If George Levin was Rothstein's whale, then Ted Morse was his chief enabler. McDermott says the person responsible for that ultimately disastrous relationship was RRA attorney Les Stracher, who was Morse's lawyer prior to Rothstein's taking over and had a longstanding relationship with the family.
"Les Stracher fed Ted Morse to Rothstein," says McDermott. "Rothstein hired Stracher to get to Morse, and Stracher went along with it. I see Stracher as the villain of villains."
It seems the Morse family has similar thoughts on Stracher. Ted's father, car dealer Ed Morse, named Stracher in his malpractice lawsuit against Rothstein and other RRA lawyers. From the suit:
In each of the foregoing legal matters, Defendant Stracher, due to his relationship with the Morse family, has held himself out to Ed and Carol Morse as a trusted advisor who would supervise the various matters being handled by RRA lawyers on behalf of Morse, to make sure that their interests were protected.
... Stracher did nothing to protect Plaintiffs Ed and Carol Morse, the Morses' legal matters were grossly mishandled, settlements were negotiated independent of any meaningful consultation with Plaintiffs, and the legal matters described above were either ignored, mishandled, or both.
-- Some of that wine going through Bova Prime, and before that Riley McDermott's, was once owned by the NFL's Dan Marino. "I bought $100,000 in wine from Dan Marino," said McDermott. "It was all Gaja wine. Marino has so much wine; they say he has more wine than anybody in South Florida. His wife, Claire, wanted to get
get rid of the wine, so they approached us to buy some, and we did."
-- Anthony McDermott said that when flying back from Costa Rica early last year, federal agents stopped him at the airport and questioned him about Scott Rothstein. "I think they were from New York, but I know they weren't Florida agents," McDermott said. "They said, 'Can we have a word with you? What do you know about Scott Rothstein? I hear you are real good friends.' I said, 'We're not good friends.'"
He said that was why he told Rothstein he was going to jail when he went to Bova to confront him on St. Patrick's Day. This is interesting information. My sources tell me that Rothstein was not under investigation by federal officials in South Florida at the time he fled to Morocco. Perhaps agents in New York -- where Rothstein often traveled, worked, and invested -- may have been looking at him.
-- McDermott, who has two teenaged sons, said Rothstein didn't want to have any children, while his wife, Kimmie, did. "I used to break his balls about it," said McDermott. "I would be with Scott and Kimmie, and I'd say, 'Scott you have to have some kids now.' He would get real mad and say, 'Anthony, stop fucking around.' Then I'd look at Kim, and she looked at me like, 'You got more balls to talk to Scott that way.'"
He said he liked Kimmie fine but thought she wore way too much makeup. "I've never seen a woman her age wear so much makeup," he said.
-- McDermott never liked the way Rothstein played the role of big spender around town either, and sometimes he'd try to top him. At one charity auction, he tried to outbid Rothstein on a ski trip to Aspen valued at $25,000. He said they got to about $50,000 before Rothstein finally prevailed in winning the trip. On another occasion, Rothstein came into the restaurant after a trip to New York to find J.R. Dunn Jewelers, which is next door, selling wares in the wine room. "He looked like he'd been up for three days; he was real tired," McDermott said. "My two sons are there, and Scott buys a $400,000 watch from Jim Dunn in front of my two sons in the wine room. Then he buys a $300,000 bracelet like it was nothing... I think he did it to spite me in front of my kids."
