Sun-Sentinel Finally Touches Gardiner Story

Pulp readers have been aware of the events surrounding Judge Ana Gardiner and alleged improper relationships with attorneys in her courtrooom for months. In the weeks after I broke the story, one of the lawyers named in it, veteran homicide prosecutor Howard Scheinberg, left the State Attorney’s Office and Gardiner…

Ken Jenne Back At Work At Rothstein’s Firm

This just in: Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein confirmed today that disgraced former Broward sheriff Ken Jenne has accepted a job at his law firm and is working in its political consulting group. Rothstein, the managing shareholder and CEO of the firm Rothstein, Rosenfeldt Adler P.A., said Jenne started working…

Damn It Feels Good To Be A Banksta

For your enjoyment in these trying times. Reminds me of the following vid from Office Space. Think about it, we might just be on the cusp of the collapse of this whole rotten enslaving soul-sucking corporate structure. Then we’ll all have a lot of time left for fishing and crawling…

Sam Zell’s Tao: “Anything Is Possibly True”

Everybody I know at the Sun-Sentinel doesn’t just expect another round of layoffs; they treat it as a done deal. Many are planning their futures around it. For good reason: Tribune Co.’s debt ($12.5 billion) is so massive and its revenues so tenuous that its very survival is in question…

Tsunami Ahead

Less than a month away, the presidential election looms off the coast of South Florida like a seasonal storm, one of those buzz-saw conflagrations that television weathermen track on their display maps. Yes, it’s a red, flaming buzz saw coming this way. Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes likes the…

Dueling Detectives: Private dick Dan Riemer says he solved the murder of Broward County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Chris Reyka — no thanks to the Sheriff’s Department detectives

Homicide detectives are close to solving the murder of Sgt. Chris Reyka, one of their own. Broward Sheriff’s Office investigators have suspects in the highly publicized case: a gang of armed robbers with a terrifying penchant to hit 24-hour drugstores in the middle of the night. They have the motive:…

Letters for October 9-15, 2008

No Room at the Inn Good, thought-provoking article (“The $50 Million Solution,” Bob Norman, October 2), though I need to question one item you included. You correctly state that Broward County Auditor Evan Lukic investigated Broward Addiction Recovery Center and found it “underused and wasting money.” I can’t comment on…

Lee Abrams, Right or Wrong

Tribune Co. “Innovation Chief” Lee Abrams recently complained in one of his “think pieces” that he didn’t like the label “Special Advertising Section” when it is used for, um, special advertising sections. You know what they are, those sections that look and read like news stories but are really promoting…

Race Trudges On After Dullsville Debate

Since I started doing this, might as well do a quickee general analysis on tonight’s presidential debate. My analysis: Obama was better, but he wasn’t all that great. McCain played the role of the cranky geezer quite well. In some ways ol’ McNasty was terrible, but I actually thought he…

McCain, Palin Go Below The Belt

With all the dirty politics you’re about to see from the McCain campaign, America is going to need a hot shower. This nonsense about William Ayers is just the beginning. As you probably know by now, Ayers is the 60s radical and former Weathermen terrorist who during the years since…

A Stock Market Carol

Remember back in February when Tribune Co. owner and commercial real estate titan Sam Zell declared that he was seeing a bottom in the RE market? Here’s an item from the ghost of the stock market past: By Robert Manor, Chicago Tribune Feb. 5, 2008 – Billionaire Chicago investor Sam…

A Fitting Farewell To The Herald’s Fallen

I don’t have much to say about this, other than it’s a beautiful tribute to those who are leaving the Miami Herald today in the latest round of layoffs. It actually feels like a eulogy — not for the very-much-alive people in it, but for a time and place in…

Biden-Palin Debate Rundown

Just for the hell of it. I’m not coming at this from a substantive point of view so much as an opinion on how it played across this great land of ours. — Good debate by historical standards (ever see the national disgrace that was the George H.W. Bush/Geraldine Ferraro…

RIP Fred Pettijohn

Fred Pettijohn, founding editor of the Sun-Sentinel and namesake of the newspaper’s annual awards, died last night. He was 91. Former Sentinel editor and writing coach John de Groot writes of his mentor: Fred Pettijohn, my friend and mentor for 35 years died last night shortly before 8 o’clock after…

Morning Mugshots: The Ultimate Pick-You-Up

I may be a little late on this call, but I noticed this morning that the Sun-Sentinel has followed the Palm Beach Post’s lead and is posting mugshots from the Broward County Jail. Well, you know it is a public service. Whenever you feel like a loser, start wading through…

Stadium Madness

It has been a bad year for sports venues. The Orange Bowl went boom. The Miami Arena imploded. Even the House that Ruth Built is no more. Of course, at a time of economic Armageddon, we’re building more. The Heat and Panthers already nailed us for a cool half-billion. FIU…

You’re Fired!

The fate of one New Times sidewalk distribution box doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this cockeyed world of ours. It’s there one minute — on the sidewalk in front of Donald Trump’s brand-new Trump International Hotel & Tower on A1A — and gone the next. Mysteriously gone…

Billed for Bull

It was a stunning about-face for the man who runs the Broward County Courthouse. Chief Judge Victor Tobin, the same man who had virtually pleaded with commissioners for months to build more courthouse space, met with county staffers and told them that a planned $31 million addition to add ten…

Amazonia

The elevator doors part, and Mikayla Miles joins a trio of clean-cut executives on the way up to the ninth floor. It’s 8 p.m., and the businessmen, still in their suits, cease chatting to stare at the dimpled, green-eyed blond. A muscular 220 pounds, she towers over them at six…

Letters for October 2-8, 2008

Triple Threat Wow! What a story (“Packing a Tune,” Penn Bullock, September 25). And that song “Change” is great too. Not many guys can rub you down, write you a tune, and sell you a gun all at the same time! Willy Bermuda Hollywood Boyfriend Hits a Homer I really…