South Florida papers refer to John Patrick Fravel (pictured) as a “Coral Springs man,” while to upstate New York papers, he’s a “Salina man.” In fact, the real Fravel appears to be a modern version of the carpetbagger: According to police, he finds a mark, fleeces him, then leaves town…
Lighthouse Point resident Plaxico Burress is, like many of us in these in these troubled economic times, looking for a job. The young man, whose maturity has been cruelly stunted by accommodating bosses and millions of dollars, lost his job last year after he shot himself in the foot, figuratively,…
You can’t help but cringe when you see a headline like the one that appeared in the Sun-Sentinel last week — “Broward County Homicide Rate Is Slowing.” That was last Monday, when through the year’s first quarter the county had seen only 17 murders, compared to an average of 21…
The national media is piecing together the biography of Richard Andrew Poplawski, the Pittsburgh man who shot three cops dead Saturday. The incident, of course, started with an argument between Poplawski and his mother over a dog that pissed in the house. Today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has what looks like the…
Judging by the front page story in this week’s edition of “The Our Town News”, yes. On the direct-mail community newspaper’s web site, the article about the city’s commissioners and residents disdain for the homeless men and women selling The Homeless Voice is featured next to a story about a…
South Florida cops have been looking for the rotten-toothed bandit for a month. Fort Lauderdale Police spokesman Frank Sousa says officers believe they found their man: a man arrested this morning, suspected of robbing the Wachovia Bank at 4875 N Federal Hwy. The suspect fits the description of the five…
For all the talk of “the crime issue” in Fort Lauderdale’s recent municipal campaign, the city’s safest, wealthiest neighborhood — on either side of Las Olas, near the Intracoastal — can lay claim to some of the region’s most loathsome criminals. Today U.S. Marshals headed to Fort Lauderdale Beach, where…
A Fort Lauderdale Police Officer on the scene said officers were using helicopters and K9 units to search for robbery suspects on the loose near Fort Lauderdale High School. Police cars have blocked off the area between Andrews and NE 4th Avenue, just north of Sunrise. There are at least…
Why didn’t the financial press adequately inform the American public that its national economy was a colossal scam? Maybe because this meltdown has given the financial press the Story of a Lifetime. They’re positively basking in it. CNBC’s enjoying record ratings — the financial news channel now out-draws MSNBC and…
This February, 47-year-old Cezar Mancao went to the Philippine consulate in Fort Lauderdale to give a sworn affidavit. When the contents of his testimony were leaked this month to a Philippine news outlet, no one here seemed to notice, and nothing about it was reported in the U.S. press. His…
The city of Largo is looking for an alleged con man who’s got it all. The bitchin’ nickname, “Plasma Pat.” The elegantly simple, three-step scam: 1) pretend to be a Wal-Mart employee, 2) offer customer deal on a plasma TV, 3) pocket cash. And he’s an insufferable braggart — Plasma…
A New York City-based freelance writer says he was stiffed out of $1,150 by Howard Needle, publisher of the now-defunct Cravings Palm Beach, a luxury goods magazine based in Boca Raton. Scott Rose says that he had a contract from Needle to be paid 50 cents per word and that…
A source close to the Porsche hit-and-run investigation suggests that a Sun-Sentinel story may have hindered police efforts to make an arrest in the case.Locals were shocked when two British businessmen were killed in the early-morning hours of February 13. Craig Elford, 39, and Kenneth Watkinson, 48, were hit by…
This weekend, the Associated Press confirmed a story first reported by Juice: that a search dog and handler were headed to Aruba in hopes of finally identifying the location of Natalee Holloway’s remains.The AP’s story did not, however, reflect the same note of optimism that our source reported to us…
State Senator Nan Rich has made waves with her crusade to make it illegal in Florida to have sex with animals. Not just around her Sunrise district, either. The controversy has earned Rich a future berth on Comedy Central’s Daily Show.Anxious, perhaps, about being accused of exploiting a saucy subject…
On October 19, 2005, Donald George Lewis was found stumbling into traffic in Riviera Beach, seemingly under the influence of narcotics. Court papers say he was “breathing heavily and grunting incoherently” and ran into traffic rather than obey officers’ orders to sit down. He was described as “an agitated and…
Details remain vague, but The Juice has just learned that authorities believe they have found the body of Natalee Holloway, the 18-year-old from Clinton, Miss., who vanished in the Caribbean island in May 2005.A Miami-based flight attendant for American Airlines tells The Juice that a cadaver dog was aboard a…
We’ve made some cracks over the last few weeks about how even pending felony cases didn’t stop South Florida pols from campaigning. Former Miramar Commissioner Fitzroy Salesman had gun charges, while Deerfield Beach Mayor Al Capellini was suspended after he was indicted on felony corruption charges. Neither won his race,…
According to Broward Sheriff’s Office homicide detective Luis Rivera, authorities have arrested a suspect in the murder of Wilton Manors resident Larry Ellison. 27-year-old Gabriel Nock, of Delaware, was a drifter who escaped from a work release program in Delaware, Rivera said. Nock has confessed to strangling Ellison with his…
Pennsylvania State Senator Vincent Fumo, the subject of a 22-week criminal trial in Philadelphia, was convicted yesterday on 137 fraud and conspiracy charges. A jury found Fumo guilty of stealing some $4 million, a sum that may have helped him pay for the $2.5 million Fort Lauderdale home pictured above,…
Lately, there has been little news about last month’s most breathlessly covered local story — the two British tourists who were killed when a drag-racing Porsche lost control and struck them as they walked along Seabreeze Boulevard. I haven’t been able to find an article with more recent information than…
Yeah, depressing isn’t it? Today’s Houston Chronicle reports on one victim of that slightly lesser (alleged) Ponzi, the Stanford Group. A North Carolina man named William Allen couldn’t close his Stanford account before the Feds froze it. Among the last things he bought before the company went Madoff? A trip…
