Details remain vague, but Fort Lauderdale Police are investigated a shooting that occurred near the Broward County bus terminal downtown involving an off-duty officer. From the release:Preliminary investigation has revealed that a Police Sergeant was working an off-duty detail at the Broward County Main Bus Terminal. The Sergeant was advised…
The Fort Lauderdale Police Department will have a press conference in one hour to give information on a shooting that involves a cop. That’s all the information that’s available at the moment. We’ll update when there’s more…
South Florida’s Jewish community just can’t catch a break. First Bernie Madoff, now an alleged Ponzi scheme by Fort Lauderdale attorney Scott Rothstein — what gives?Madoff lured Jewish friends at the Palm Beach Country Club to be investors in his Ponzi scheme, and when his fraud collapsed, Jewish charities lost…
ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap (the best sports journalist in television for our money) put together a fantastic package on the former Yankees catcher and one-time World Series hero that included Leyritz’s first televised remarks about the drunk driving accident that killed a Fort Lauderdale woman two days after Christmas 2007.Three hours…
Joe Kessling isn’t ready to start naming names, but suffice to say they’re big — literally. He has commitments from Miami Dolphins, among other South Florida athletes, all dedicating part of their Saturday, November 21 to raising money for Michael Brewer, the Deerfield Beach 15-year-old who was set on fire…
Ever since lawyer Scott Rothstein went missing last week, only to return to the country amid allegations of running a $400 million Ponzi scheme, some observers have wondered how this news might affect one of the story’s subplots: the March 2008 murder of Melissa Britt Lewis, a young attorney who…
This week’s New Times feature details my foray into the world of scambaiting — the practice of turning the tables on email scammers by playing along as a gullible victim — with advice from a worldwide scambaiting site called 419Eater whose main administrator lives in Broward County.In Nigeria, the people…
Just got hold of Debra Villegas, the chief operating officer of Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, who Scott Rothstein claimed handled his financial affairs. Earlier today I wondered aloud whether Villegas knew that there was something fishy about Rothstein’s investments. I asked her that question. She said: “I have no comment to…
Starting this past July, attorney Scott Rothstein began a series of deed transfers that, given the allegations about his financial misdeeds, figure to interest his many investors. Broward County records show that on July 22, Rothstein transferred a $1.9 million property on Castilla Isle in Fort Lauderdale from his name…
David Friehling, an accountant with South Florida roots, is going to follow Bernard Madoff into prison. The Miami native entered a guilty plea today to nine felony charges. Hilariously, Friehling maintains to this day that though he rubber-stamped Madoff audits and invested with Madoff, he didn’t know that the Palm…
Among the many recent misfortunes of Jeffrey Chernick, his tax fraud case landed in Fort Lauderdale U.S. District Court rather than in Miami. That put him at the mercy of Judge James I. Cohn, who on Friday sentenced Chernick to three months in prison, despite a similar defendant’s having been…
Over on My Acts of Sedition, blogger Chaz Stevens claims to have picked up the trail of Scott Rothstein. Or at least he makes a very plausible guess about the identity of the single reader in Casablanca who has an interest in his blog. It appears that same reader followed…
I just returned from a very brief interview with Moe Sohail of Ultimate Cigars and Fine Wines on Federal Highway near downtown Fort Lauderdale. I walked in. I introduced myself. Sohail pointed to the door. “I have nothing to say to you,” he said. “Have a nice day.” I showed…
Fortunately, they’re enabled by very lazy bank tellers. Just when we finally nab the withdrawal bandit, South Florida has a new and even more complacent serial thief, who has yet to be formally nicknamed. Above, that’s him from his Halloween heist. We’ll work on that nickname after the jump. This…
Stephanie Slater, spokeswoman for the Boynton Beach Police Department, just sent across a list of the people charged in connection with alleged crimes at Platinum Showgirls gentleman’s club. It’s a long list, and it starts with the owners, who face the severest penalties:Matt Barrow, 11-29-56, Lake Park, racketeering, felony public…
For four months, the Boynton Beach Police Department has been investigating the Platinum Showgirls strip club on North Federal Highway, and tonight they swooped in. According to a just-issued department release, some 50 police officers have swarmed the club in what spokeswoman Stephanie Slater is calling “an extremely active scene.”…
In the last few weeks, we’ve brought you the story of Ronald Murphy, the convicted rapist forced to sleep on a bench outside his parole officer’s building in Delray Beach. (You can read some background here, here, and here.)Well this week Murphy moved from his bench to a new address…
Manalapan Police Chief Clay Walker says his investigators are wrapping up their case against the two men involved in the knife fight Monday night at the Ritz Carlton, where Nazi historian David Irving was giving a speech. He expects to deliver investigative findings to the Palm Beach State Attorney’s Office…
Steven Michael Rubinstein is the Boca Raton accountant who was caught by the IRS concealing some $6 million in assets with the help of his friends at UBS. So he sang like the proverbial canary about those friends in exchange for which he just received a very lenient sentence: one…
Kudos to the witnesses who stepped forward in the murder case of Junior Cesar. The Boynton Beach Police Department acted on witness tips to arrest Suprinet Augustin, 22. He allegedly confronted Cesar during a basketball game at Pence Park, pistol-whipped him, then shot Cesar three times. Another 22-year-old, Jakenson St…
So 30-year-old Junior Cesar had several friends with whom he played basketball but none of them recognized the person who walked up to Cesar, then shot him dead? Really? Here’s the latest from the Boynton Beach Police Department: The victim has been identified as Junior Cesar, 30, of Boynton Beach…
Southern California and South Florida are the two regions in the U.S. where the housing crisis has been felt most severely. So this story from Southern California should be a cautionary tale for us. However inclined we may be to torture the loan agents who said they could save our…
