I reached Pompano Beach Mayor Bill Griffin on his Turner Construction Co.-issued cellular phone last week. “Hello,” the mayor answered. “Bill?” I queried. “Yes,” he obliged. “Hi, this is Bob Norman of the New Times calling to bother you again.” “Good,” he said with a note of… was it defiance?…
Shafayat Mohamed has a dream. He dreams that one day, little Muslim boys and girls will join hands with Christian and Jewish boys and girls around the world and walk together as sisters and brothers. He really does. The mosque leader dreams that Palestinians and other predominantly poor and uneducated…
When the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Michael Newdow’s lawsuit to strike “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance on June 26, I just thought, “The crazy bastard pulled it off.” I had almost forgotten about Newdow, whose name I first ran across at the federal…
Bill Griffin’s new job has prompted a handful of activist groups to demand he relinquish his old one — as mayor of Pompano Beach. More than 100 protesters met last Tuesday to demand Griffin’s resignation after learning in this space that the mayor had landed a job with a construction…
Congratulations are in order for Pompano Beach Mayor Bill Griffin, who recently landed a new job at a huge, Dallas-based firm called Turner Construction. You may not have heard about the new gig, since Griffin hasn’t talked about it publicly, but it’s a very big deal. Turner has offices in…
While all the media heat has lately been on the FBI and CIA, Osama bin Laden surely has another federal agency on his thank-you card list: the Federal Aviation Administration. To pull off the September 11 attacks, the terrorists needed an easy mark, and thanks to the FAA, they got…
Editor’s note: This is the third and final installment of Pulp Nonfiction. Read the first and second installments online. Pulp Nonfiction isn’t your standard Hollywood fare. Sure, it’s loaded with violence and betrayal. And my film project’s “love your children” theme might sound studio-friendly. But here we’re dealing with two…
Editor’s note: Last week, Bob Norman told the story of Tony Tarantino (the famous director’s father) and Tarantino’s movie project, called New Horizons. Trying to raise money, Tarantino met with members of a Broward County family called the Rubbos, whom he apparently didn’t know were under investigation for boiler-room scams…
Some of the best Hollywood movies are about making movies in Hollywood; Get Shorty and The Player are two that immediately come to mind. The one I’m working on, however, is true crime of the seediest South Florida kind. My film — no, call it a movie event — is…
It was a fine curiosity on a late and lazy, coffee-sipping Saturday morning. Looking over the usually surprise-free Sun-Sentinel weekend entertainment rag, Showtime, I happened upon the “Family Filmgoer” column by syndicated Washington Post critic Jane Horwitz. Her first review in this, the April 5 issue, was of Clockstoppers, a…
As Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents begin their review of the problematic 1990 murder case of Broward sheriff’s deputy Patrick Behan, they should keep in mind the chief target. It’s not Andrew Hughray Johnson, who boasted last year to undercover agents that he killed Behan. Or Tim Brown, who…
It seemed that the Broward Sheriff’s Office had neatly arranged Keith King’s future date with the State of Florida’s electric chair. Detectives had built a case against the teenager for the murder of one of their own, Deputy Patrick Behan, who was gunned down in 1990. Homicide-unit investigators had a…
Pompano Beach is a city of 80,000, but it’s ruled by a tiny cluster of backroom dealers. At the top of the very short list of Tweed-like (or Hogg-like, depending upon your frame of reference) bosses are Mayor Bill Griffin and lobbyist Tom Johnston. You’ve seen those names before. Pompano…
Hundreds of Pompano Beach residents are swarming to fight the proposed International Swimming Hall of Fame deal between the city and controversial developer Michael Swerdlow. About a half dozen civic groups have banded together to stop Mayor Bill Griffin, who is spearheading the deal. They’ve gone so far as to…
Tom Johnston is a big man who, but for his prominent, parted mane of white hair, looks like a middle-aged Orson Welles, just pre-Touch of Evil. Under the hair is a large, bald, moon face, often partially obscured by eyeglasses. On his six-foot-plus frame, he carries his round, prominent belly…
Every time James “J.W.” Long hears his phone ring, he gets a little pang in his gut. He knows it might be a threat from one of his former investors. The calls have gotten so bad that he ends the greeting on his home answering machine with a taunt to…
You likely don’t know about the federal investigation of WorldWide Security Associates, which screens passengers at Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport and 11 other airports across the country. The Sun-Sentinel and Miami Herald published short, vague stories last month about a December 19 FBI raid of the WorldWide office in…
When unsuspecting bystanders see Robert Kwasny working on the beach in his mobile video production studio, many of them initially believe he’s disabled. The studio, after all, is mounted on a motorized wheelchair. “A lot of people think that I must be Stephen Hawking’s first cousin,” says Kwasny, referring to…
Flying home after Christmas in New York City six years ago, Janie Axelrad wanted to relax, and the empty rows of seats in the back of the Boeing 757 were calling. So she left her fiancé, Joseph LaPorte, in their ticketed seats in the crowded midsection of the plane and…
When September 11 ringleader Mohamed Atta entered the United States this past January 10, federal inspectors mistakenly gave him two extra months on his visa, New Times has learned. While immigration policy dictated that Atta be allowed six months in the country after returning from a trip to Spain, inspectors…
The mysterious Jordanian flew into South Florida on December 3, 2000, armed only with some fake documents and a ludicrous claim that he was a U.S. citizen. Yet Mohammed Braish, who was 22 years old, still made it past the first obstacle: the Immigration and Naturalization Service. With his Jordanian…
More than two years before the September 11 attacks, a seasoned federal immigration officer named Mary Schneider vehemently complained that Islamic visitors who were possibly terrorists were moving into the Orlando area. She told Immigration and Naturalization Service officials that hundreds of aliens, some of whom she suspected were tied…
