The Way We Were: In Honor of Rothstein Charges, Pictures From a Happier Time

This past weekend, while waiting for a dryer to finish drying near Fort Lauderdale Beach, I spotted an old copy of Las Olas Lifestyle magazine. From March 2009 to be exact, some six months before Rothstein's billion-dollar house of cards came crashing to earth.

The magazine is to Fort Lauderdale what the Shiny Sheet is to Palm Beach: a glossy celebration of the glamorous parties and vast wealth enjoyed by a set of people who -- judging by the editorial content -- do nothing but attend fundraisers for charitable causes.

Basically, it's a high school yearbook. And you can tell who the popular kids are -- they're the ones beaming out from within every third page. After the jump, a vivid picture of how Rothstein and his homecoming queen Kimberly lured victims on the charity gala circuit.

Before we get to those, you can probably guess what law firm occupied the full-page ad just inside the magazine's cover. Yup, that one on the right -- how many indictments can you count in that picture?

Four pages after that, an ad for Bova Group -- the three existing Bova restaurants and Bova Smoke, "coming soon to Fort Lauderdale." (sic)

Two pages later, the photo above, with the Rothsteins, Mournings, and Marinos posing with that month's cover couple, Mark and Robin Levinson, who got a big dose of free advertising (and it appears some paid advertising) for their recently opened Las Olas jewelry store.

Later in the issue, we get a puff piece about Broward Days 2009, along with a vanity shot of the charity's chairman, Todd Stone -- a partner in Rothstein's firm.

Several more pages, yes, that's a review of Rothstein's beloved Bova Prime. "Our table sat us under the most incredible display of crystal lights, like stars falling from the sky," gushed the article. Yay, Rothstein!

Oh, but we haven't even got to Las Olas Lifestyle's raison d'etre: the charity gala photo spreads. Let's start with the Levinson Jewelers Benefit for the Dan Marino Foundation. You'll find two photos of the Rothsteins in this collage -- the one on the bottom left catches him with Dave Boden, who according to Pulp was intimately involved in Rothstein's business affairs.

On the next page, there's the Rothsteins atop a photo spread for the the Women in Distress Gala, at Bahia Mar. At the bottom of the collage, the Morse family, wearing grins they probably haven't recovered since the tens of millions in losses they suffered in late October, courtesy Rothstein.

In similar photo spread for the Boys & Girls Club's Dinner Auction, I found another Rothstein mark, Doug Von Allman, pictured with his wife Linda, along with such Broward political luminaries as lobbyist Russ Klenet and Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter, Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti posing with developer Ron Bergeron and lobbyist Ali Waldman, and Broward Health Commissioner Joseph Cobo. Most, if not all, of them were acquainted with Rothstein through his political activity.

But this wasn't just a one-month stand between the Rothsteins and the society mag. As the Palm Beach Post reported last month, the couple was the subject of nauseating cover profile in October 2007. You can read it here. Pulp recently published a doctored image that probably would make a more suitable cover for next month's issue.