Jeopardy time. This black market product costs governments worldwide $50 billion every year, fuels Hezbollah, the PKK and other terrorist cells and runs on global crime syndicates and hundreds of underground factories in China and Eastern Europe.via Wikimedia CommonsHeroin, you say? Cocaine? Automatic weapons?Try cigarettes. As Western countries hike taxes…
Hit cop show CSI Miami is getting a new cast member — a cop from the Hollywood Police Department. There’s no indication yet whether the show is looking to do a ripped-from-the-headlines-type treatment of the new character, who will be played by the usually shirtless Eddie Cibrian. But if so,…
A law firm retained by Deerfield Beach to evaluate reports of ethics violations has opened an investigation into the conduct of the city’s vice mayor, Sylvia Ferguson — formerly Sylvia Poitier. But the same firm dismissed three other ethics complaints against Ferguson, saying they failed the “prima facie” standards set…
It’s the day that Bernard Madoff gets to pay for his $65 billion sin. If you had money to invest — and here I’m assuming you’re not one of his victims — then would you invest it on a bet that today the convicted swindler gets a prison sentence of…
Hey, look another house just got sold on Ponzi Island! Sorry, I mean Palm Beach. Easy mistake, since alleged Ponzi schemer Tom Petters is a neighbor of convicted $67 billion Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, among other Island residents linked to financial fraud.Just a part-time South Florida resident, Petters Group Worldwide…
Deerfield Beach Vice Mayor Sylvia Ferguson (previously Poitier) may have had a financial interest in a nonprofit corporation for which she voted to award public funds. Acts of Sedition blogger Chaz Stevens has posted financial documents of the Westside Deerfield Businessmen Association that show the nonprofit owes Lionel Ferguson $74,000,…
An arrest in a cold case is supposed to be an occasion for celebrating the enduring cause of justice. There is no statute of limitations (da-DUM!!) for murder. That applies even after you’ve left the state where it happened to start a new life a thousand miles away. Still, on…
A multijurisdictional murder case started, it appears, when Broward sheriff’s deputies responded to a Crimestoppers tip that a red Mazda truck left at the Greyhound bus stop in Fort Lauderdale was involved in a murder. The truck was registered to 76-year-old Tommy Lee Kellum of Lake City, Florida. A BSO…
flickr.com This is a bit of a sensitive subject, so I’ll try to be careful. Though there are many purposes to news media, most people will agree that one of them is certainly to help protect the public — sometimes by exposing public dangers or injustices, sometimes by alerting the…
The Champaign, Illinois, Daily Illini newspaper has a report on the Fins’ first-round round pick:Former Illini football player Vontae Davis was arrested (Or was he? See update below.) on June 9 in Champaign for unnecessary vehicular noise and driving without a valid license.There you have it. In central Illinois, you…
In a post Friday, we described the “Houdini-esque predicament” of Charles Saltzman, a former treasurer of the Deerfield Beach cat shelter, Feline Friends. Three years after leaving that position, he’d seemingly been caught red-handed, raiding a Feline Friends-controlled bank account of more than $11,000.The funds had been willed to Feline…
Bank documents suggest the former treasurer of a Deerfield Beach cat shelter forged a signature, seized control of its fundraising company, and then drained its bank account, depriving the cash-strapped shelter of $11,290 that made up its emergency fund.But despite a paper trail that leads back to the treasurer, Charles…
Marc Goldstone and Joe Truhe, formerly the two lead attorneys for the North Broward Hospital District, are being investigated for possible criminal charges of practicing law without a license, according to a source with knowledge of the case.The attorneys were fired in mid-May amid allegations by the public health care…
A fire at the building that houses the law office of Hollywood Mayor Peter Bober is being investigated by police for possible arson.According to a Hollywood Fire Department spokesman, Mark Steele, a fire struck in the upper floors of the building at 1930 Tyler St. in Hollywood just before 6…
For the new U.S. attorney, who will come from among the 16 names on this list, busting financial fraud will be the top priority in South Florida federal courts. And although those cases are endlessly complex, it’s fairly simple to get an overview of the region’s candidates for criminal prosecution:…
Sylvia Poitier should have known she was being watched. If not by criminal investigators, then at least by the guy in Deerfield Beach who tends to show them the way. “Mark this day — mark this day well” is the characteristically immodest headline for yesterday’s blog post that contains Chaz…
It was the kind of sloppy political sabotage you’d expect in a banana republic. But hey, we’re talking about Deerfield Beach. So we shouldn’t be surprised that the punishment for Thomas Noland is roughly equivalent to the kind you’d expect for a prince in a corrupt kingdom: a fine of…
Embedded video from CNN Video The big story of the day is this afternoon’s shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., that claimed the life of a security guard and left the shooter, who had ties to the white supremacist movement, wounded.South Florida has its own Holocaust…
Sixteen lawyers have applied for the job of being the next U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, responsible for prosecuting all federal crimes from Palm Beach County south. Here’s the list, which was released this morning by the Florida Federal Judicial Nominating Commission:David M. Buckner, from Kozyak Tropin…
What kind of criminal preys on parents waiting in line to pick up their kids from preschool? Four times in the past few weeks, unknown suspects have smashed windows and snatched purses from the cars of parents headed to pick up their kids at preschools and day-care centers in the…
The Broward State Attorney’s Office has opened a criminal investigation of North Broward Hospital District Commissioner Joseph Cobo, based on allegations he used his public office for advantage in his private firm, Florida Medical Management Consultants.Cobo, of course, was investigated by a former assistant U.S. prosecutor, Martin Goldberg, who found…
Tomorrow is the deadline for applying for the job of U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. Unfortunately for eager bloggers, not a creature is stirring. Over this past week, Juice has phoned South Florida attorneys thought to be candidates for the nomination. None of them agreed to be…
