Broward Palm Beach News Blog

If you thought the Town of Davie's $12.5 million purchase of 25 acres from Austin Forman was a total ripoff for taxpayers, you were right.

Yes, the price of $500,000 an acre in today's economy seems patently egregious, but don't take my word for it. Listen instead to Bob Breslau, the president of real estatement development for major builder Stiles Corporation.

Austin Forman, at center, has millions of reasons to smile

​"I was shocked to find out this was approved, and we did not have more input on this," Breslau wrote in an email to Davie politicians on Friday. "... [T]he price paid per foot was just amazing to me. I purchase land in Broward quite a bit, and was shocked to see the price per foot paid." 

And what about city officials' shout that they bought it under the value of two appraisals? 

"Appraisals are worthless in today's economy, as pricing changes monthly, and historical comparables have become meaningless," Breslau wrote. "If they assumed highest and best use, there is no real estate product in today's economy that can support a land value that the Town paid for a commercial or residential product."

There you have it, and if you don't believe an authority like Breslau, who also happens to the president of a Davie homeowner's association, then I'll lead you back to Susannah Bryan's story published in the Sun-Sentinel about the purchase, wherein Jonathan Kingsley, managing director of the real estate firm Grubb & Ellis, remarked that Davie paid $12 per square foot when the going rate is about $4. Using that measuring stick, Forman made about an $8 million killing.

​It's like clockwork with the Forman family, who recently lost their patriarch, Hamilton Forman. Every few years they produce some outrage regarding the taxpayers' dime. You have the insider deals with the North Broward Hospital District (anybody remember Patricia Mahaney?), the $900,000 piece of land the school board bought for $2 million, and the recent scandals at the Palma Nova trailer park on the very land Davie just purchased.

Add this one to the list, maybe at the top. But Davie Councilman Bryan Caletka, who helped push the deal through and was in the majority 3-2 decision to buy the land, says he has no regrets.

No regrets, but lots of phone calls. He estimates he's gotten about 50, most of them none too happy about the

At Friday's press conference regarding new corruption legislation, intrepid Pulp researcher Lyn Evans asked Broward State Attorney Michael Satz a pertinent and tough question.

To wit: "Can you explain why Broward County has become such a cesspool of corruption under your watch?"

To see Satz do a political two-step, watch the video below. There with him are State Sen. Dan Gelber, prosecutor and state Rep. Ari Porth (the little guy), and Palm Beach State Attorney Michael McAuliffe.  

Okay, so he didn't want to talk about his performance. But Satz did offer that he concurred with Evans' assessment of Broward as a cesspool of corruption. "I agree with you," he said. "People did things that are wrong, but there are no statutes that specifically deal with that activity."

The truth is that the existing laws -- like the unlawful compensation and official misconduct statutes -- cover a whole lot of misbehavin'. The problem during the past 30 years or so has been that Satz's office repeatedly refused to prosecute good cases. Assistate state attorneys like John Countryman would routinely bemoan in their close-out memos that the officials' conduct looked bad but it couldn't go to trial because there was no proof of a quid pro quo. But guess what? The Florida Supreme Court had already decided there was no need for such proof because it was almost impossible to get. These things were done, quite literally, with a wink and a nod. So the high court, in its wisdom, deemed that circumstantial evidence -- i.e. a payoff in exchange for an apparent political favor -- was sufficient for prosecution. Satz effectively set an impossible standard and the local pols slid along, emboldened, creating that cesspool we're all talking about.

This isn't about beating up Satz, though. He's picking up the ball for the feds right now (or so it seems) and we should be rooting him on in his investigations involving Diana Wasserman-Rubin, the developers Chait, and of course the Al Capellini prosecution. He's showing some signs. And the bill Satz and friends touted friday is certainly worth promoting -- and passing.

But don't expect Satz to talk about his track record. After the jump you can watch how quick on his feet he can be when he doesn't want to answer a question. 

When Broward County Public Defender Howard Finkelstein got the evidence, he went straight to the media.

The evidence, in this case, was a grainy black-and-white video taken on a dark street, along with the testimony of a key witness. The witness said he saw three Broward sheriff's deputies beat up a homeless man for no reason. The video very vaguely reveals the beating itself. You can see the videotape here on the WSVN-Channel 7 website.  

Finkelstein at work

​Just don't expect to get much out of it. I asked Finkelstein to describe what the video shows, since I couldn't make much out of it.

"It is shadows of people hitting somebody," says Finkelstein. "You can't see every blow, but you can see arms flail and you can tell that the motion in which they are delivered is downward and that the person that is taking them is on the ground. When you hear the witness describe what is happening, that black and white grainy video becomes very, very dramatic."

Finkelstein said that an investigator with the Public Defender, former FLPD cop Mark Furdon, found both the witness, Roberto Aguilara, and the video. "It started because [McGovern] is walking in the street," says Finkelstein. "Is that against the law? Yes, but do you mean to tell me that four police officers can't arrest or correct someone walking in the street without delivering so much violence?"

McGovern's mugshot

​ ​Sheriff Al Lamberti called Finkelstein's video release to Channel 7 a "sneak attack" against his agency. It's a dubious metaphor considering the cirumstances and Finkelstein characteristically fires back.

"He's furious that I didn't come to him first but if you think I believe in the integrity of police policing themselves, that's insanity," Finkelstein told me. "How many cops have you seen prosecuted for using excessive force. Maybe one or two. There is a very small percentage of police that act like criminals, and they harm the majority of officers who put their lives on the line every day. But those that do have been able to do so with impunity. There's a code of silence; internal affairs will rarely take action and you have a state attorney's office that hears no evil, sees no evil, and prosecutes no evil."

Finkelstein is clearly a key and important voice in Broward County, one of the few officials I've seen not afraid to speak the truth even it ruffles high-ranking feathers ("Justice first, peace second" is one of his mottos). And I obviously agree that the only way to get justice in this town is to expose what is happening to the public at large. We've seen homeless men get bruised up for no good reason by BSO deputies before, after all. My only problem is with Finkelstein chosen video venue, WSVN. The public defender, after all, works for WSVN on the long-running feature, "Help Me Howard." Might it not be a slight conflict of interest for Finkelstein to feed

The Bova Prime lunch receipt tells the tale a lot better than the Fort Lauderdale investigative report.

Adderley and Rothstein at crash scene

​ ​Cigar man Moe Sohail was comped numerous alcoholic beverages by Scott Rothstein at Bova prior to a high-speed crash involving Sohail's Bentley. Driving the Bentley was Sohail's girlfriend, Sarah Merricks, who was also present at the lunch.

I obtained a copy of the receipt from the August 21 lunch and have confirmed its authenticity. Click on the link above to see a copy.

Shortly after what was a $350 lunch, the Bentley sped across Broward Boulevard on Third Avenue and slammed a high speed into a BMW driven by Danielle Filler, knocking the vehicle back 62 feet before it came to rest on the sidewalk. The BMW was totaled.

The rest is already part of Broward history: Sohail called his good friend Rothstein, who called his good friend, Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Frank Adderley, who arrived on the scene and stood next to Rothstein while his officers investigated the crash.

The officers failed to administer DUI tests on Merricks, who was out on bond at the time after being charged a year before with with DUI causing property damage and leaving the scene. In fact, she wasn't supposed to be driving for any reason but business purposes; police at least cited her for that. Filler, however, was cited for causing the crash by turning into the speeding Bentley (that citation was dismissed in court).

While the omission of DUI tests seemed strange to a lot of people, including JAABlog and myself, FLPD has defended its lack of action in staunch fashion. An investigation by the city's Office of Professional Standards closed the case, finding that the officers acted properly. From the final report: "Based on testimony of Police and Fire department personnel, there is no evidence they detected any signs of intoxication such as staggering, slurred speech, watery, bloodshot eyes, or a strong odor of alcohol. No witnesses saw the need for the detention or roadside sobriety testing."

Well, Sohail's lunch bill from just before the crash indicates otherwise. On Sohail's tab was an Absolut vodka on the rocks for

Above is a photograph of former Scott Rothstein confidante Michael Szafranski taken yesterday in court. Don't ask why it's on YouTube; it's one of those blog issues (but it does create sort of an eerie effect).

Szafranski lost in his bid to have lawyer Bill Scherer disqualified from the civil suit in which he has been named a defendant. The only other photograph out there is the one you may have seen here of Szafranski with Rothstein and gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink at a fundraiser at what Szafranski called the Rothstein castle. Channel 7 got him on video last night too (another Rosh Lowe special).

Szafranski was at ground zero of the Rothstein implosion. In the those final frantic emails filed in court by Scherer, Szafranski comes across as Igor to Rothstein's Dr. Frankenstein, at one point even replying "Yes, master" to a Rothstein demand. Rothstein, of course, famously called him Mikey and Szafranski often reminded Rothstein that he loved and missed him.

But what do the emails really prove?

Well, clearly Szafranski knew there were catastrophic problems with the investment funds and it's equally clear that he wasn't interested in dealing with the root problems. He asks for a loan to cover his own investors, writing, "I don't want to have to give them the explanation and they will freak if

Broward County is rife with corruption. One politician is headed to prison (Joe Eggelletion), another is under criminal investigation by the state (Diana Wasserman-Rubin), another is under federal probe (Stacy Ritter), and another has been spending campaign money like a drunken sailor (Ken Keechl).

Broward Humane Society

Adderley, Kim, Rothstein

​And that's just the County Commission. Let's not start with the School Board.

But have no fear; we have a new corruption fighter who is going to clean up the filth and scum in office: Broward County State Attorney Michael Satz.

You might know him, since he's the same guy who let corruption flourish over the past 30 years. But things have changed. For instance, tomorrow he's going to give a news conference about fighting corruption. He hasn't done that before -- or at least not since Ronnie Reagan was in the White House.

The truth is that Satz sadly might be the only hope, because every other alternative (minus the feds) has proven to be a bigger joke than he's been since he landed in office in 1976. We've seen that recently in the joke of an investigation done by the City of Fort Lauderdale concerning Police Chief Frank Adderley's presence at the scene of a crash involving cigar man Moe Sohail and the state ethics commission giving the green light to Broward County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman to make her unpopular vote to overturn the voters' will to build the courthouse.

Let's look at the Sohail crash first. FLPD spokesman Frank Sousa, who once upon a time worked on the Rothstein protection detail, told Pulp research assistant Lyn Evans that the police investigation "left no leaf unturned." I'm wondering if it didn't miss entire trees. 

Sohail's Bentley was being driven by his girlfriend, Sarah Merricks, at a high rate of speed on NE Third Avenue in downtown Fort Lauderdale when it crashed into a BMW that turned in its path. The Bentley was flying. Sohail and Merricks had just come from Bova Prime, where sources tell me they were drinking alcohol. In the car were stacks of

Maloman Photographers

​Ever since Scott Rothstein's massive Ponzi scheme collapsed, there has been great speculation about whether he stashed any of the money and jewels he amassed away -- and if his wife, Kim, has access to any hidden wealth.

When I posed those questions to Kim Rothstein, she laughed.

"You think Scott wants to be in prison?" she asked. "Whatever it might be, no matter how much money, it's not more important than his freedom."

So what about the lifestyle? Her husband is in prison, and she's still living in the $6.5 million house paid for with Ponzi money, driving an Escalade paid for by the same husband, with the same bodyguard, and a maintenance man who is taking care of her pool and landscaping.

How does she afford it?

"I'm at the mercy of a lot of people," she says. "I don't have all this money, but I don't want to comment on all the financial stuff. They let you keep a bank account. I have my own bank account that I have had since

After months of study, Pompano Beach City Manager Dennis Beach made his recommendation Monday regarding the future of the Broward Sheriff's Office in his city.

Lamberti is calling on troops to save BSO empire

​Beach wrote in a  five-page memo to the City Commission that he doesn't want BSO to have a future in the city at all. The city manager wants to oust BSO and bring back a Pompano PD, saying the city stands to save at least $3 million a year with such a move.

The recommendation, according to one emailed account, came as a "total shock" to Sheriff Al Lamberti.  

"It is my recommendation to the City Commission that you re-establish the Pompano Beach Police Department," Beach wrote in his January 29 memo. "It is understood that this recommendation will be challenged... The City Commission should anticipate extensive lobbying efforts from sources that disagree with re-establishing the Pompano Beach Police Department."

That last part may be an understatement. Sources say that BSO is mobilizing its forces to show en masse at the

Scott and Kim Rothstein's million-dollar wedding at the Versace mansion. The public pronouncements about how nothing was more important to him than his wife. The countless photographs of the couple in society publications, playing the role of Broward royalty.

Maloman Photographers

A special moment at the million-dollar wedding

​Behind the Rothstein facade, behind the $6.5 million house, the millions in jewelry, the finest automobiles in the world, the gold-plated toilets, Kim Rothstein described a life of isolation and discontent. She said Rothstein was consumed by his work, never slowed down, and kept accelerating at a more and more frantic pace until everything collapsed.

She said that not only did she have no idea that he was running a Ponzi scheme but that she didn't even know what one was until she looked it up after the news broke that her husband's scheme had imploded. 

"He just kept getting more and more and more. I never saw the numbers. I couldn't tell you about the billable hours. He kept work separate from me. Everything was attorney-client privilege," she said. "He password-locked me out of everything -- his phone, his computer. I would get irritated; I would get angry. If you don't want to talk about work, which is all you do, what the hell do you want to talk about then?

"I would ask him, 'Why do you keep buying these businesses when you already don't have any time? It was like he couldn't help himself. It was compulsive behavior. He didn't like it when I confronted him with stuff like that. I learned to pick and choose my battles with him. He was so stressed, I didn't want him to take his stress out on me. He didn't like me inquiring about his business."

By the end, she says, her life was almost as frantic as her husband's.

"With the real estate, I tried to start a concierge service. I said, 'You have all these properties; let's try to do something with them.' He was so busy that my life was just supporting him," Kim said. "Stuff was falling off his plate left and right, and I was trying to pick up the

Well, they did it.

​ ​The Broward County Commission, that most august body, voted to overturn the will of their constituents to build a new courthouse for our shining criminal justice system, stalwart legal community, and of course the interests of downtown powerbrokers and developers.

Hey we knew Broward County Mayor Ken Keechl liked to spend other people's money. Too bad now it's our own cash instead of those shameless enough to give him money for his non-existent yet terribly expensive campaign.

Keechl promised at one point never to raise taxes to build a new courthouse his consituents didn't want to pay for. He lied. He was one of six votes to build the $328 million tower. Others voting in favor were Stacy Ritter, Ilene Lieberman, and Diana Wasserman-Rubin. Damn, Keechl, Ritter, Lieberman, Wasserman-Rubin -- the Broward version of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

They say new commissioner Al Jones spoke against it before giving it a yes to go with the flow. Voting against were Rodstrom, Gunzberger, and Wexler, who have always seemed to shine as lesser evils next to their scurrilous counterparts.

Don't make a mistake, the process getting us to this vote was bogus and insultingly bush league at that. Ritter cooked up a cheering section she called the Broward County Courthouse Task Force. To give you an idea of the caliber of that body, understand that one of the appointed members was none other Scott Rothstein. It was just another piece of legitimacy paid for with his