“I have decided to release Jose Jose from his scholarship at UCF due to expected player conduct rules and guidelines that have been established by UCF and UCF the football program,” read a statement from O’Leary.

UCF athletic director Keith Tribble stood by O’Leary’s decision.

“In the larger picture, it is our hope that something positive may result from this situation for Jose,” Tribble said.

It’s not clear if Jose will still be attending any college after the arrest.

He could have gone to UF, Tennessee, Miami, Rutgers or USF — but Miami Central High School football standout Jose Jose committed to go to UCF this fall.

He was one of UCF’s highest-profile recruits. But on Friday, he went to jail.

Now, the question is: Will the 6-foot-3, 340-pounder still come play for the UCF Knights?

Is he worth the risk?

The Orlando Sentinel reported: “Jose was charged with carrying a concealed firearm and aggravated assault with a firearm. He was booked in the Dade County jail at 7:47 a.m. Friday. He faces a $12,500 bond and has not been released. No other court records or details about the arrest were available Friday afternoon.”

It wasn’t clear what exactly led to the arrest, and the Sentinel reported that UCF officials could not be reached for comment.

Jose had committed to Tennessee, but reportedly backed out after Lane Kiffin ditched the program. He also had worn a USF Bulls hat to his high school on National Signing Day, but joined four of his teammates in signing with the Knights, the paper reported.

Read the Sentinel story here.

Check out our video interviews below.

Share your Spring Break with KnightNews.com. Send any photos or videos you want us to post to news@knightnews.com.

Have fun and be safe!

The protest came on the same day students from across the country had enormous rallies in California to fight against raising tuition, and cuts to higher education.

The protest was publicized by a facebook event created by SLAP. David Fernandez is the group’s president, and used a microphone to make his point to students passing by.

Fernandez said students need to, “Scream, shout, chant and make our voices heard from every corner of this campus all the way to the halls of Tallahassee.”

SGA appeared to have some involvement in the event, but KnightNews.com received no press release from its paid team of public relations writing staff confirming that to be the case or notifying us of the event. In our attempt to confirm SGA’s official role, a public records request was sent by KnightNews.com to SGA requesting any press release about this event, but it was not yet returned.

KnightNews.com happened to notice the demonstration and stopped by to provide coverage of the issue of importance to students. If your organization is planning a student protest, e-mail news@knightnews.com and KnightNews.com will announce it to its regular audience of 20,000 unique visitors. We may even be able to arrange live streaming video as part of our coverage to reach those who can’t attend.

It appeared the protest ended after some officials participating in the demonstration warned those using the microphone they only had two minutes of “amplified sound” left, seemingly in reference to UCF’s policies governing student assembly.

KnightNews.com is considering possible possible legal action against UCF for the way it interprets the First Amendment. On Friday, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a national watchdog group, published a story about Our Fight for Free Speech.

As KnightNews.com’s Promise to Fight For You, we will scrutinize the Florida Legislature during this current legislative session and expose any proposals which could affect your education and rights.

Sean Fletcher from Theta Chi came in first place overall in the competition, which was sponsored by KnightNews.com and its video production team.

Here is our exclusive interview with the new Xi Man after he won. Below that, you will also find videos of all the acts from the night in their entirety.

Xi Man 2010 Intro Video:

Alpha Epsilon Pi:

Delta Tau Delta:

Delta Upsilon:

Kappa Sigma:

Sigma Lambda Beta:

Phi Gamma Delta:

Zeta Beta Tau:

Theta Chi:

Sigma Pi:

UPDATE: Read the press release we got from Seminole Sheriff’s officials detailing how big of a role they say UCF students had in this major drug operation, worth about $750,000 each week.

If you’re one of the many UCF students who smokes marijuana, you might have a hard time finding any, as the local supply just took a major hit.

And since KnightNews.com first informed the UCF community about this major drug bust, WFTV-Channel 9 opened its noon news cast by declaring a UCF student screamed “legalize marijuana” to a reporter as he was being taken into custody.

The station reported the student is going to miss his midterm exam today, because he’ll be in jail. KnightNews.com is waiting for UCF to officially confirm his status as a student. We are also waiting to hear from UCF police to see if the officers two KnightNews.com staff members saw patrolling Pegasus Pointe this morning wearing apparent bullet-proof vests were involved in this multi-agency drug sting.

Suspected drug dealers across five Central Florida counties were hit simultaneously by drug investigators this morning as a six-month investigation came to a head, according to reports.

The pot came from Mexico and California, with the California pot priced higher because of its better quality, WESH-2 News reported.

Where was the pot headed?

Likely right here to the University of Central Florida and also to Florida State University, WESH reported.

Officials hoped to arrest 41 different people in the raids.

This morning, KnightNews.com crews saw UCF police with guns and bullet-proof vests walking around some Alafaya-area apartments. however, it’s not clear if this is related.

KnightNews.com has e-mailed Sgt. Troy Williamson, the new public information office for UCF police, to get more information. When we hear back, we will let you know.

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KnightNews.com has obtained a press release with more information from the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office. CLICK NEXT PAGE BELOW TO READ IT.

Allegations of hazing, withholding food from sorority pledges who don’t vote and rewarding those who do with alcohol were among some of the shocking tactics allegedly used by those within the University of Florida’s Student Government, according to the Gainesville Sun, which reported the tactics were caught on a secretly recorded audio file.

“Not too many sororities do that, that’s awesome,” said a member of student government present during the February 23 meeting allegedly held at UF’s Theta Chi house after the polls closed that day, according to the report.

“That’s amazing, that’s what you need to do,” he reportedly said, referring to a sorority member’s alleged comment about how they don’t allow their pledges to eat until they vote.

During UCF’s SGA elections, KnightNews.com was told allegations of hazing were made against pledges for forcing them to campaign, but those allegations were never substantiated by the school, according to a source close to the issue. Pledges were seen campaigning for both sides during UCF’s election.

At the University of Florida, however, it appears Greeks stick together under the Unite Party. According to the Sun, the recording detailed just how important party members felt it was to maintain control.

“We gotta win this election tomorrow,” one member was recorded saying. “That way we can continue dominating this campus, continue doing what we want and continue living the life that we live.”

A sorority member warned those gathered during the meeting that the opposing Student Alliance party wanted Greek Life destroyed.

“They want everything gone for us,” she says. “It’s not a joke. They want to see every letter we have stripped away from us. They don’t want us to live the life we have.”

Current UF Student Body President Jordan Johnson confirmed to the Sun he attended a meeting at the Theta Chi house that night, but denied hearing anything about providing alcohol or denying food in return for voting or not voting, the paper reported.

Johnson also suggested the recording, which was reportedly obtained by an anonymous person and then obtained by the Student Alliance party, may have been obtained illegally.

As KnightNews.com reported during the alleged Will Lusk bribery scandal hearings, Florida law requires all parties consent during recorded telephone calls. However, the legality of recording someone who is not on the phone becomes less clear.

According to the Citizen Media Law Project, Florida law allows non-consensual audio recording when the parties do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the conversation, such as when they are engaged in conversation in a public place where they might reasonably be overheard.

It would apparently be up to a court to decide whether those in the alleged meeting had a reasonable expectation of privacy when they were recorded. The recording was reportedly played during UF’s Tuesday night Student Senate meeting in Gainesville.

Jonathan Ossip, a senator with the Student Alliance party, told the Sun, “This confirms everything we’ve always been saying about Student Government. There’s corruption; there’s coercion; it’s broken and it needs to be fixed.”

He also suggested what he apparently considers to be a culture of corruption could eventually poison the Florida Legislature, which boasts a large number of Gator alumni.

“If that’s what they’re teaching our future leaders,” he told the Sun, “then I’m really scared what our politicians are gonna look like in 15 years.”

KnightNews.com will file a public records request for the audio recording Thursday, and publish it once we receive it.

Check back for updates on this developing story.

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Click on NEXT PAGE below to read a copy of the transcript, as published on http://www.thefineprintuf.org/2010/03/03/audio-test/

ORLANDO, Fla. — If you walked into the SGA election violation hearing regarding Student Body President-Elect Michael Kilbride Tuesday morning, no one would have stopped you at the door.

After all, the hearing was held in the Student Union of the University of Central Floida, a public building belonging to a public institution funded by state tax and tuition dollars. And, the hearing was regarding an important issue — whether his SGA presidential election victory, which guarantees him a seat on UCF’s Board of Trustees, would stand.

If you did happen to walk inside the room, sit down and watch the public hearing play out, you would have been easily able to identify Kilbride sitting before the Election Commission and successfully defend himself against the alleged violation. You even would have been able to video record it, or snap photos to publish online.

But if you had class that day and couldn’t make it in person, and instead asked UCF for a copy of the violation paperwork the next day, you no longer would be able to identify that it was Kilbride who was accused, or identify the student who did the accusing — because UCF’s team of attorneys claims it must first black out each student name before releasing documents to protect their educational privacy rights.

It might not matter to the average student now, but fast forward to this summer, when Kilbride is sworn in and sitting on UCF’s Board of Trustees. He may be asked to vote to cut majors, as current SGA President Brian Peterson was asked to last summer. KnightNews.com attended the meeting, and reported how Peterson refused to vote for those cuts.

But what if KnightNews.com isn’t able to make it to a meeting this summer? What if the Central Florida Future doesn’t show up either? What if your major is cut — by a margin of one vote?

How would you know if the student body president stood up for you?

You won’t find out by requesting the minutes, at least if UCF sticks to its apparent current interpretation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act — or FERPA.

According to a response letter KnightNews.com received Tuesday from UCF Associate General Counsel Youndy Cook, UCF is required to “redact personally identifiable information as neceassary to secure the privacy rights of students of the University” when releasing educational records.

UCF’s process of redaction, or removal, can be uniquely costly. Instead of redacting the records electronically, as the Orange County Sheriff’s Office does when releasing reports to KnightNews.com, UCF routinely forces the requesting party to pay the maximum fee state law allows for the cost of printing and additional labor.

Nearly one month ago, KnightNews.com filed a public records request for budget request packets submitted by Registered Student Organizations hoping to receive student activity and service fee funding. Even though the packets reportedly exist electronically, UCF said “we still insist they must be printed out and redacted” so the names of RSO leaders requesting the state money wouldn’t be released.

KnightNews.com questioned whether FERPA rules justified UCF in its stance — especially after discovering how UCF routinely publishes the names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers of RSO leaders on this Web site and this one too.

Office of Student Involvement Advisor Christa Coffey said that the RSO president’s name, phone and e-mail address are included on each budget request form and that there is no FERPA waiver required for student organization officers, “which is why the General Counsel’s office is required to redact some of the information on the RSO budget requests.”

Considering how restrictive Cook suggests FERPA is, KnightNews.com asked if UCF requires student leaders to sign a written waiver of FERPA rights or document authorizing the university to publish their names online for the whole world to see.

But there is “no such form,” Coffey confirmed, “that the contract person would sign in order to have the information … posted on the website.”

Even after KnightNews.com pointed this information out to UCF’s team of attorneys, also known as the Office of the General Counsel, the university still refused to provide the paperwork without first redacting the names.

KnightNews.com requested mediation of its dispute with the university through Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office, but the university declined the request by not responding, according to an attorney in McCollum’s office.

When mediation fails, the next step in a records dispute such as this one could include filing a criminal complaint with Orange County’s prosecutor, according to the Attorney General’s office. Penalties could include jail time for certain record violations.

Another option would be suing the university to get access to the records. A student newspaper in Wisconsin recently took that action in a very similar dispute, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee backed down, turned over the records and agreed to pay the paper’s attorneys more than $11,700 in fees.

If KnightNews.com sues UCF over the records — and possibly other issues students face such as freedom to assemble peacefully near the Student Union stage, freedom to gather news outside of the “Free Assembly Area” and freedom to assemble peacefully for tailgates on Memory Mall before football games — it would mark the second time in recent memory that a group of students would file a lawsuit against UCF, claiming a violation of its rights.

The first lawsuit involved the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, which UCF declared to have committed “sexual misconduct” violations — even though the accuser dropped her corresponding criminal rape case, and changed her story several times, according to reports.

In that case, UCF was adamant it was well within its rights to suspend Beta for sexual misconduct violations, and insisted it didn’t violate any due process procedures in the case, according to reports. It wasn’t until after reports came out that a judge was giving Beta’s claims weight, that UCF backed down and settled with the fraternity.

Legal experts had suggested if the court sided with Beta, UCF’s broad and sweeping ability to punish students and organizations for actions of others through its Office of Student Conduct could have been weakened. Which raises the question: Did UCF back down because it wasn’t worth the risk?

KnightNews.com has obtained a copy of the settlement through a public records request. The settlement was agreed to by Youndy Cook, the same UCF attorney who sent KnightNews.com a letter claiming it had to redact student names from the elections violation records relating to SGA.

KnightNews.com is conducting more research and gathering evidence of all possible violations committed by UCF, and expects to make a decision on whether to file a lawsuit against the university — or instead attempt to settle the dispute without litigation — sometime immediately following Spring Break.

Check back to Our Fight for Free Speech section for updates.

The 18-year-old was victimized by the man on Saturday as she slept next to her boyfriend. She said the flashlight-toting intruder walked into the Heather Glen Apartments near UCF and shined the light in her face.

“He told me to lay back down, and so I laid back down here,” she told WKMG Local 6 news. “When he told me to roll over, I punched my boyfriend a little bit to try to wake him up, and then he told me not to speak or move.”

The victim told the station the intruder ran off after apparently getting scared.

Investigators told Fox 35 that the intruder likely intended to rape her.

“We don’t want to be specific in what he claimed to be armed with, or what he said he was going to do,” OCSO spokesman Jim Solomons told Fox-35. “But he made some very specific demands and told her what he wanted her to do.”

The man has reportedly targeted another young woman in the area as well. The sheriff’s office is asking everyone in the University area to be on alert and lock their doors.

The victimes said the man weighed more than 200 pounds, and stood around 5′10″ tall. He possibly has braids in his hair.

Fraternities, sororites and student organizations, like the dance group Rukus, all performed a variety of two-minute dances to woo the judges and emerge as this year’s winner. The judging panel was made up of two ADPi alumni, and two cheerleading/dance experts.

The event took place in the Venue (the old UCF arena), where hundreds of students were in attendance to cheer for their friends and support the cause. The Ronald McDonald House even had one of its families in attendance so students could see, firsthand, people who have benefit from this greast organization. Last year, the event raised more than $4,000.

Check out the performances here-

Sigma Chi:

Kapp Kappa Gamma:

Delta Upsilon:

Kappa Delta:

Phi Delta Theta:

Delta Tau Delta:

Sigma Nu:

Alpha Xi Delta:

Sigma Pi:

UCF Cheerleaders:

Alpha Delta Pi:

Delta Delta Delta:

All Stars Twisters:

All Stars:

UCF is the only university in Florida DOE is visiting in its current national tour, UCF said. It will begin Tuesday, March 2, at an 11 a.m. press conference featuring UCF’s solar carport plug-in facility used to charge electric vehicles. At the event, the Ford Motor Company will make its Florida debut of its new hybrid version of the Ford Escape. The visit will last until March 4.

The DOE representative will see a variety of green projects at UCF, including the thermal energy storage facility which UCF says will save the school $700,000 per year in energy costs, the green roof on UCF’s Student Union building, the UCF student housing energy savings competition, “Kill-A-Watt,” UCF’s solar-powered fleet car, the solar panels installed on the Engineering I building, the Florida Solar Energy Center at UCF’s Cocoa campus, and award-winning student research projects such as a wind turbine maximizer and a portable solar energy collector.