Watch this video of an assault and car theft that occurred at a BP gas station in Pompano Beach. Maybe I'm jaded, but it's at least a little comical how the man in the wifebeater comes out of the mini-mart, hugging a 12-pack of Corona, only to see that some local toughs were harassing his friend, Jose Rodriguez, who had been waiting behind the wheel in a white Pontiac Sunfire.
For a moment, the wifebeater guy appears to consider whether he should rescue his friend or protect his recent investment in a delicious 12-pack of Mexican beer.
To his credit, he chooses his friend -- though not before putting down the 12-pack.
No, this one didn't involve Scott Rothstein. It was the lonely, forlorn creature to the left, who came to the SunTrust at 501 E. Las Olas this morning, then waited patiently for other customers to leave. This is from the Fort Lauderdale Police news release:
Once he was alone in the bank, the suspect approached a teller and placed a note on the counter stating he had a gun and demanded money. There was no weapon seen but the suspect kept his hand in his pocket as if he did. The teller complied with the demand and gave him cash. The suspect fled on foot and was not located.
If you've read this week's New Times cover story on the rise and fall of South Florida's daily newspapers, you're familiar with the Sun-Sentinel's infamous memo-writer, Lee Abrams. He's the chief innovation officer for the Tribune Co., the Chicago-based media giant that owns the Sun-Sentinel.
Abrams' goal is to get the company to "evolve" and thrive in the digital age. He's known for emailing long-winded "think pieces" to employees, pontificating on how they can improve, using catch-phrases like AFDI -- Actually Fucking Doing It.
New Times columnist Bob Norman has graciously chronicled many of Abrams' memos on his blog, The Daily Pulp. I also recently interviewed Abrams by phone. Here's a collection of some of the best Abrams quotes from both sources. Read them and try not to weep.
1. "You are either WITH the revolution or AGAINST it. You will either be embraced by the company and win or the company will beat you. No middle ground."
Nearly 23 years ago, Pembroke Pines-based Survival Research Foundation launched an investigation into whether the deceased really survive death, existing in a parallel world. Dr. Arthur Berger, head of the foundation now headquartered out of Aventura, tells me there is sufficient evidence that suggests there is life after what we call death.
"This issue has been a lifetime interest of mine," Berger tells me. "And it should be to all of us, seeing as we all will die."
Technology. It's supposed to be our friend. But friends don't conspire with a Deerfield Beach company to help police officers write more speeding tickets. In its methodical march toward world domination of the ticket-writing technology market, Advanced Public Safety on Fairway Drive just landed a contract with the police department in Bowie, Maryland.
You're welcome, Bowie drivers! Now, after cops give you a ticket, they don't have to haul their paperwork into the station. The APS device allows them to send it there electronically, Less hassle, less time. Leaving cops with more time to write more tickets.
Oh, don't fret, South Floridians. The nefarious technology is already in place here -- Broward Sheriff's Office has it; ditto Fort Lauderdale P.D., Hollywood P.D., and West Palm P.D., among some 750 law enforcement agencies in the APS empire.
Don't worry, the new gay paper will still cover Charlie.
South Florida Blade editor Dan Renzi stopped by his Wilton Manors office last Sunday evening to check his email, and encountered a strange sight. Michael Kitchens, co-president of Blade parent company Window Media LLC, was standing at the front door, crying.
"He looked at me and said, 'You can't go in. We're done," Renzi says.
It was a dramatic scene, bolstered the next day by news reports that Window Media, the nation's largest gay newspaper group, had suddenly shut down. The Southern Voice in Atlanta and the Washington Blade in D.C were unceremoniously shuttered, prompting concerns across the country that gay and lesbian media was dead.
But Renzi says the hand-wringing in South Florida was overblown. On Monday,
Two governors with whom Ponzi schemer Rothstein invested millions
From the Sacramento Bee comes word that Scott Rothstein's firm donated $250,000 to the campaign to pass Proposition 11, a ballot measure that was passed by California voters earlier this month. For a guy like Rothstein, that's a far-flung state and a decidedly unglamorous issue -- the measure formed a 14-person commission for the purposes of redrawing the boundaries of California's congressional members.
But chances are, Rothstein was swayed by the glamour of that ballot measure's spokesman: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for whom Rothstein had fund-raised.
For the investors in our audience, sorry, but it appears that since Rothstein's quarter-mill went to the campaign and not directly to Schwarzenegger the Guvernator is not inclined to have it returned.
I put a call out to opponents of Prop 11 to see if they have a better theory for why Rothstein invested so much money on this campaign.
The video comes with a handy summary at this YouTube link, for those curious about who started it. Good luck with that.
UPDATE: This new version of the video is annotated for your viewing pleasure. Seems we're looking at Amnesty supporters joined by two Tea Party interlopers, one in the black T-shirt and shorts, the other wearing a pink oxford. They claim black T-shirt guy was sucker-punched, though it's hard to tell. They're damned lucky they didn't run into oncoming traffic.
Last night, your forgotten Florida Panthers did something they've been doing a lot lately: They went on the road and beat the hell out of someone. In this case, the Buffalo Sabres, 6-2. It was the team's fourth victory in the past five road games.
Suddenly, a team that started the season by winning just two of its first ten games, which lost its best defenseman (Jay Bouwmeester) in the offseason, then lost its best scorer (David Booth) to a concussion, on October 26, has put together one of the league's most improbable hot streaks. Since October 30, the Panthers have won six of nine.
But here's the thing: The team does not have a home ice advantage -- probably because it hardly has any fans attend its games at the BankAtlantic.
After reading this week's cover story about the massive job losses and financial troubles at South Florida's daily newspapers, you may wonder how New Times is faring. Our tiny newsroom, not surprisingly, has also shrunk in recent years, although not by the same kind of numbers as the dailies.
In the past couple of years, Village Voice Media Holdings
LLC, which owns New Times, has laid off employees at several of the 14 alternative weeklies it owns throughout the country and has sold three papers -- Cleveland Scene, Nashville Scene, and East Bay Express. New Times Broward-Palm Beach has seen its newsroom staff shrink from 17 to 13 and its circulation drop from around 80,000 to 54,500.
I called Scott Tobias,
president and chief operating officer of Village Voice Media, to ask him about the future of New Times. After the jump, read excerpts from the interview.
It's bad enough to have to work when you're 82 years old. It's worse when you have to work as a greeter at a place like BJ's Wholesale. And it's phenomenally shitty that the job also placed 82-year-old George Sobol in the unenviable position of trying to stop a computer thief. The incident below happened just after 5 p.m., October 30 at the store on Hillsboro Boulevard in Parkland. From the BSO release:
Surveillance cameras were rolling as the suspect is seen casually walking into the store and past the greeter at 5:12 p.m. as he heads straight toward the computer merchandise. A couple of minutes later, the suspect approaches Sobol to ask for his assistance with the computers. He tries to get Sobol to leave his post at the entrance of the store, but Sobol refuses.
Long before George LeMieux was selected by Charlie Crist to be the state's newest U.S. Senator, he was the most powerful figure in the North Broward Hospital District.
An episode from this past March illustrates LeMieux's godfather-like role. That month Marc Goldstone was still the general counsel of the North Broward Hospital District. He found himself in an awkard political position.
On one hand, his job called for him to be certain that the district made smart legal decisions -- and the district's willingness to participate in a class action suit against bond rating agencies failed that standard. There are only so many bond rating agencies, and a $1 billion public hospital district may not want to antagonize them, lest those agencies be inclined to give Broward Health's bonds a low rating. Or maybe Goldstone just thought there was no way to win the class action suit. Whatever it was, he wanted to get the district out of this legal loser.
On the other hand, he may have recognized that the district's participation in the suit had been brokered through Commissioner Joseph Cobo, who was appointed by Gov. Charlie Crist. In addition, he may have known that the attorneys who stood to profit from the suit belonged to the firm of a major Crist fundraiser: Scott Rothstein.
Attorneys at Scott Rothstein's firm landed a highly privileged meeting with the executive leadership of the North Broward Hospital District in September 2008, the month after Rothstein was appointed by his friend, Gov. Charlie Crist, to the nominating committee for Florida's 4th District Court of Appeals, according to documents that were part of an internal investigation at the district.
Also, at that meeting: Broward Health Chief Operating Officer Spencer Levine, who was seeking the judicial appointment by that very same committee on which Rothstein had a vote.
Conspicuous by his absence: Troy Kishbaugh, the acting general counsel, a position that based on the district's charter gave him sole responsibility for selecting outside attorneys, the status Rothstein's firm was seeking. The architect of the meeting: Commissioner Joseph Cobo, who is currently weathering a criminal investigation for corruption by the Broward State Attorney's Office.
Yup, this is going to get complicated. Let's get into it after the jump.
Take a swig, Broward bandit... for our sake, please.
Broward police are looking for a bandit with "notably bad breath" who stuck up a bank in Tamarac Monday. The man, definitely not armed with Listerine, robbed the TD Bank, asking a teller to fill a trick-or-treat bag while motioning to his waistband. A gun was not in eye shot.
Authorities think the suspect, who stunned tellers with his extreme M.O. (mouth odor), fled the heist wearing a yellow, Polo-style shirt, a gold watch, and sunglasses in a white Honda Accord.
Let's hope the robber fled straight to the dentist's office.
The Florida Bar Association has ruled that Sam Goren, acting general counsel of the North Broward Hospital District, did not act incompetently or violate professional ethics standards in giving advice to the board, which led to the firing of the district's two lead attorneys and the hiring of Goren's firm to that powerful position.
UPDATE: Had the hard copy but had to wait a few hours to upload the document itself. Here it is.
We've gone over this issue many, many times on this blog. I'm not surprised by the bar's ruling. This is an organization that has a tradition of protecting the status quo. Not even bribing a murder witness, apparently, is grounds for suspension, let alone disbarment.
After the jump, let's compare the two sides of the story at the heart of the bar complaint.
On November 4, the day after alleged Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein returned from his trip to Morocco, a special party was held at the Westin Fort Lauderdale. Its attendance list reads like a who's who of political heavy-hitters in Broward.
The local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization that fights anti-Semitism, was hosting the Broward County Community of Respect Awards Dinner. Two people were scheduled to be honored at the event: Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti and local attorney Michael Moskowitz.
Rothstein's firm, Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, was one of the event's main sponsors, and the chairman was Rothstein's law partner, Stuart Rosenfeldt. Tickets
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that former Broward County commissioner Joe Eggelletion was a vice mayor under Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter. This article has also been changed to clarify Ritter's relationship with Scott Rothstein.
Flickr
After the year that Broward County has had, we may all need shot glasses to endure Mayor Stacy Ritter's State of the County speech. A former colleague, of course, is now facing federal corruption charges. The top lieutenant of the county's top law man recently ushered a fugitive out of the country. Ritter herself has been linked to Scott Rothstein, as well as the other biggest alleged Ponzi schemer in state history, Joel Steinger. And let's not forget the vicious round of layoffs and program cuts that were necessary to get the budget balanced.
Somehow, Ritter's going to have to find a silver lining in that jet-black cloud, which should be quite a spectacle. We may as well try to enjoy it. After the jump, your First Annual Juice State of the County drinking game.
That's video from August 29, when Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis climbed in the ring with NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor. Considering that LT could have crushed Ortis' skull with one swing, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that the rolly-polly mayor is an advocate of civility and good sportsmanship.
In an op-ed that he wrote for the San Antonio Express-News, Ortis called on the mayors attending this past weekend's Congress of Cities to keep the political punches above the waist in an era when the low-blow has become so common.
Daniel Arnodo, a 26-year-old from Coral Springs, was one of the two people killed Sunday morning in a fire that erupted in his home in the Shaker Village subdivision just north of Commercial Boulevard.
The other fatality is a woman, but Broward Sheriff's Office investigators aren't going to name her until they've made a positive identification.
A third victim, 27-year-old Nicholas Figueroa, also from Tamarac, was hospitalized with smoke inhalation. The group had gathered to watch the Saturday-night boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto.
Just what the Rothstein investigation needed: a big dose of public pressure by people who don't have a clue about the case but have some weird emotional need to see the already disgraced attorney slightly more humbled by being placed in a jail cell. That's what you've got in today's shallow, short-sighted column by the Sun-Sentinel's Michael Mayo.
He points out that other Ponzi schemers like Bernard Madoff and Marc Dreier were arrested almost immediately. Well, for starters, those two weren't already ensconced in a Moroccan hotel room, like Rothstein, who had a strong negotiating position with federal agents. By Mayo's logic, agents should have said, "Scottie, can you come back please? We know there's no extradition policy with Morocco, but we'd really like to handcuff you, then march you through a gantlet of cameras and an angry mob, then throw you in a jail for a few months while we investigate your case.
"Also, we know you were friends with the governor and that the Broward Sheriff's right-hand man walked you to the airport, so can you also tell us about your political friends, please?"
If you're headed to Flamingo Road Church in Cooper City, you can leave your Sunday best in the closet. Services are streamed online. For communion-by-computer, you can bless your own bread and wine. And if you're a newcomer, fill the bathtub, because Flamingo Road also does virtual baptisms. See above.
In February 2008, the church, which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, performed what it billed as the world's first internet baptism. How can that sacrament pass through a high speed connection? Well, I set out to find out.
A parked car, a shooting in the early morning hours: The death of Michael Frank, a 22-year-old from Lighthouse Point, sounded like it was drug-related, and that's what Broward Sheriff's Office detectives are reporting, now that they've arrested Filipe Cruz, the man they believe killed Frank around 2 a.m. Thursday. From the BSO release:
The victim, Michael Frank, had gone to the area to purchase cocaine from Cruz. After Frank's friend got the drugs, the friend punched Cruz in the face and attempted to flee the area. As he tried to get away Cruz approached the car and shot Frank, who was sitting in the front passenger seat.
Documents recently made available by the North Broward Hospital District show that former general counsel Laura Seidman made major improvements to a legal department that -- by some indications -- had been full of cronyism and waste under attorney Bill Scherer. The most striking example of Seidman's progress: She reduced the district's outside billings by a third in just her first year, a savings of nearly $2 million for a public hospital district that depends in part on your tax dollars.
These findings suggest that whatever outrage there was over the political friendships that helped Seidman get hired in March 2006, there ought to have been even more outrage for the apparent political reasons she was pushed out the door two years later.
The Oasis of the Seas, the world's biggest cruise ship, which has just docked in Port Everglades.
A metaphor of a different of age, construction of the Oasis of the Seas began during a time in American history when it was still a good idea to flip Florida properties and take out a mortgage you couldn't afford and invest with that guy whose record was so spectacular, the returns seemed (say it with me now) too good to be true. But for the Oasis of the Seas to be metaphorically fitting for Harbor Beach resident Scott Rothstein, it would need to be split in half and belching black smoke. Let's hope that doesn't happen.
Currently, Harbor Beach is swarming with gawkers, but most of them appear to be more interested in the big ship than the big shit who lives nearby -- maybe because there's a gated interest to the tony neighborhood Rothstein called home.
Since May, Sam Goren has been the acting general counsel of the North Broward Hospital District, a position that allows him to dole out millions of dollars in legal work and makes him one of the county's most powerful attorneys.
But the manner in which Goren landed that job keeps getting murkier and murkier. The most recent cause for discomfort comes from within a lawsuit filed by the man Goren replaced, Marc Goldstone. Hospital district commissioners fired Goldstone in mid-May, in part based on their consultation with Goren. Commissioners claimed that Goldstone -- who moved here from Tennessee -- had misled them about the manner in which he was going to become licensed to practice law in Florida. Can you guess what licensed Florida attorney was advising Goldstone as to how he should gain admission to the Florida Bar?
A 22-year-old man was murdered early this morning in Pompano Beach. Broward Sheriff's Office detectives say that Michael Frank, a Lighthouse Point resident, was sitting in the passenger seat of his friend's car around 2 a.m. when someone walked up and fired at him. It occurred in the 200 block of Northeast 14th Avenue.
One of the great ironies of Scott Rothstein's legacy in Broward County is the way he painted himself as such as a humanitarian.
This spring, his Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler law firm was a major sponsor of the Soref Jewish Community Center's Humanitarians of the Year event. The soiree, held at the Signature Grand hotel in Davie, raised money for the center's children's scholarship fund and food pantry programs.
"Scott Rothstein and his law firm have contributed so much to our Broward
Contributors: Eric Barton, Michelle Centrone, Deirdra Funcheon, Keith Hollar, John Linn, Michael J. Mooney, Bob Norman, Lisa Rab, Nicole Rodriguez, Gail Shepherd.
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