As our own Michael Cohen reported here, Florida’s prisons shall soon be smoke-and-tobacco free! (Check out his column for the deets.) Todd Wright, writing for NBC Miami, admirably captured what must be every semi-sane person’s reaction to this news, writing:Violence inside state prisons might go up a notch after the…
Even though drug laws haven’t stopped illicit substance abuse in prisons, Florida’s new prison chief hopes that banning cigarettes will keep inmates from smoking. Prisoners have six months to kick the habit before cigarettes go from currency to contraband, according to the state Department of Corrections. DOC officials said that treating…
Like the saga of adverse-possession guru Mark Guerette, another South Florida story has attracted the attention of a New York Times reporter. This time, the tragedy is unquestionable: A man named Lataurus Randall was shot by masked robbers near the 17th hole at the Deerfield Country Club on Thursday, January…
Today marks the fourth anniversary of Robert Levinson’s disappearance. A retired FBI agent living in Coral Springs, Levinson went missing in March 2007 during a trip to Kish Island, in Iran. Last week the U.S. State Department recently announced that Levinson is alive, and authorities believe he is being held…
Life is so tough for a multimillionaire sex offender. First, Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of hiring teenage girls to massage and service him at his Palm Beach mansion. Then he was questioned, in a public, video-taped deposition, about the allegedly “egg-shaped” appendage that landed him in trouble.Now, he’s getting grief…
An interior designer is not a medical doctor. An interior designer is not a lawyer, or a pharmacist, or a school teacher, or someone who transports hazardous chemicals that could kill large swaths of society.Interior designers help you decide which colors look good in a bedroom or office and where…
The “war on drugs” is ludicrous, and everyone knows it. Seldom, however, do we have as clear evidence of its ludicrosity as that which appeared today in the Sun Sentinel. According to a story by Sofia Santana, an “international druck trafficker” named Rinat Agaev was nabbed on Sunday trying to…
Remember when the Sun-Sentinel gave its experienced, highly paid headline writers a buyout and replaced them with hastily trained gerbils?No?Well, frankly, I don’t remember it either. Seems like something you’d recall, but oh well. In any case, somebody at the Sentinel should have objected, because now, when I click on…
Though greyhound racing in Florida pre-dates pro football, baseball, just about every other kind of entertainment, the dog tracks in Broward and Miami-Dade have been losing money on the moribund industry. Dan Adkins, the president of the Mardi Gras Racetrack and Gaming Center in Hallandale Beach, recently told CBS4’s Jim…
Robert Levinson’s family says that the retired FBI agent was in Iran to investigate a cigarette-smuggling case when he disappeared in Iran in 2007. Since then, his family has urged the Iranian government to cooperate with an investigation, to little avail. No news of his whereabouts or whether he was…
To earn a living collecting insurance money from clients injured in car accidents, doctors and lawyers often cooperate. They refer patients to one another, and when a lawyer sues an insurance company to get a patient’s medical expenses covered, the lawyer can earn a hefty fee.New Times explored this phenomenon…
Jimmy Dac Ho, the 47-year-old Vietnamese-American man who has been charged with fatally shooting escort Sheri Carter a month ago, resigned from his job as a Florida Atlantic University police officer after confessing to the shooting.Ho met Carter through the escorts listing section on Backpage.com. He and Carter were allegedly…
Three years ago, signs of trouble began to emerge at the privately run Thompson Academy juvenile detention center in Pembroke Pines. Gordon Weekes, head of the juvenile division at the Broward Public Defender’s Office, wrote a letter complaining that his clients there were showing up with “chipped teeth, deep cuts,…
Fort Lauderdale law firm Ben-Ezra & Katz is the most recent subject of the state attorney general’s mortgage fraud investigation. The firm “appears to be fabricating and/or presenting false and misleading documents in foreclosure cases,” according to the allegation listed by the office of Florida’s attorney general, Pam Bondi…
The day of judgment has been set in the case of Mark Phillips, the man who up and left in the middle of one of the biggest pot-smuggling trials in American history — he was convicted in absentia, went on the run from the law for 31 years, was told…
There’s very little New Times columnist Bob Norman hasn’t told you about infamous Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein, but it’s still fun to see the whole debacle accompanied by horror-flick music and narrated in solemn tones by Stacy Keach. Tonight, Rothstein will star in an episode of the CNBC series American…
The latest round of 96 layoffs at foreclosure attorney David J. Stern’s subsidiary document processing company, DJSP, shows that this once-booming business is teetering more delicately than ever. The ongoing pressure of a Florida attorney general investigation of allegedly fraudulent foreclosure practices and the loss of its biggest clients, including…
Will Florida soon be among the 36 states to ban texting and driving? According Handsfreeinfo.com, probably not.The website’s mission is to reduce confusion over state laws and legislation about using cell phones while driving. It opines that new Florida Gov. Rick Scott “does not appear to support a hand-held cell phone…
Youth Services International, the for-profit operator of the juvenile detention center in Pembroke Pines where teenagers allege they have been physically and sexually abused, has faced similar complaints at a lockup in St. Augustine. Staff at St. Johns Juvenile Correctional Facility and Youth Academy used excessive force on inmates, failed to…
In December, Gov. Rick Scott’s transition team proposed a massive overhaul of Florida’s juvenile justice system, which would eliminate some prisons and put children convicted of misdemeanor offenses in community-based programs, instead of lockups. Scott then appointed Wansley Walters — a reformer with a track record of reducing juvenile arrests and…
Fort Lauderdale police announced today that William Bozman, Jr., a man with a warrant out for his arrest in connection with a robbery-homicide in Baltimore, was arrested near the corner of I-95 and Broward Blvd Fort Lauderdale.Bozman was wanted in connection to an attempted home-invasion robbery at his father’s Baltimore…
The latest round of layoffs at DJSP Enterprises, the foreclosure processing company for the law offices of David J. Stern, could add fuel to a class action case against DJSP and Stern, according to a lawyer for the companies’ former employees. On Tuesday, 96 people lost their jobs, following several…
