Gerald Hemp is a totally ’80s bad guy — the kind you’d expect to encounter on Miami Vice. But it’s not just because Hemp was known to ferry huge shipments of cocaine by private plane. What made Hemp special was his facility for shifting identities and slipping out of prisons.Raised…
Outside American Airlines Arena in Miami this Friday will be a pack of angry clowns. No, it’s not a Nickelback concert; it’s the circus. And the clowns outside won’t be working for Ringling Bros. They’re animals rights activists protesting Ringling’s treatment of elephants.Leading up to the protest, members of the…
This is like one of those winters that the Ingalls family survived, isn’t it? Let’s try to press on, beginning with this morning’s local headlines:In what Commissioner Bill Ganz described as a “painful” decision, he brought a motion to fire City Manager Mike Mahaney. Tempers flared. Accusations were hurled. Video…
OK, it’s finally official: Scott Rothstein has been cooperating all along. If you’ve been reading this blog, you not only already knew that but you also knew that Rothstein was actively trying to drum up cases for the feds before he was incarcerated, including one against his old friend, Muhammed “Moe” Sohail, the…
In this evening’s meeting of the Deerfield Beach City Commission, officials took an initial step toward terminating Mike Mahaney as their city manager, a post he’s held for nearly three years.The motion was made by Commissioner Bill Ganz, who told his colleagues that he’d discussed the matter earlier that day…
If you’ve been following the Scott Rothstein case at all, this forthcoming guilty plea had all the suspense of a Harlem Globetrotters game. Yes, the guy who voluntarily flew back from Morocco, who was quite obviously speaking to federal prosecutors about what evidence he could offer in exchange for a…
Let’s not get too carried away with the celebration for our soon-to-be cheaper trash bills. We had been paying $98.50 per ton for trash. And now Broward residents will pay $61.75 per ton. That’s because we’ve finally paid off the bonds for the two incinerators, which are so huge that…
Lynn Haberl, aunt of slain RRA attorney Melissa Britt Lewis, says she remembers when, in very early November, her sister sent her an email about Scott Rothstein. Her life hasn’t been the same since. “She wrote that we may be heading for some issues with Melissa,” Haberl told me today…
We have a local winner in the Darwin Awards, a contest that rewards fabulous demonstrations of human mortality — but exists mostly for the enjoyment of people with an extremely dark sense of humor. This year, that dubious honor belongs to Shawn Paul Montero, a 30-year-old man who on the…
How many free steak dinners does it take to corrupt a chief of police? The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is “still weighing” whether to investigate Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Frank Adderley’s relationship with Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein. The stink arose over claims that Adderley was so enmeshed with Rothstein…
In a Florida Republican Party in which Charlie Crist is a mere mortal, there can be no saving his handpicked party chair, Jim Greer. The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Greer will resign his leadership post in advance of a party meeting on Saturday in Orlando, where he was likely…
In these bleak days for the newspaper industry, it’s rare to find a sliver of encouraging news. At South Florida’s dailies, more than 1,000 people have lost their jobs in the past few years, and more layoffs seem to be announced every few months.So one can hardly blame the top…
Brad Meltzer is the bestselling author of The Book of Fate, so his predictions should not be taken lightly. U.S. News & World Report rounded up him and others among America’s public intellectuals to get their perspective on what would happen in 2010. Meltzer’s crystal ball imagines a right winger’s…
Broward County, a longtime bastion of Democratic politics, is under siege — not by Republicans, mind you, but by their indefatigable libertarian wing, the Tea Party. Don’t believe me? Then watch the video below, apparently shot by an Austrian economist and tourist who is fascinated by the Tea Party’s growth…
UPDATED: Federal Judge William Zloch has been trying to hide his finances and the finances of other judges for several years, but attorney Loring Spolter’s allegation that he leaves the forms blank appear to be false. It’s not blank, but the question is whether it’s complete. To see an example of…
Since Bucknell beat Miami in 1935, the annual Orange Bowl has provided some of the best moments of every college football season. Starting in the ’90s, the game also provided a few national championships. Though the game hasn’t been held in the physical Orange Bowl in Miami since 1999 (it’s…
As Florida drifts closer to the Arctic Circle, let’s see what’s happening in other local news:The man who was shot and killed by a Pembroke Pines police officer Monday afternoon was Clifford Sheldon McLean, a 24-year-old North Miami man suspected in the torching death of his mother earlier that day…
Last week, Palm Beach divorcee Ivana Trump was escorted off a Palm Beach International Airport flight after some rowdy children — “little fuckers,” as she called them — sent her flying into a rage. So this week seems like a perfect occasion to introduce her gender-bending doppelganger, Ivana Tramp, a…
Later this month, when North Broward Hospital District Commissioner Robert Bernstein makes his case to the board for firing CEO Frank Nask, it’ll be based on these grounds:that Nask’s lack of hospital operations experience has made him use poor judgment in deciding what district programs should be trimmed and which…
Commissioner Robert Bernstein has asked that the North Broward Hospital District’s board consider removing the public hospital’s CEO, Frank Nask, after a year when the district was hit by a barrage of scandals.The item will be placed on the board’s January 27 agenda. District spokesperson Sara Howley couldn’t immediately confirm…
