In May, Options Media Group Holdings Inc., a tiny Boca Raton tech company, scored a major endorsement: Justin Bieber came out in support of the company’s app that shuts down phones while you’re driving, preventing someone from texting behind the wheel. The app is called PhoneGuard, and Bieber was quoted…
Michael Lohan, father of actress Lindsey Lohan, is trying to pitch a reality TV show involving a drug treatment center for women based on a luxury yacht. He already shot a pilot of one episode in Fort Lauderdale using a borrowed yacht and a dozen girls from a local center.That’s…
The end of the world is supposed to come today, and if it does, it’s a safe bet it’ll somehow involve zombies. If so, head to Okeechobee, where the Emergency Operations Center director prepared a 75-page plan on how to respond to a “zombie apocalypse.” Mike Faulkner told the Okeechobee…
The Maltese Falcon, the world’s largest sailing yacht and also a giant floating metaphor for the financial collapse, has pulled into Port Everglades, tucked away unceremoniously in a spot far from the riffraff and almost unseen unless you happen to be driving a cargo truck into Port Everglades anytime soon.The…
If you’re a foreclosure defense lawyer doing work in Broward County, there are lots of reasons to think Chief Judge Victor Tobin doesn’t side with homeowners. In his tenure at the top of the county’s legal system, he has instituted rules that make it tougher on homeowners to fight foreclosures…
Imagine the audacity of running a law firm like a mortgage document factory, with employees who routinely pushed through foreclosure documents without checking to be sure the homeowners even knew it was coming. Then, after the whole firm come crumbing down in accusations of malfeasance, imagine the giant brass balls…
You wouldn’t expect private investigator Jim Rigney to find much when he does background checks for potential condo dwellers. But back in June 2009, the Ocean Riviera building on the Galt Ocean Mile hired him to do a check on a potential resident that turned up about 30 criminal charges.Rigney,…
Police say a gang of men came up with a novel idea for a series of robberies: Call escorts, meet them at hotel rooms, and then rob them at gunpoint. For some reason, the robberies sometimes ended in the men pepper spraying the escorts. In response, cops from Plantation Police,…
Broward Chief Judge Victor Tobin’s reign at the top of the county’s judiciary has been filled with conflicts, from barbs he traded with the court clerk to fighting the public’s distaste for a new courthouse. Now he’s leaving, and the firm he picked as his next successor likely won’t make…
A buddy of mine named Josh — who asked that I use just his last name due to his embarrassment about this story — was walking across the street in front of Archie’s bar one day when a gigantic, tattooed man called out to him. It was Dennis Rodman, and…
If you’re like most people and you don’t watch a lot of local TV news, then you probably missed Carmel Cafiero’s fine report on Channel 7 last week about a corruption investigation into BSO’s fire rescue division. And it’s a shame that most of us didn’t watch this report, because…
Sometime this week, a giant, floating, three-masted metaphor will arrive in Port Everglades. Specifically, it’s the Maltese Falcon, one of the world’s largest and most expensive private boats. The 289-foot ship is every inch an example of a simple fact of the times: While the poor struggle with a weak…
It’s not often that the Pulp mentions Broward politics with a reference to an ethical decision. It’s even rarer when mentioning the county mayor’s office, which has seemed like a magnet for corruption the past couple of terms. Add Sue Gunzburger’s name to that mix and, yeah, we’re talking a…
When Dalia Dippolito’s trial began on charges that she tried to have her husband killed, her defense attorney dropped a bombshell. Attorney Michael Salnick claimed in opening statements that Dalia’s husband, Michael, had planned the whole thing in an attempt to get on reality TV. It was a crazy defense…
It has been 13 years since Jorge Perez’s Related Group bought the popular Hyde Park Market on Las Olas. Perez then took a wrecking ball to it with plans to put up the city’s tallest building — a 42-story behemoth condo tower. But those ambitious plans hit a major snag:…
If you believe the feds, the group of local Muslims arrested across South Florida this past weekend were supporters of terrorism and worked to fund those who would kill and kidnap in the name of Islam. The four-count indictment claims the six men conspired with Pakistani terrorists and provided $45,000…
Back when Johnny Depp played an undercover cop on 21 Jump Street, it seemed that gangs were the big problem in schools. Depp’s character regularly infiltrated some murder-hungry group with the intention of bringing them down from the inside.It’s hard to argue against cops in schools when it comes to…
The Kansas City Barbeque Society — the United Nations of barbecue contests — has just three simple categories for its judges: taste, appearance, and tenderness/texture. Even still, judges and contestants in nationwide KCBS events have long complained about the criteria, mostly because critics say appearance shouldn’t be given the same…
If you’ve been down Las Olas recently, you might have noticed a stunning yacht full of wood trim and chrome accents, docked unceremoniously at the corner of Fiesta Way. If you’ve got about $2 million to blow, it’s yours. Bonus: You can tell your friends that you own Billy Joel’s…
Prosecutors dropped criminal charges today against a Palm Beach County man who had claimed a medicinal marijuana defense in a case that could have sent him to prison for five years for growing pot plants.Jeffrey Kennedy, a 53-year-old Boynton Beach resident, had turned down a plea deal in the case…
According to the official record, the crowd at Fishtales “disarmed and subdued” Brian Krebs after he stabbed Jimmy Pagano to death during a bar fight April 17. But witnesses say it was more dramatic than that — a handful of patrons and employees descended on Krebs. Krebs managed to stab…
Stifler, the oversexed and foul-mouthed jock from the American Pie movies, was partly based on the man police say stabbed to death a local drummer during a bar fight at Fishtales. Update: here’s Krebs’ booking photo. Brian Krebs, who is in jail awaiting charges on first-degree murder and four counts…
