(NEW YORK) — Nearly a year after Jared Bridegan, a Microsoft executive and father of four, was gunned down on a Florida road in what authorities called a targeted ambush, a suspect has been arrested in connection with his murder, police announced Wednesday.

Bridegan was driving with his then-2-year-old daughter in Jacksonville Beach on Feb. 16, 2022, when he came upon a tire blocking his path, police said. When he stepped out of the car he was “gunned down in cold blood,” Jacksonville Beach Police Chief Gene Paul Smith said.

“This was a plan and a targeted ambush and murder,” Smith told reporters during a press briefing on Wednesday announcing an arrest in the case.

Henry Tenon, 61, was arrested Wednesday on charges including conspiracy to commit murder, second-degree murder with a weapon and accessory after the fact to a capital felony.

“We know Henry Tenon did not act alone,” State Attorney Melissa Nelson said at the press briefing.

Tenon also faces a child abuse charge due to Bridegan’s 2-year-old, who was strapped in her car seat, being “directly in harm’s way” when he was fatally shot, Nelson said.

The identification of a Ford F-150 spotted around the crime scene at the time of the shooting led to the arrest, Smith said.

Tenon is scheduled to appear in court Thursday morning, after which prosecutors will seek an indictment for first-degree murder, Nelson said. It is unclear if he has an attorney who can speak on his behalf.

The state has obtained a court ordering sealing Tenon’s arrest warrant and affidavit for the next 30 days to “protect the integrity” of the investigation, Nelson said.

Bridegan was driving home after dropping off twins she shares with his ex-wife when he came upon the “purposefully placed” tire and was shot, Smith said. Nothing was stolen, he said.

Bridegan’s wife, Kirsten Bridegan, told ABC News last year that she believed the attack was targeted.

“Some coward trapped him and took him out and that’s not OK,” said his widow, who had two children with Bridegan — the then-2-year-old and a younger daughter who was home with his wife at the time of the shooting.

She described her husband as a creative, fun and loving father who would do anything for his four kids.

“He loved being a dad. He genuinely did,” she said. “He would spend hours setting up some activity that he thought would be awesome.”

ABC News’ Melissa Gaffney contributed to this report.

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(BALTIMORE) — Baltimore County Public Schools failed to act on several state recommendations to help mitigate cyber attacks before a hack disrupted school operations and cost the school system millions of dollars in damages and repairs, according to a report from a state inspector general.

BCPS was hacked using a phishing email in November 2020 — a process that disrupted the school system’s website and remote learning programs for several days, according to the report from the Maryland Office of the Inspector General for Education.

The inspector general’s report found that the initial network compromise occurred 15 days before the network disruption and came in the form of an e-mail.

A teacher flagged the e-mail to the in-house tech support who forwarded the e-mail to a contracted tech support supervisor, according to the report.

“The OIGE investigation revealed that the contractor mistakenly opened the email with the attachment using their unsecured BCPS email domain account and not in their secured email domain. Consequently, opening the attachment in the unsecured environment served as the catalyst, which delivered the undetected malware into the BCPS IT network,” the report says.

The OIGE report says BCPS did not fully implement several network recommendations from the Maryland Office of Legislative Audits in recent audit reports, including the relocation of publicly accessible database servers and the adequate maintenance of internal network servers. BCPS has implemented an array of new network security measures since the cyber attack, the report says.

The report says the network upgrades and damages from the cyber attack cost BCPS nearly $10 million.

An investigation by the FBI and Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is ongoing, the report says.

BCPS did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

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(NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.) — A 29-year-old New Jersey woman fraudulently posed as a high school student for several days after allegedly filing false documents, school officials and police said.

The incident was announced during a New Brunswick School Board meeting Tuesday night.

The woman attended New Brunswick High School for four days last week before staff uncovered the “ruse,” New Brunswick Public Schools Superintendent Aubrey Johnson said during the meeting. She was barred from district property and “all the appropriate authorities were immediately notified,” Johnson said.

“This is an unfortunate event,” he said.

The New Brunswick Police Department said Hyejeong Shin, of New Brunswick, was charged on Tuesday with one count of providing a false government document with the intent to verify one’s identity or age.

“Specifically, Ms. Shin provided a false birth certificate to the New Brunswick Board of Education with the intent to enroll as a juvenile high-school student,” the police department said in a statement.

Students in New Jersey are able to attend school on a provisional basis and have 30 days to confirm their identity before they’re declared ineligible to attend classes.

The woman gained provisional admittance to the high school last week after allegedly filing false documents last week, according to Johnson. Staff members discovered the “deception” during their vetting process, he said.

School officials contacted students who may have encountered the fake student, Johnson said.

“We have told our students to refrain from having any further contact with her either remotely or in person,” he said.

In light of the incident, the district is going to examine its enrollment processes to “better look for fake documentation,” he added.

The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office told ABC News it is not currently investigating the incident.

The New Brunswick Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for more information on the case, including a possible motive.

ABC News was unable to reach Shin or an attorney on her behalf.

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(NEW YORK) — A Florida woman was arrested Wednesday for orchestrating a yearslong romance scam that defrauded an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor.

Peaches Stergo began her alleged scheme in May 2017 and bilked the victim out of $2.8 million over the next four years, federal prosecutors said.

Stergo met the victim on a dating website and eventually asked him to borrow money to pay her lawyer, who she claimed was refusing to release funds from an injury settlement, according to the indictment. After the victim gave her the money, Stergo said the settlement funds had been deposited into her TD Bank account.

In reality, bank records show Stergo never received any money from an injury settlement.

The alleged lies continued over the next four years. Stergo is charged with one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

“Stergo deceived an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, maliciously draining his life savings so she could become a millionaire through fraud. Stergo forged documents and impersonated a bank employee in exchange for a life of fancy trips, Rolex watches, and luxury purchases,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement.

Stergo, 36, of Champions Gate, Florida, repeatedly demanded the victim deposit money into her bank accounts. She claimed that if he did not, her accounts would be frozen and he would never be paid back. In total, the victim wrote 62 checks — totaling more than $2.8 million — that were deposited into Stergo’s bank accounts, the indictment said.

While the victim lost his life savings and was forced to give up his apartment, prosecutors said Stergo lived a life of luxury with the millions she received from the fraud. She bought a home in a gated community, a condominium, a boat and numerous cars, including a Corvette and a Chevy Suburban.

During the course of the fraud, Stergo also took expensive trips, staying at places like the Ritz Carlton, and spent many tens of thousands of dollars on expensive meals, gold coins and bars, jewelry, Rolex watches and designer clothing from stores like Tiffany, Ralph Lauren, Neiman Marcus, Louis Vuitton and Hermes, according to prosecutors and the FBI.

“Today we allege the defendant callously preyed on a senior citizen simply seeking companionship, defrauding him of his life savings,” the FBI’s Mike Driscoll said in a statement.

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