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When recently criminally charged Tamarac Mayor Beth Talabisco was running for her seat in 2006, she tried hard to pretend she wasn’t under the thumb of dirty developers Bruce and Shawn Chait, who were trying to get government approvals to build a much-too-dense housing development on two golf courses in her city. She went so far as to inform the Sun-Sentinel that she had returned some $2,000 in campaign contributions tied to the Chaits and boasted about the distance she was keeping from the developers in her own campaign ads. It seemed that Talabisco was taking the high road, and voters promptly put her in the mayor’s seat. But the reality was that Talabisco may have been in the Chaits’ pockets more deeply than anyone realized. According to state prosecutors, she struck a deal with the Chaits for them to secretly fund an electioneering committee that would put out a barrage of negative ads against her opponents on the final weekend before the election. In fact, she met with Sean Chait to talk about forming the committee just before the father-and-son bribers put $21,000 in cash into the committee via two subcontractors who worked for them. In exchange for the dirty political money, Talabisco voted for the Chaits’ controversial development just days after her election. It took five years, but when state prosecutors learned of Talabisco’s lies and corruption, they slapped her with bribery, unlawful compensation, and official misconduct charges. She currently awaits trial.

People know Beverly Stracher’s name these days as a key cooperating witness for the state in what is perhaps the biggest corruption cases in Broward County history. Or they know her as the husband of Les Stracher, who was a key partner of notorious Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein. But before the notoriety and political shenanigans, Beverly Stracher was just a Piper High grad and Broward Community College student who made her mark as a mediocre reporter for the mediocre Sun-Sentinel before becoming a government flack and, shortly thereafter, a Lauderhill city commissioner. She didn’t last long in elected office, but she stayed in politics, becoming one of those shady behind-the-scenes “operatives.” For years, she operated in relative obscurity before she struck a deal with Prestige Homes, owned by developers Bruce and Shawn Chait, to help them get influence with politicians with whom she worked — including Broward County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman and then-Tamarac Mayor Beth Talabisco. She took money from both sides — the influence peddlers and the politicians for whom she campaigned — in what was a sleazy arrangement. Now several of those politicians are awaiting trial, the Chaits have already pleaded guilty to bribery, and Stracher has become one of the county’s chief canaries, giving one sworn statement after another to implicate her former friends. On top of that, her husband has filed for divorce. Don’t cry too hard for Stracher, though; she’s got a cush job at the county now, courtesy of Lieberman.