I got the story of exactly how a relatively recent Scott Rothstein swindle occurred, but I have to be a bit cautious about the way I tell it so as not to reveal the investor’s identity. The investment was made in the last eight months and it involved pooled money from…
Let’s check out local news on this Tuesday:Which boat of Bernie’s floats your boat? The whole “flotilla” is to be auctioned today in Fort Lauderdale, with proceeds going toward a good cause: the scores of cheated investors. But mostly, attorney fees. [Sun-Sentinel]Dalia Dippolito, the Boynton Beach woman who’s accused of…
On Yom Kippur a couple of years ago, Downtown Jewish Center Chabad Rabbi Schneur Kaplan did something decidedly unorthodox. Also in attendance was Ovadia “Ovi” Levy, Rothstein’s friend and business partner in the Renato watch company (I’m also told that he, like Rothstein, drove a $1.5 million Bugatti Veyron). Sources have told me…
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that former Broward County commissioner Joe Eggelletion was a vice mayor under Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter. This article has also been changed to clarify Ritter’s relationship with Scott Rothstein.After the year that Broward County has had, we may all need shot…
That’s video from August 29, when Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis climbed in the ring with NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor. Considering that LT could have crushed Ortis’ skull with one swing, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the rolly-polly mayor is an advocate of civility and…
On the right, pictured beneath the unforgiving fluorescent light in the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office, that’s Ann Marie Fletcher, a dancer at Platinum Showgirls. Or at least she was a dancer as recently as October 30, when the Boynton Beach club was raided by police. Were it not, maybe Fletcher…
You can almost feel the walls closing in on Scott Rothstein. It’s clear from the string of emails Rothstein sent to Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler staff before his dramatic billion-dollar implosion that he became increasingly isolated from his lawyers — former judges, prosecutors, and specialists whom he routinely called his “kids” –…
Daniel Arnodo, a 26-year-old from Coral Springs, was one of the two people killed Sunday morning in a fire that erupted in his home in the Shaker Village subdivision just north of Commercial Boulevard.The other fatality is a woman, but Broward Sheriff’s Office investigators aren’t going to name her until…
In a post Friday I quoted a former dancer who claimed that clubowner Matt Barrow was conscientious about the law and that he strictly forbade both drugs and sex with customers. She expressed doubt about investigators’ claims that Barrow and club managers were aware of and profited from the dancers’…
What are the odds? Of 10 extraordinary people chosen from around the globe as the finalists for CNN’s Heroes of 2009, two of them are doing their good deeds based in South Florida. And until this Thursday the 19th, you can click here to vote for one of them, possibly…
Just what the Rothstein investigation needed: a big dose of public pressure by people who don’t have a clue about the case but have some weird emotional need to see the already disgraced attorney slightly more humbled by being placed in a jail cell. That’s what you’ve got in today’s…
Saturday night, the President of the World was in Boca Raton to give a speech on climate change at the Mizner Park Amphitheater. Crowds lined up to buy tickets to listen to Al Gore speak or to protest, boo and hiss from outside during the event. I’ll be right up…
A Canadian teenager who is among the leading contenders for an Olympic gold in men’s figure skating has taken his practice regimen south. Patrick Chan, winner of the gold men in the Four Continents and Canadian Figure Skating Championships earlier this year, recently relocated from his training camp in Orlando,…
A peek at the local stories people are talking about on this Monday:Three Coral Springs teenagers are dead following a strange accident early Sunday morning, which started with a fender bender. For some reason, the car accelerated away from the scene, then flipped into the canal. [WPLG]Bob Norman got his…
Following are two emails sent by Scott Rothstein to law firm staff concerning his chief operating officer and executive vice president, Debra Villegas. If you had any doubt that Villegas was the Ponzi schemer’s right-hand woman and most trusted person in the firm, these will quickly erase them. Keep in mind that…
For your reading enjoyment, I was anonymously forwarded this strange email purportedly sent by Scott Rothstein to his staff at Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler on May 1, five months before his Ponzi scheme blew up. What’s funny is that it comes with a maniacal laugh, more than one reference to insanity, and he actually…
If you’re headed to Flamingo Road Church in Cooper City, you can leave your Sunday best in the closet. Services are streamed online. For communion-by-computer, you can bless your own bread and wine. And if you’re a newcomer, fill the bathtub, because Flamingo Road also does virtual baptisms. See above.In…
This week Lou Dobbs, the last of the original CNN anchors, announced he was leaving the station and ending his show on that network to “go beyond the role here at CNN” and “engage in constructive problem solving.”While this could mean many things, the smart money says his “constructive problem…
Yesterday morning, in a dirt lot off Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach, I witnessed Vanilla Ice (real name Rob Van Winkle) jump over a jacked-up Monster Truck with about 10 people in the bed. Ice, who lives in Wellington and has ridden professionally, was on a buddy’s dirtbike.This is…
Following is some of what is one of the best interviews so far during this whole Rothstein thing, snagged by Susan Spencer-Wendel at the Palm Beach Post. It’s from former Circuit Judge William Berger. He’s the Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler law firm partner in Palm Beach County who had legitimate cases representing two girls involved in billionaire…
