the Rotary Clubs in DeLand.

The State Attorney's Office released its video and audio evidence against embattled Mainland High School football coach John Maronto to the media after NSBNEWS.net and other news organizations sought the digital evidence under Florida's freedom of information statutes. Maronto, 68, of Daytona Beach Shores, was arrested by Daytona Beach police two weekends ago during an undercover prostitution sting on the beachside. Maronto, the winningest football coach in Volusia County, held that position for New Smyrna Beach High in the mid 1990s. He's been allowed to continue coaching and teaching a gym class by Volusia County School District Superintendent Margaret Smith despite the misdemeanor arrest that has drawn widespread media coverage. After the 2 p.m. release of the electronic evidence, school district spokeswoman Nancy Wait said school officials were waiting for release of the video as well and would reassess the stuation.

DAYTONA BEACH -- In a frainy DVD video and accompanying audio, embattled Mainland High School football coach John Maronto is heard telling an undercover female cop he believes is a prostitute that he's "married," though it's his night out and he's looking for "sex" and willing to pay "fifty" for it, even asking the woman to get in his car.

DAYTON A BEACH -- A Bug Tree Road man was found murdered in his residence Friday, Daytona Beach police said.

The body of Fred Johnson Sandlin, 70, was found in his apartment at 1601 Big Tree Road, No. 607, by his ex-wife who drove from Sanford to see him when he was a no-show in picking up his 9-year-old son, police said.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The crew from Lane Construction began the most challenging aspect of the 2010 Daytona Repave on Thursday morning - putting new asphalt on the steep 31-degree high banks of Daytona International Speedway. Workers paved the drainage layer in Turns 3 and 4, the first of four layers that will make up the 2.5-mile tri-oval.