If you want to be confused, try following Michael Dippolito’s explanation for why he gave his wife, Dalia, tens of thousands of dollars in the months before she allegedly tried to have him killed.Michael told Boynton Beach police that he owed $191,000 in restitution to victims of the foreign currency…
A month ago, when the owner of the South Florida Blade declared bankruptcy and suddenly shut down the paper, there were fears that local gay media was dead.But soon, two publications will be vying to fill the Blade’s void.Florida Agenda, owned by Oakland Park-based Multimedia Platforms, began publishing in November…
La Palma, the weekly Spanish-language spinoff of the Palm Beach Post, quietly laid off three people yesterday, leaving a skeleton staff at the paper.Insiders say the three employees — page designer Sergio Patrucco, copyeditor Claudia Moscoso, and reporter/copyeditor Jonathan Muñoz — were called in to a meeting after the paper’s…
The Broward State Attorney’s Office plans to investigate Michael Dippolito’s restitution payments to victims of a foreign currency investment scam he ran eight years ago.At least one victim of the scam, Ohio resident George Nemeth, lost $20,000 to Dippolito yet says he only receives between $8 and $10 a month…
In the spirit of holiday giving, about 6,000 postcards from Broward Teachers Union members are expected to begin arriving at the homes of Broward School Board members today. The cards, featuring lumps of coal and some adorably angry-looking children, are not exactly subtle…
The day his wife was arrested for allegedly trying to have him killed, Boynton Beach police officers conducted a lengthy, videotaped, sworn interview with Michael Dippolito. Dippolito talked calmly and openly about the many strange things that had happened since he hired an escort named Dalia Mohammed to come to his office one…
DNA test results show that Michael Dippolito is the father of an 11-year-old boy who lives west of Boca Raton, according to a confidential source. The child’s mother, Karen Tanne, alleges in a paternity suit that Dippolito abandoned her when the child was an infant, and has never paid child…
Commenters on this blog have been asking about Michael Dippolito’s arrest record in his native Philadelphia. At this point, we don’t know much, except that there is an active bench warrant, issued in 1993, after Dippolito was arrested by the Philadelphia police for possession of a controlled substance (drug), and…
Every month, George Nemeth gets a check in the mail from the Florida Department of Corrections. Sometimes it’s for $8, sometimes $9.12. Once, the amount spiked to $10.18.At this rate, it will be 167 years before Nemeth recovers the $20,000 he lost in Michael Dippolito’s investment scam. “He got the…
Long before he made headlines as the victim of his wife’s alleged plot to have him killed, Michael Dippolito had a scheme of his own.From a Boca Raton apartment, he ran a telemarketing business that preyed on strangers as far away as Ohio, Illinois, and California, convincing them to invest…
Eleven years before he married the woman who allegedly tried to have him killed, Michael Dippolito admits he “may have” fathered a son with another woman who lives west of Boca Raton.According to a paternity suit filed by the child’s mother, Karen Tanne, Dippolito acknowledged that he was the father…
To some reporters at the beleaguered newspaper, Tim Burke’s promotion to publisher of the Palm Beach Post this week was a welcome change.Burke was as assistant sports editor at the Miami Herald who went on to become an award-winning sports editor at the Post, then worked his way up the…
In a last-ditch effort to prevent Broward school employees from paying thousands of dollars more for health insurance for their kids next year, the Broward Teachers Union this morning filed suit in Broward County Circuit Court to temporarily stop the 45 percent insurance rate hike.The rate increase doesn’t take effect…
The Miami Herald is cutting 24 jobs throughout the company and reducing the hours of workers involved in printing and delivering the paper, Publisher David Landsberg announced in an email this morning.Seven people will lose their jobs in the Herald newsroom: an assigning editor, two copyeditors, two designers, a photo…
Eleven days before she was arrested for allegedly attempting to have her husband killed, Dalia Dippolito was exchanging romantic text messages with another man who was waiting for her to come visit him at a local Marriott.The man, who has a California phone number, is identified only as “Mike” on…
The Palm Beach Post has had a rough couple of years, watching its pages shrink, its revenue decline, and its newsroom crippled by the loss of 300 employees to buyouts and layoffs. Still, the paper’s top execs have tried to remain indomitably positive. Just in time for Thanksgiving, Chuck Girardi,…
A sign of sweet justice appears in the Sun-Sentinel and Miami Herald today. Dan Christensen, founder of the nonprofit investigative news site Broward Bulldog, reports on a scandal in Broward’s wealthiest circles. A legal battle is brewing between Barbara Wells, the Broward heiress whose family fortune includes the historic Riverside…
If you’ve read this week’s New Times cover story on the rise and fall of South Florida’s daily newspapers, you’re familiar with the Sun-Sentinel’s infamous memo-writer, Lee Abrams. He’s the chief innovation officer for the Tribune Co., the Chicago-based media giant that owns the Sun-Sentinel.Abrams’ goal is to get the…
South Florida Blade editor Dan Renzi stopped by his Wilton Manors office last Sunday evening to check his email, and encountered a strange sight. Michael Kitchens, co-president of Blade parent company Window Media LLC, was standing at the front door, crying.”He looked at me and said, ‘You can’t go in…
After reading this week’s cover story about the massive job losses and financial troubles at South Florida’s daily newspapers, you may wonder how New Times is faring. Our tiny newsroom, not surprisingly, has also shrunk in recent years, although not by the same kind of numbers as the dailies.In the…
A standing-room-only crowd attended the meeting where Rochelle Gilken decided to end her newspaper career. Behind the gleaming glass windows of the Palm Beach Post’s headquarters in West Palm Beach on a June 2008 afternoon, hundreds of people held their breath. Rumors of job cuts had been whispered around the…
This week’s New Times cover story details the human cost of the massive layoffs that have hit South Florida’s three major daily papers in the past couple of years. According to estimates by New Times media critic Bob Norman, roughly 1,000 jobs have been lost at the Palm Beach Post,…
