​UPDATE: Medical examiner changed his mind; reportedly says it was "accidental."

The death of a missing Hollywood man who was found 13 feet underwater in a canal inside his Mercedes-Benz convertible has been ruled a suicide, according to the Fort Lauderdale cops.

David Senkowsky, 52, was last seen on December 11 in Hollywood, and was found on Friday afternoon while helping out Hollywood police detectives.

According to Fort Lauderdale Police Detective Travis Mandell, somone had made an anonymous 911 call to the Fort Lauderdale police shortly after 7 p.m. on December 11.

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The BSO is investigating Robert Hocke's death.

​​A Davie scuba diver was found dead around 5 p.m. Sunday, about one mile south of the Dania Beach pier, the Broward Sheriff's Office has just reported.

Cops say that 62-year old Robert Hocke went missing at 1:14 p.m, after signaling to his dive buddy that he was running low on air. 

Both men returned to the surface together and agreed to return to their friends' boat. When Hocke's dive buddy got back to the boat, however, Hocke was gone. 

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Ronnie Green: Camp counselor mug shot.

​Do you know who's watching your children?

Michael LaForgia does, and it's not pretty. This past weekend, LaForgia, of the Palm Beach Post, published a story that began with this indelible sentence: "Palm Beach County paid a convicted child molester and other people with criminal records nearly half a million dollars to run summer camps for homeless and foster children during the past three years."

Yowza!
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Well, we're past a highly politicized and polarizing week in Broward County and on the Pulp.

There's probably going to be a lot of that in the next two years. Today, though, I'm going to watch the football game and see how the dancing Chad does against the Titans. Yeah, Pennington is goofy in this video -- damned goofy -- but if he can bring some fresh life into this offense, then let him dance.

As for the Heat, I hate to say this, but Pat Riley has to walk out of the stands and get on the bench. Now. The man's got to coach this team. Look, Spoelstra's a fine fellow, but he can't align these stars. It's painfully obvious he's out of his depth. Most mere basketball coaches would be. Greatness needs greatness. The legends playing on this team deserve a legend coaching them. Riley handled Magic and Kareem; he can figure out LeBron and Wade. I've criticized Riles before; he's had some bad years, and the Stan Van Gundy thing wasn't pretty. But this job was made for him, and he's got to step and do it. Time's a wasting.

My apologies for the commenting problems; they seem to be continuing this morning. I have no idea why some of the comments have gone through while most don't. The tech folks at NT headquarters worked on it yesterday, and we'll see if they can finally get it working when they get up this morning (they're in Phoenix).

For the first time ever, I used the Facebook page to communicate about the Pulp. I only linked the page here one time, but if there's ever a major malfunction, it's the only back-up plan we have. Just a small fraction of readers are on there now, so if you haven't yet, click here and friend that baby up.

(As I'm writing this, two people have managed to get through, but the thing is still blocking most commenters.)

​You know, with all the talk about Ken Keechl losing his seat, we've neglected to talk about another once golden-seeming mayor in Broward County -- Roger Wishner of Sunrise. On Election Day, Wishner lost his second election in three months, and he'll be leaving the City Hall building in March.

Like Keechl, Wishner lost support among the informed voters after he made a lot of dubious decisions. He took lobbyists' cash and backed the monstrous Everglades Corporate Park to be built on the west side of the Sawgrass Expressway, and when he tried to bring in an unpopular dump (imagine that) for a friend, it blew up in his face.  

And just like Keechl, Wishner didn't go down without a ridiculous and unfair attack ad on his opponent, Larry Sofield, that may have backfired. See it inside. 

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If you see Wayne Huizenga this weekend, be nice to the guy.

Our local mogul took a bad beating on Election Day.

​No he wasn't backing Alex Sink -- he put a lot of money into helping to elect Rick Scott to the governor's mansion, including $100,000 into Scott's PAC, Let's Get to Work (I'm not making this up). That's predictable, though; Scott is clearly Wayne Huizenga's kind of guy.

No, it wasn't any politician's election or defeat that crushed Huizenga's dream. It was a little ballot initiative up north in Riviera Beach.

Huizenga and his son have (had?) grand plans for the publicly owned Riviera Beach Municipal Marina, which includes a view of Palm Beach mansions and historic Peanut Island. The marina is one of the last places where old Florida has survived and folks of modest means can use the facility and actually live in a houseboat on the water Travis McGee-style.

Huizenga wanted to change all that and turn the marina into a 

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MC

Model Citizen's Latest: Rick Headroom

​So Florida Governor-Elect Rick Scott named his transition team, which was stocked with former Jeb Bush staffers, hard-core state Republicans, and even our own U.S. Sen. George "The Maestro" LeMieux.  

Mainigi

​The transition team doesn't necessarily do all that much; often the appointees are named as a political favor. It's nice to put on the résumé. But one of the names on the list that isn't so familiar is that of a future high-ranking administration staffer named Enu Mainigi.

Scott tapped Mainigi to lead the entire transition team. Mainigi has been named in a few reports as one of Scott's closest friends and advisers as well as his civil attorney. The Sentinel reported that she would have a "senior, though someone [sic] vague role"  in the administration.

So who is Mainigi? Well, she's a Washington, D.C., attorney who represented Scott after he left his hospital company, Columbia HCA, among allegations of fraud and mismanagement. When numerous state pensions sued Scott and other Columbia executives alleging that they misled shareholders amid the fraud, the future Florida governor tapped Mainigi to defend him. 

And Mainigi isn't exactly what you'd call a woman of the people. She's a defender of, well, people like Scott -- corporate raiders and the like. She defends big pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and accused white-collar criminals.

Here's how she describes it on the website for Williams & Connolly, her D.C. law firm:

--------------------------------------------  

For the last several years, the focus of Ms. Mainigi's practice has been in the healthcare and pharmaceutical areas. Ms. Mainigi has defended numerous pharmaceutical companies, PBMs, hospitals, medical device companies, insurance

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-- Remember those shady attack ads aimed at Florida Attorney General candidate Dan Gelber accusing him of being "toxic to Jewish education"?

Pam Bondi Campaign

Gelber and Bondi at last night's Univision debate.

​Initially, it didn't appear that Gelber's opponent, Pam Bondi, was involved in the smear. Her campaign denied she had any knowledge of the attack ads, and they were funded through a 527 committee by a right-wing group in Washington, D.C., called the American Federation for Children, which is backed by the Amway fortune.

Well, now we learn that there is a connection between Bondi's campaign and the American Federation for Children. A marital one, to be exact. The vice chairman of the American Federation for Children is a man named John Kirtley. Kirtley has a wife named Kim Kirtley. Guess what? Kim Kirtley is Pam Bondi's communications director and spokeswoman.

This makes Bondi's denial a little harder to believe, but her spokeswoman, Kirtley, says there's nothing to it.

"In response to your questions -- I reiterate that neither the campaign, or me personally, had any knowledge of the flier," Kirtley emailed the Pulp. "John and I are both professionals who work in the political process, but his work is his own, and mine is my own."

Perhaps, but Gelber supporter and South Florida attorney Bruce Udolf doesn't buy it.

"The claim that it's a coincidence doesn't pass the straight face test," Udolf said. 

​-- Really, Sheriff Al Lamberti? This is what your deputies are out doing, confiscating pot pipes -- er, I mean finely wrought tobacco accessories -- from vendors at the Swap Shop? This is what I'm paying you for? Please try to focus on crimes where there are actual victims next time, OK?  

-- The Russ Adler deposition seems to have been very uneventful. Bankruptcy attorney Chuck Lichtman and Adler had a few spats, but otherwise it seems to have been lacking in fireworks. The year anniversary of the story's breaking is right around the corner. This time last year, Scott Rothstein was already in Morocco with $17 million in the bank, walking around Casablanca and Rabat like he was going to buy the place.

-- Channel 10's report on the crushing handshake aired last night. Solid report by WPLG's Roger Lohse, one of the best TV journalists in town. There's no link that I can find on Channel 10. 

As far as I can tell, the four key witnesses in this thing might be: Broward Teachers Union steward Joan King, Bob Sutton, Coral Springs Forum reporter Arun Sivasankaran, and All County Music store owner Fred Schiff. Sivasankaran and Schiff -- a former campaign contributor to Stephanie Kraft -- have ducked my calls.

Coral Springs Forum

Sivasankaran

​Sivasankaran has been completely silent, though the photograph he took of Thomas and Levine with Sutton after the handshake was shared with WPLG. His newspaper is of course owned by the Sun-Sentinel, which posted a version online that was at one point the most popular story on its website yesterday. What kind of "journalism" is this? Sivasankaran was there; he should write a story about what he saw, whatever it might be. Sutton told me that Sivasankaran asked him after the handshake, "Did you see that?"

What I want to know is what Sivasankaran saw (try to say those last two words five times fast).

Inside, see the Channel 10 report. It's good.  

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Palm Beach Post

​Kendrick Meek has called a news conference for 9:30 p.m. -- i.e., right now -- to address the report that Bill Clinton advised him to drop out of the race in a bid to put Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio in a bid to keep the Senate Democrats in power.  

It just goes to show... Bill Clinton is a dick.

OK, that may be a little simplistic, but it's the way I feel about it. Look, this is a political algorhythm based on political power (and money), not anything else. For dropping out, Meek would get taken care of on the back end. He's denied that he ever agreed to it. This seat could save the Democrats a majority in the Senate. Crist will caucus with whichever party is in power, so it could have backfired on Clinton and the Democrats. I doubt Clinton cares -- he's been embarrassed before and got through it. It was just another cynical gamble for him.

Marco Rubio aide Todd Harris actually nailed the situation. "Secret deals to trade away principles for power is already the problem in Washington; it's not the solution," he said.

It's politics at its worst. Will update after the news conference, which will be shown live on all the cable news networks. Who knows what he's going to say, but I will say this: He's in a very, very bad situation politically speaking.

UPDATED: News conference began. Meek says:

"All I have to say is the Politico report out there is inaccurate at best. President Clinton and I are good friends... He continues to be a supporter. I think the people of Florida are counting on me to be their next United States Senator... The people of Florida have to vote, so let's let them vote."

The key here is that Meek is denying that he agreed to drop out of the race, not that Clinton counseled him to drop out. That's my read on it. I commend Kendrick Meek for not doing it.

People are trying to make a big deal that Alex Sink's campaign relayed a forbidden message to her with a cell phone during the CNN debate.

Cal Deal

Who will replace this guy?

​But people seem to be missing the really scary part: Rick Scott thought the message was sent via an "iPod."

A campaign aide named Brian May sneaked a message to Sink with a cell phone through her makeup artist. Sink canned May after the debate. 

Scott noticed this peccadillo and ratted her out on the air after the commercial break.  

"The rule was no one was supposed to get messages during the break, and your campaign did during the break with an iPad or, or, an iPod," he said.

Come now, can Florida afford a governor who doesn't know the difference between a phone, an iPad, and an iPod? That kind of shocking ignorance simply cannot stand.

OK, so it's not that big of a deal. And to be fair to Scott, he identified the device as a BlackBerry to his aide in the video CNN provided of the commercial break. Why he switched it up once he was on the air we may sadly never know.

But here's the problem: These debates often get broken down to one comment or gaffe while the public is distracted from the real issues, and all meaning is lost. When George W. Bush was getting routed in debates (you know he never could talk pretty), his campaign would seize on one remark by his opponent to throw it upside down. Disastrous war on Iraq? Bush seems incoherent? Who cares; John Kerry said something weird about Cheney's lesbian daughter. We have a winner!

But Brian May should have known better. More inside.

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