The Allen West national fundraising machine got a new arm yesterday, when the South Florida congressman filed forms with the Federal Election Commission to form a joint fundraising committee with Georgia Rep. Paul Broun.The “Broun-West Committee” was listed on a revised statement of candidacy from West yesterday and formed a…
The operators of a West Park meat market and Miramar packaging and shipping store were arrested yesterday on charges that they ran backroom gambling operations that could take in more than $25,000 in a single day.The investigation, rather straightforwardly named “Operation Hidden Bet,” pointed to 43-year-old Ramon Contreras Rodriguez and…
As our recent cover story about local survivalists, or “preppers,” was going to press, we learned that one of the main characters in the story, Hollywood-based agricultural consultant Chris Petrovich, had been interviewed by the CBS affiliate up in West Palm Beach.So treat yourself to the TV station’s three-minute CliffsNotes…
If the decrepit, fictionalized methheads on Breaking Bad have taught us anything, it’s that stealing an entire ATM is a fruitless venture that will result in your skull getting crushed. In the wee hours of Monday morning, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office arrived at a Loxahatchee Walgreens to find a busted-up…
Police say 27-year-old Stephen Bradley was in a relationship with 35-year-old Melissa Kaehler of Fort Lauderdale. Then they broke up. Then he killed her.The Broward Sheriff’s Office just released the names of the people involved after finding their bodies Saturday morning — police received two calls around 10 a.m. for…
The popular Palm Beach Gardens band teacher who was arrested three years ago for sexually assaulting four girls at H.L. Watkins Middle School is about to complete his first month in a Miami-Dade County prison.Heath Miller, 37, pleaded guilty in March to one count of sexual battery of a minor…
If you’ve been reading here for a while, you remember former New Times writer Tom Francis, who has since moved on to more mysterious plans elsewhere in the country. Whatever he’s been up to, it’s involved rooting around in the court records of Chris and Jeff George, the Wellington twins who…
Congressman Allen West, everyone’s favorite defender of the Constitution, has joined the citizens advisory board of the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative legal organization that has spent more than a decade trying its best to roll back a rather important section of the Bill of Rights.The Michigan-based firm says…
Data is starting to come together in Fort Lauderdale’s red-light camera program, which dished out more than 25,000 tickets between September 2010 and February 2012. A lot of it is more complicated than just the raw numbers (Where’s that money going? How many people are actually paying them? What about…
After hearing Zev Auerbach a few times on the radio — introducing himself as an Aventura city commissioner and promising to reveal the wonders of Kabbalah in “29 amazing minutes” — I was curious. I had no idea what Kabbalah was, except for something about Jews and Madonna. I called…
In last week’s cover story, we looked at why reef-building corals are being plundered from the South Pacific and sent to the shores of Florida. But the curio trade isn’t the only industry fueling the death of coral. For centuries, jewelry makers have harvested precious red and pink corals. These deep-water corals are cousins of…
There’s plenty to look into when it comes to Fort Lauderdale’s new anti-panhandling ordinance that was passed earlier this week — how do business owners feel about it? How about panhandlers? Homeless people who don’t panhandle? Advocates?But there’s one question we won’t be able to answer for a while –…
Former Broward County Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin is accused of felony public corruption. Investigators say her husband made $1.1 million off of taxpayers for writing grants that she helped approve, which we first wrote about back in 2005.The affidavit that went along with Wasserman-Rubin’s 2010 arrest claims that “between 2003 and 2008, the Rubins paid for…
The penny pinchers at Spirit Airlines have come up with a new way to ruin your flying experience. Starting in early November, the Miramar-based discount carrier will charge up to $100 for a carry-on bag. The fee only applies if, like us, you procrastinate packing, sprint through the airport, and…
The Department of Justice this week announced a nationwide crackdown on Medicare fraud that snagged 107 people for an alleged $452 million in false billing. The Department of Health and Human Services reported it was the largest group of false billings targeted at one time in the history of their…
The banks used by Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein are still feeling the heat from their involvement in the $1 billion-plus scheme that put him away for 50 years — in two separate cases this week, the two main banks involved in the scheme saw civil proceedings move forward that could…
John Goodman was supposed to get sentenced on Monday. He could have gotten 30 years in jail for killing Scott Wilson in a drunk-driving accident in 2010. The jury found him guilty.But that same jury is what’s standing between Goodman and his sentence — jurors have come forward twice this week…
In case you missed it, Florida’s most famous gun owner got himself a new website. George Zimmerman’s lawyers set up a revamped web presence for the man charged with second-degree murder in the February shooting death of Trayvon Martin, using it to publish statements from the legal team and encourage…
The Bucs did a cool thing this week.We’re not anywhere near Tampa, but the Dolphins have had one winning season in six years, and the Marlins went and stole a half-billion dollars from taxpayers to build a stadium, so here’s a story that shows that at least one Florida sports…
The charming woman pictured at right is accused of stealing checks out of two cars in Wellington and Royal Palm Beach on March 24. From the looks of those wide eyes and her death grip on the steering wheel, she spends a lot of money on caffeinated beverages.I’ve requested more…
The Florida Senate race has gotten some national attention the past few days — two of the Republican challengers to incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson got endorsements from people who used to be running for president.Republican George Lemieux received an endorsement from Herman Cain over the weekend, according to the…
Frank Biden, younger brother of the man who is second in line for the White House, has a flair for the dramatic. Last year, he called the Mavericks High charter school in Palm Springs a “hope factory” and said its management company, Mavericks in Education Florida, was “on a mission…
