Bethenny Frankel is the token single working gal on the Bravo reality TV show The Real Housewives of New York City. She’s also a Pinecrest Prep alum and onetime resident of Boca Raton. Today, Frankel will rub elbows with some of the real housewives of Boca Raton. Frankel, a natural-foods chef, is…
This Stanford Group case keeps getting uglier. Stanford employees gave over $31, 000 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and over $28,000 to Republican candidate Sen. John McCain.The only good news: FBI agents found alleged $8 billion fraudster Allen Stanford in Virginia yesterday and he turned in his U.S. passport.This morning,…
A Palm Beach rabbi tells ABC News that the Bernie Madoff controversy “gives red meat to anti-Semites” and has caused a religious divide on the island. Rabbi Michael Resnick’s comments not only fueled this online story but also a follow-up 20/20 report tonight on the town’s Holy Land-type division. Now…
We know that Joel Steinger, the mastermind of the billion-dollar Mutual Benefits Ponzi scheme with ties to several Broward politicians (Steve Geller, Stacy Ritter, Ellyn Bogdanoff, and others), had connections to Colombian drug cartels. Now we have evidence of another intriguing connection, this one to the so-called Jewish Mafia in Miami, including business mogul and…
SEIU Protestors That will be the view outside the Broward County Courthouse this afternoon. Close to 100 members and sympathizers of the Service Employees International Union plan to protest the county’s negotiations with janitorial services provider TCB Systems, Inc. of Miami. TCB Systems is on the shortlist of bidders seeking to clean…
Democrats desperate to put some dents in Gov. Charlie Crist’s high approval ratings are chastising him for keeping a butler and a personal chef on the state payroll at a time when cops and teachers are being laid off. In a statement released today, Florida Democratic Party Chair Karen Thurman…
Buddy Nevins spots a flock of vultures circling the reelection campaign of Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Christine Teel.In the Feb. 10 muni elections, Teel scored more votes than her closest challenger, former Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Bruce Roberts. But the other challenger, Attorney Inger Garcia, has given her unequivocal endorsement to…
Maybe the worst days of this region’s housing crisis are finally behind us.A day after President Barack Obama outlined a plan to help as many as 9 million families avoid foreclosures comes news that the number of foreclosure filings in South Florida fell 12 percent in January…
Never, ever, ever turn your back on a duck. Sure, they look cute and harmless, but then so do Swiss bankers. WPLG tells the story of a sweet old lady in Wilton Manors who crossed the path of some pissed-off poultry.Carmela Dee, who is in her 80s, said she was…
By now, everybody knows about the $8 million Revenge of the Smoker’s Widow. But Philip Morris wasn’t the only international heavyweight to have a costly day at the U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale. Today’s New York Times leads with a story about the $780 million settlement struck between Swiss…
Yellow Cab czar Jesse Gaddis has been running the taxi dispatch system at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport for decades. But now the dispatch contract is being put out for bid — and Broward County staff has effectively disqualified Gaddis from the job. In a request for letters of interest (RLI) the county forbids…
Fewer outsiders are moving to Florida, and the biggest drop in newcomers is among New Yorkers. The number of New Yorkers registering to drive in Florida has dropped by 50 percent in recent years, leading to what I’m sure will be remembered as The Great New Yorker Shortage of 2009.It’d…
They serve your food. They sort your mail. They man the ladder trucks. They are your accountants. Your nurses. Your personal trainers. But when they are finished cooking your food and bagging your groceries and driving your children home from school, they become something bigger: a heavily armored storm trooper,…
Joel Steinger is a shrewd operator who gained great sway over local politicians and the Florida Legislature while he perpetrated one of the greatest frauds in South Florida history. His billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, Mutual Benefits Corp., was busted in 2004. This past December, the feds indicted him on fraud and…
That’s the handsome reward for the widow of a Cooper City man killed by lung cancer. …
When Erin Barylski was about five years old, she discovered a rare talent. She could do the splits, then hop from that position, entirely on the strength of her inner thighs. She’d then land right on the, uh, bottom of her torso — before her thighs sent her upward again…
The E.W. Scripps Company, which owns ten TV stations (including WPTV-Channel 5 in West Palm Beach) and 17 newspapers (the Rocky Mountain News, the Commercial Appeal, and the Naples Daily News among them) announced today that the company is suspending its 401-K match and freezing the company’s pension plan. In addition, the TV…
The big punchline in Washington D.C. these days is “bipartisanship.” Barack Obama wants to be friends with Republicans but they don’t want to be friends with him. Of course, it’s all politics. The Republicans have nothing to gain from jumping on the Obama bandwagon and everything to gain if that…
For those of you following the Mutual Benefits story, here’s a photograph to bring some visuals to the table. It was taken in Bogota, Colombia, in 2001, as Mutual Benefits was trying to round up South American investors in what feds say was a billion dollar Ponzi scheme. The rather heavyset dark-haired fellow in…
Uh-oh…. What’s that loud grumbling sound? New Times is hearing from people who bought tickets to the once-mighty Langerado Music Festival, which was scheduled for March 6 through 8, but abruptly canceled this year. Some music fans say they are not getting refunds they were promised. Would-be concertgoers hoped to…
Last evening I endured the mind-numbingly slow commute west from downtown Fort Lauderdale to see in person whether this Florida Panthers squad was for real, or just a fringey playoff team. The Atlantic Division leading New Jersey Devils would make a good measuring stick. The Cats dominated the Devils all…
Deuce McAllister that is. He was released yesterday by the New Orleans Saints. He might be a good fit with Miami, though the Dolphins’ 11-5 record puts them near the bottom of the waiver priority list. Still, this is a day for immature headline writers across this nation to celebrate…
