Subject: Stacy Ritter

• Inside Baseball

  August 2, 2007

• Rush's Babe, Stacy Ritter, Gets Radio Show

  August 7, 2007

• The Best Reason Not To Vote For Obama

  August 21, 2007

• The Pulp Wishes Ritter Good Rittance

  September 4, 2007

• Judy Stern: All Clear For Profits

  August 6, 2008

• Stacy Ritter Gets Her Mouth On

  September 16, 2008

• Chick Fight! Bogdanoff Vs. Ritter

  October 24, 2008

• Note To Obama: Ritter Is All Yours

  There's a lot of talk about Broward County Commissioner Stacy Ritter going to work in Washington for the Barack Obama administration. I know this is simple politics, a payback, and I have a plea for the president-elect: Take her. Please. Let's face it, Ritter can't do nearly as much damage in Washington, where's she'll be a tiny little fish, as she can here in Broward. She has, after all, been an absolute disaster as a county commissioner. Ritter has steered county dollars to former and curr

  November 17, 2008

• Battle Lines Forming at Ritter-Led Broward Commission

  I'm done knocking on new Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter. Why? Because I like her. I really like her.   There are signs that she's going to make county hall fun again. She possesses a huge ego -- so big that she actually had staff move a wall this weekend to make her new mayor's office bigger (and reduce the size of her staffers' quarters). An ego like that holds grudges; that's just the way it works. There's no love lost, for instance, between Ritter and fellow dais-sitter Lois Wex

  November 24, 2008

• Russ Klenet and Stacy Ritter Mutually Benefited From Fraud

  Scott Wyman writes this morning of a lawsuit filed against lobbyist Russ Klenet, the husband of Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter, by a former vice president of viatical company Mutual Benefits Corp. You might remember the name of the company -- it is, after all, accused of ripping off investors of about $1 billion in a Ponzi scheme described as the largest fraud in Florida history.  Klenet was the company's lobbyist beginning in 2003 -- and man did he jump in to help the compa

  January 22, 2009

• Stacy Ritter Voted For Company That Renovated Her Home

  While serving as a state representative in 2004, Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter voted on legislation that benefited the fraudulent company that paid her husband $20,000 a month, renovated her Parkland home at a cost of $100,000, docked her family's boat, and provided a house in Maine for vacations. Records show that Ritter voted yes on a bill in April 2004 that limited the state's regulatory control of husband Russ Klenet's employer, Mutual Benefits Co

  January 22, 2009

• Obama's BFF (Best Florida Friend) Embroiled In Home Renovation Scandal

  Sun-SentinelBroward County Mayor Stacy Ritter's involvement with a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme should finally wise Barack Obama up about his supporter, friend, and possible White House hire (that's the two of them pictured above at an Obama rally at the BankAtlantic Center last year). It's already an embarassment for the new Administration here in South Florida.  Just to update on what we know: A fraudulent viatical company, Mutual Benefits Corp., hired R

  January 23, 2009

• Stacy Ritter Misleads Herald, Public About Vote Scandal -- UPDATED

  Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter should have just kept her mouth shut. The Miami Herald got a few words out of Ritter regarding her and her husband Russ Klenet's Ponzi scheme/home renovation/voting scandal. And what does Ritter offer? Obfuscation and lies. From the article: Ritter, a Democratic lawmaker at the time, disputes media reports suggesting that her votes benefited Mutual Benefits. She said she had no conflict. ''It was an amendment that wasn't written by Mutual Benefi

  January 27, 2009

• Stacy Ritter Hits Back At New Times

  Stacy Ritter was interviewed on WFTL 850-AM this morning about the Mutual Benefits scandal -- and she took the time to take a shot at the Pulp host. (Quotes were typed fast, so forgive a typo or two).   "The newspapers are in business to sell ink and if they don't have anything to write about, they'll make it up," she said. "In this case I gotta tell you I've been disturbed by the Sun-Sentinel, Miami Herald and the New Times. Bob Norman from New Times has been on my

  January 28, 2009

• The Stage Is Set: Katherine Harris, Will You Please Run for U.S. Senate?

  Man, I turn my head for one day (to work on some print edition goodies) and all hell breaks loose in that 2010 Senate race. Democratic Rep. Allen Boyd is out. Democratic State Sen. Dan Gelber is in. Attorney General Bill McCollum is out. It's such a free-for-all that even Tampa's Democratic mayor is thinking about a bid.I hate to analyze this until the dust settles, but I just can't resist. After the jump, let's talk about who wins and who loses after the Hump Day Wildness.

  January 29, 2009

• Wyman Going All Norman On Ritter

  I'm on deadline and going to be giving some kind of talk about blogging this morning at Broward Community College's "journalism bootcamp," so I have little time for the Pulp.  So I'll link you to Scott Wyman's latest on Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter. It's a good one. Basically he found that she'd voted on a bill while she was in the legislature that benefited another of her husband's lobbying clients. Russ also happens to own a 63-foot yacht with the client, Mark Ginsburg. It's

  January 30, 2009

• Letters for August 9-15, 2007

  The Sameness of It All

  August 9, 2007

• Letters for August 30 to September 5, 2007

  August 30, 2007

• The Stacy Ritter Corruption Compendium

  After the Miami Herald over the weekend broke a story on yet another Stacy Ritter vote that benefitted the lobbying business of her husband, Russ Klenet, I think it's time we had a one-stop shopping spot for all the alleged misdeeds of the Ritter-Klenets. Because of its length, the post jumps. I will update as the saga unfolds. 2007 -- It begins in the summer of 2007 with a notebook left behind at a commission meeting by a supervisor working for URS, the company that has bee

  February 2, 2009

• Stacy Ritter v. The Miami Herald: Who's Right?

  The Miami Herald broke a story Sunday on Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter's alleged vote that favored the firm that runs BankAtlantic Center, Arena Operating Co., at the same time her husband was a paid lobbyist for the company. In the story, Ritter admits that she supported the move to shift insurance risk at the stadium to the taxpayers to help keep the Florida Panthers in town. She also appears to have admitted during the interview that she voted on the matter on the agenda it

  February 4, 2009

• Mayor Of Broward Says 'Stop Reading New Times'

  Last week, Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter said she would be happy to field questions about the Mutual Benefits scandal on her weekend AM radio show on 850-WFTL. But Ritter wasn't very pleased when a caller named John brought up the scandal involving both the mayor and her lobbyist husband Russ Klenet on the air Saturday morning. Ritter's voice rose with anger, she cut the caller off repeatedly, accused him of being, uh, me, and then terminated the call.  Here's a rou

  February 9, 2009

• Newsflash: Ritter Invited "Creepy" Joel Steinger To Her New Year's Party

  A Sun-Sentinel article this morning details the luxury items the fraudulent Mutual Benefits Corp. purchased for the Parkland home of Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter and her husband Russ Klenet. That's fine, but what's really interesting is that Ritter speaks out on what she really thinks of Mutual Benefits president Joel Steinger and his brothers. "I only met them briefly, once or twice, on a social basis and, candidly, didn't like them very

  February 10, 2009

• Did Drug Money Fund Renovation of Mayor's Home?

  The answer: Maybe, maybe not. But it's a fair question. Mutual Benefits, the fraud-filled firm that employed Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter's husband and paid $117,000 to renovate her Parkland home, was just a moderately successful (and moderately dirty) firm in 2001. Then it made its big push into Central and South America, where it started raking in tens of millions of dollars with investors. That's when Mutual Benefits went to a new level -- and started pouring mi

  February 11, 2009

• Mutual Benefits' Joel Steinger: Stacy Ritter 'Can't Seem To Tell The Truth'

  So I got former Mutual Benefits czar and current federal indictee Joel Steinger on the phone this afternoon. I didn't know what to expect from a guy with a past like his, but the Brooklyn-bred Steinger seemed ... laid-back and funny. He said he couldn't answer questions directly, but when I brought up Stacy Ritter and Russ Klenet, he couldn't help but making a play on Ritter's recent crack about him. "So tell me, does Stacy Ritter give you the creeps?" asked Steinger,

  February 11, 2009

• A Blind Date With Stacy Ritter

  Embattled Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter staged a not-for-media-consumption town hall-style meeting Wednesday at a Tamarac condo community, seeking to sway constituents toward believing her explanation of the Mutual Benefits scandal. Not the version in newspapers and blogs. And it actually seemed to work.As Bob Norman first reported in January on Daily Pulp, Ritter cast a vote in 2004 when she was a state legislator to pass a financial services bill that contained an amendment effectively pro

  February 26, 2009

• Ritter's Last Refuge: The Condo Circuit

  When Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter goes out in public, she feels the eyes on her -- and they're telling her she's on her way to jail. So yesterday afternoon she escaped into the last refuge of any corrupt Broward politician -- the retirement condo circuit. There, as the intrepid Thomas Francis reports on the Juice blog, she was embraced by octogenarian enablers at vote-rich Kings Point in Tamarac. Ritter told the crowd she doesn't keep up with her husband's lobbying work and

  February 26, 2009

• Con Man's Lobbying Dream Team Included Will McKinley

  With his fraudulent viatical company Mutual Benefits coming under fire from state regulators, convicted felon Joel Steinger decided he needed to buy the influence of the state legislature. To do that he first purchased the people who had their ears -- the lobbyists. McKinley: A Man For Sale We know that Steinger's right-hand man in his quest to buy influence was Russ Klenet, husband of then-state rep and current Broward County mayor Stacy Ritter. Also hired by Mutual Benefits w

  March 3, 2009

• A Couple Monday Must-Reads

  -- JAABlog reports on the latest developments of the Judge Ana Gardiner saga. The evidenciary hearing to determine if Gardiner did anything wrong when she partied with then-prosecutor Howard Scheinberg during a murder trial (and allegedly spoke with him about the case) is now scheduled to happen in Judge Paul Backman's courtroom. Problem: Backman and Gardiner are friends who were recently spotted dining together at Bova Prime (nice little plug there for you, Scotty). The question is ho

  April 6, 2009

• Mutual Benefits may have collapsed, but the fallout for South Florida politicians is still coming.

  January 29, 2009

• The Dirty Dozen of 2007

  Rush, Naugle, Loria... and, hey, what's going on in the criminal justice system?

  December 27, 2007

• Terrible Trio

  The Wasserstrom conviction should have at least a few pols shaking in fear — but, hey, this is Broward

  October 4, 2007

• Return to Sender

  When it comes to the specter of corruption, the Ritter-Klenet-URS connection has it all

  August 30, 2007

• The Stacy 'n' Russ Show

  Ritter & Klenet sounds like a lobbying firm

  August 2, 2007

• Marital Law

  Does Stacy Ritter's lobbyist husband swing her vote?

  July 26, 2007

• Broward Commissioners on Ethics Bill: WhatEVER

  In a conversation that seems to have been recorded at the cafeteria lunch table where the in crowd sits, Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter and Commissioner Ken Keechl decided that fellow Commissioner John Rodstrom is not in-crowd material. That's because Rodstrom's pushing a bill that would bar commissioners from calling upon their political connections to raise money for other political campaigns and third-party charitable organizations. It's the second excerpt in this Sun-Sentinel post from Ritter's

  April 20, 2009

• Broward's Royalty Talk About Feds, Gifts

      You must listen to this (courtesy of Scott Wyman). It's simply not getting enough views (75 after two days? Who says Broward County is apathetic about local politics?). And while listening remember that both Stacy Ritter and Ken Keechl are both at least tangentially subjects of the FBI investigation of Mutual Benefits, one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history. Ritter's husband, Russ Klenet, is knee-deep in that mess. Keechl defended the scam in court against victim who

  April 20, 2009

• Ken Kaye Bends Over For Stacy Ritter

  On Wednesday Sun-Sentinel weather writer Ken Kaye did a little blog post about Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter's complaint-fest at some event called the Florida Governor's Hurricane Conference. Apparently former hurricane center director Bill Proenza introduced her as the mayor of Fort Lauderdale. Kaye writes: Ritter, the first speaker during the conference's main session, immediately addressed that error. "If I may correct you," she said politely, "I'm not the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, a sm

  May 15, 2009

• Ritter Speaks! (Out of Both Sides of Mouth)

  RitterIt's strange to be astonished at the news that this county's mayor actually gave an interview, but so it goes in Broward. Stacy Ritter has been refusing interviews with reporters for much of 2009, in vain hopes that she can keep her associations with con man Joel Steinger out of the news. Impossible, given the interest that New Times' Bob Norman has taken in the subject. His most recent article appeared in last week's print edition.And perhaps Daily Pulp will have a take on Ritter's words

  June 11, 2009

• Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter and Sheriff Al Lamberti Face Campaign Finance Investigations

  June 25, 2009

• Members of the "Mitch Ceasar Mob" earn a steady paycheck for their political influence

  July 9, 2009

• Bitchin' Car, Al! But How Will You Explain It to Stacy?

  ​The Broward Sheriff's Office is rolling out a fleet of 2009 Dodge Challengers, but if this is the first you've heard about it, that's probably because they arrive amid a fierce round of budget slashing in other county agencies. Not exactly a climate for bragging about muscle cars.It's a little like that sitcom scene where the husband (Sheriff Al Lamberti, in our example) comes home with a new set of wheels and his spouse (Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter, let's say) fumes about how she's been tryin

  July 31, 2009

• Ritter Wants Answers About BSO's New Toys

  broward.orgRitter: Sheriff Al's got some 'splaining to do.​It wasn't quite the finger-wagging sitcom scene I predicted in Friday's post, but we were right in guessing that Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter is disappointed in Sheriff Al Lamberti's choosing the flamboyant Dodge Challenger to round out his agency's fleet of cars.Here's the note Ritter sent Juice: While I am sure that BSO feels the need to replace vehicles in the fleet, I have to question whether or not they can squeeze a few more miles

  August 3, 2009

• Crooked Courthouse

  August 13, 2009

• Broward Commissioners Silent on Dragon Boats

  Flickr user: Newfie BulletThe commissioners chose lunch over dragon boats.​Members of the dragon boat team fighting to keep practicing in West Lake Park finally made their pitch to the Broward County Commission this week. But they were met with resounding... silence. The commissioners, who allowed the Blazing Paddles to make a presentation at Tuesday's meeting, listened and smiled while three people spoke about their beloved, ancient Chinese sport. Behind them sat more than a dozen boaters who

  August 27, 2009

• "Stacie" Ritter -- not Stacy Ritter -- Is Hero of the Health-Care Crisis

  That's Stacie Ritter: The Cindy Sheehan of the health-care crisis, she's known some tough times. But this plucky mom is ready to take her fight for health care to the front door of the Cigna CEO's mansion. Meanwhile, Stacy Ritter has a mansion of her own, courtesy her marriage to mega-lobbyist Russ Klenet. And that home has a redesigned interior paid for by a convicted felon and alleged Ponzi schemer, Joel Steinger. Health-care coverage is far from the mind of Stacy Ritter, the Broward mayor.But

  October 1, 2009

• Morning Juice: Enough With the Broward Corruption -- Give It Arrest!

  ​The dawn brings a fresh batch of crazy to Broward and Palm Beach:At the risk of sounding like a broken record, more political figures have been arrested, including Ed Portner, running for mayor of Coral Springs Tamarac, for pulling a gun on his daughter Stacy Ritter, the mayor of Broward County. In the future, maybe it would just be easier to report when Broward officials don't get arrested? [Sun-Sentinel]The Super Bowl will be in South Florida again this year! But maybe never again, says the

  October 8, 2009

• Morning Juice: Adventures in Bad Parenting

  Time to get your Monday on. But first, a look back on what made news this past weekend.​Tamarac mayoral candidate Ed Portner gave a short interview to WPLG about why he went over to his daughter Stacy Ritter's home with a gun last week: "I wanted to scare the crap out of her." Mission accomplished. [WPLG]Tapes from the FBI investigation of Alan Mendelsohn show him trying to lure $400 grand from accused Ponzi schemer Joel Steinger, in exchange for getting the state to ditch a criminal investiga

  October 12, 2009

• Ted Deutch to Announce for Wexler's Seat?

  flsenate.govDeutch​State Sen. Ted Deutch, whose district overlaps with U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler's congressional district, just sent out a news release heralding an "important campaign announcement." Sounds like he's going to announce his candidacy for the Wexler seat.The Deutch press conference is for 3:30 at his home in Boca Raton.Your move, Stacy Ritter.

  October 15, 2009

• Morning Juice: Police Informant Shot; Political Top Guns in Broward Stay Holstered

  ​Here's your look at what's in today's news:Dwayne Blake of Belle Glade is in jail after allegedly shooting an undercover operative who was taping conversations with Blake for a narcotics investigation. [Palm Beach Post]H1N1 vaccinations have started in Broward and Palm Beach, with people aged 2 to 49 first in line. [WPTV]Ed Portner, facing charges of aggravated assault after pulling on a gun on his daughter, Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter, has opted out of the duel for Tamarac mayor. [Sun-Sentine

  October 20, 2009

• State of the County Speech Tomorrow Morning; Is 10 Too Early for a Drinking Game?

  Flickr​After the year that Broward County has had, we may all need shot glasses to endure Mayor Stacy Ritter's State of the County speech. Her former vice mayor, of course, is now facing federal corruption charges. The top lieutenant of the county's top law man recently ushered a fugitive out of the country. Ritter herself was a friend to that fugitive, Scott Rothstein, as well as the other biggest alleged Ponzi schemer in state history, Joel Steinger. And let's not forget the vicious round of

  November 16, 2009