It appears that Capellini’s Cronies are undoing themselves at a remarkable rate. First it was disgraced former Deerfield Beach Mayor Al Capellini’s Republican brethren. At a recent meeting they fawned over Capellini, who was removed from office by Charlie Crist after the State Attorney’s Office charged with a felony corruption…
Fifteen Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies and one civilian employee have been taken off the road on suspicion that they are using steroids. The sixteen BSO employees were rounded up Friday and ordered to take a drug test, sheriff’s spokesman Jim Leljedal told me this afternoon. They were placed on administrative assignment until the results of those tests…
Here’s the latest piece from Tribune Co. Chief Innovation Officer Lee Abrams. It jumps. ———————————————— February 18, 2009 THINK PIECE: NINE EASY PIECES Time for a deep breath and a few thoughts about the dynamics of evolving and positioning ourselves for the new levels of success we can and will reach: QUALITY…
In the lead story on this morning’s local section, the Sun-Sentinel took off its little white glove and slapped Mutual Benefits’ mastermind in the face with it. The newspaper reports that the Ponzi scheme called Mutual Benefits poured $1.4 million into political coffers to help keep state regulators from knocking down its…
But the doctor was linked to more than just powerful politicians — Mendelsohn also served as a lobbyist and fundraising bag man for fraud artist Joel Steinger, the convicted felon behind the billion-dollar Mutual Benefits Ponzi scheme, according to sources and court records. It’s yet another example of how Steinger exploited the easily…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
The Tribune Co., whose 10 newspapers include the Sun-Sentinel, Orlando Sentinel, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, and Los Angeles Times, yesterday announced a salary freeze for 2009. It affects all non-union employees (for the small percentage of union employees, “the issue will be addressed in collective bargaining”). Tribune chief administrative officer Gerry Spector writes in his email…
In a rather subversive answer to my recent blog post that exposed Palm Beach mayoral candidate C. Gerald “Gerry” Goldsmith’s corrupt history, the Palm Beach Post re-endorsed Goldsmith, saying he’s “still the choice.” The paper, in one of the most pathetic excuses for journalism the Pulp has ever witnessed, cited a flyer that…
— A couple weeks ago I shared a memo from Miami Herald publisher David Landsberg in which he announced that another round of layoffs was soon coming to the newspaper. He wasn’t specific, but said the paper would try to limit the pain. Well, news from a Herald sister paper…
Beginning Monday, Sun-Sentinel and WSFL-TV employees will get a little payback for driving on company time. The ever-observant and hyper-vigilant management team has noticed that gas prices have gone down recently. So they’re cutting the mileage rate from 42 to 40 cents. Now that ought to help bring down…
Want an 8,500 square foot home on the New River near Las Olas with eight bathrooms and a two-story pool house? Have $9 million? Buy Joel Steinger’s house! The owner of scandal-ridden Mutual Benefits Corp. has his house (pictured above) listed for sale. The link offers several photographs of the estate, including the beautiful pool and two-story guesthouse. Of course, I…
North Palm Beach attorney Joseph Murasko remembers when Ken Keechl, the future vice mayor of Broward County, told him that the company he was representing was branching out to South America. “I looked at Ken and said, ‘Be careful,’ ” Murasko told Keechl. ” ‘You don’t want to piss somebody…
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…
So the Broward County School Board just can’t help but to persecute Becky Blackwood, a former supervisory building inspector who had the guts to criticize the sloppy and corrupt management at the board’s construction department. As reported here, Blackwood prevailed against the district in court. Now the dogs at the district have filed an appeal to Blackwood’s legal victory, ensuring…
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…
Even by Florida’s loose ethical standards, Palm Beach mayoral contender C. Gerald Goldsmith has a corrupt past that should make his candidacy a joke. Goldsmith, who served on the Palm Beach town council back in the mid-1990s, survived the Feb. 3 election and is now in a runoff with incumbent Jack McDonald. The showdown vote comes next Tuesday, February 17. …
Tribune Co. Innovation Chief Lee Abrams is clearly more focused on the Tribune’s 25 television stations than he is the newspapers right now. And, judging from his latest think pieces, he’s not at all happy with the appearance of the company’s anchors. In a recent piece, he decried the fact that…
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,…
