It's about time to give Miami-Dade's northern seaside enclave a more appropriate moniker -- Shady Isles Beach, perhaps?
Consider: Last fall, voters in Sunny Isles Beach had three choices for city commission. One of them, Isaac Feldman, was later arrested for his role running an amazing South Beach scam involving Eastern European "B-girls." Now, his opponent and the eventual winner -- businessman Isaac Aelion -- has been caught red-handed spending thousands on illegal campaign ads and sentenced to a year of probation.
Hindsight is 20/20, Sunny Isles voters, but maybe you should have gone for Jeniffer Viscarra, the candidate who eventually lost to Aelion in a runoff?
Aelion was found guilty yesterday of a first-degree misdemeanor stemming from a flyer he surreptitiously sent to 8,500 voters around town before the December election.
He was an officer in the Israeli army and lived in Canada before moving to Sunny Isles in '94. He owns a laundry list of businesses around town, according to state records, including the Jean Michelle Day Spa & Salon near 178th Street.
His trouble with the law began last November, when the Miami-Dade ethics commission started looking into a flyer attacking Viscarra and Michael Schnitzer, who was running against the town's mayor, Norman Eddlecup.
The flyer was anonymous, but investigators easily tracked it to Bee-Jay Printing, where the owner fingered Aelion as the buyer. In fact, Aelion paid $3,659 for the flyers after acting nervous and repeatedly asking the owner whether the mailers could be traced to his campaign.
Aelion never reported the mailer on his campaign finance reports.
Now he'll have to serve one year of probation, repay $4,000, and serve 35 hours of community service.
Sadly, Shady Isles is stuck with the guy until the next election rolls around. (But hey, at least you didn't vote for Feldman!)
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