The objects that adorn Alberto Milian’s office in the Broward County courthouse in Fort Lauderdale tell more about the Cuban-born prosecutor than the words that pour forth from his mouth ever could. Behind Milian’s desk is a red, white, and blue United States Army banner. Taped to the door is…
The heavyset woman at the microphone is telling a sob story in a halting Hispanic accent. It’s the story of how her laundromat is being lost. When she took over the business at NE 7th Avenue and Sunrise Boulevard just over a year ago, Cindy Salamy says, it had been…
Every Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 Danny DiLiberto climbs into his battered yellow Toyota Tercel with a cardboard license plate and drives 60 minutes against rush-hour traffic from Hollywood to Coconut Grove. His destination is a Mediterranean-style villa in a gated community with ornate columns, a swimming pool, and a custom-made,…
Ken Wolf expected opposition in his run for the Fort Lauderdale City Commission seat recently vacated by John Aurelius. As an openly gay candidate, Wolf eyed warily the candidacy of Barbara Collier, head of the local Christian Coalition chapter. In a nasty 1994 race against Cary Keno for the city…
James Randi, a.k.a the Amazing Randi, has made a career out of debunking purportedly fantastical events. In the late ’70s, the magician and scientist humiliated spoon-bender Uri Geller on The Tonight Show by scuttling a supposed demonstration of psychic powers. About a decade later, Randi exposed televangelist Peter Popoff as…
They came with hoods on and guns drawn in the middle of the night. They brazenly swept past the signs cautioning, “If nudity or sexual activity offends you, please do not enter.” They proceeded down the purple-walled hallway of the private club, past two more signs warning of impending non-PG…
William Duane Elledge had a moment of flawed prophecy on March 27, 1975. The 24-year-old drifter and carnival worker known as Willie the Kid had just been sentenced to die in the electric chair for the grisly murder of Margaret Anne Strack in Hollywood. Elledge granted an interview to a…
In the courtroom of Judge Robert W. Lee sit the past six presidents of the International Village Association. They are all gray-haired and a bit stoop-shouldered. They are mostly transplanted Jewish northerners. They all talk a tad too loud. They have a combined age of close to 450. Yet all…
Pastor Bob Coy is at the pulpit. And he is not alone. God is with him. As are more than 2000 Bible-toting worshipers. They are seated on folding chairs and theater-style seats in the warehouselike building that is the sanctuary of Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale. Like Pastor Bob the congregants…
Sheron Thomas was apparently in no mood to read the Sun-Sentinel in the early morning hours of Thanksgiving Day four years ago. As delivery woman Sandi Shattuck pulled into his Hollywood Hills driveway around 5:30 a.m. to drop off her first newspaper of the day, Thomas displayed his gratitude by…
