Criminal Sentencing and Punishment

Reader Mail: Gun Control Is as Boneheaded as Prohibition

End of the World: Weird Last Meal Requests From Death Row

Having a hard time coping with the fact that the world might end tomorrow? Yeah, we thought you might, and since the idea that civilization as we know it may be wiped out so that the dawn of a new age can begin is a little morbid, we've thought of a cynical approach to make you feel a little better. ... More >>

Narcy Novack Gets Life in Prison for Killing Fontainebleau Heirs

Narcy Novack will spend the rest of her life in prison after being found guilty of hiring men to kill her husband, Ben Novack Jr., and her mother-in-law Bernice Novack. The victims were the son and widow on Ben Novack, the man who built Miami Beach's famed Fontainebleau resort.

Allen Stanford Gets 110 Years In Prison For Massive Ponzi Scheme

Allen Stanford -- the massive Ponzi-schemer and full-time nutter who put his billions in illicit profits into a Coral Gables castle and cricket tournaments in the Caribbean -- was sentenced to more than a century of jail time for his crimes today. A federal judge in Texas sentenced the financier, wh ... More >>

Belén Jesuit Ponzi Schemer Gaston E. Cantens Sentenced to Five Years Behind Bars

Gaston E. Cantens, a former advisory board member for Belen Jesuit Preparatory School who used his prominence in Miami's Cuban-American community to target the elderly, has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to running a $135 million Ponzi scheme.

Miami's Federal Detention Center Barely Paralegal

Miami's Federal Jail Overrun With Strippers Posing As Paralegals, Lawyers Say

Coming soon to a jail cell near you...Stripteases, sexual favors, booze, porn mags, and fat stacks of cash would be run-of-the-mill in many Miami strip clubs. But at downtown's maximum security Federal Detention Center?Multiple attorneys interviewed by Riptide say the FDC visitor rooms have been tak ... More >>

Casey Anthony Will Be Free Next Wednesday

Orange County Dept. of Corrections​If fans of the Casey Anthony trial were outraged by Tuesday's verdict, they're probably steaming after this morning's sentencing. She will be a free woman by next Wednesday. That means Anthony, 25 and in excellent shape, can attend Splashion at LIV next week an ... More >>

Black Tuna Pot Smuggler Gets Five Years In Prison After Three Decades On The Run

​One of the strangest chapters from Miami's pot-smuggling glory days came to an end in federal court today, when a judge sentenced Mark Steven Phillips -- a long-lost associate of the Black Tuna ring -- to five years in prison. Phillips fled during the gang's infamous 1979 trial and hid under fake ... More >>

Ana Maria Cardona Back on Death Row for Murder of "Baby Lollipops"

via Miami-Dade Corrections​The Miami mother convicted of murdering her three-year-old child Lazaro "Baby Lollipops" Figueroa in 1990 was sentenced to death by a Miami-Dade judge Friday. Judge Reemberto Diaz's sentencing puts 50-year-old Ana Maria Cardona back on death row, where he had been place ... More >>

Miami Beach Ponzi Schemer Nevin Shaprio Gets 20 Years in Jail

​Nevin Shapiro lived like a modern-day Caligula. He seemed to have it all: a luxurious Miami Beach mansion on the bay, parties that attracted local notables and sports superstars, fast cars, big yacht, women and the athlete's lounge at the University of Miami named after him. It all came tumbling ... More >>

Peter Dabish Sentenced to Life for Murder and Torture of Recent UM Grad Diana DeMayo

​Twenty-three-year-old Diana Demayo had just graduated from the University of Miami with honors and had a bright future infront of her when she returned to her native Detroit and got involved with twenty-four-year-old Peter Dabish. The privileged son of a ​co-founder of the national Powerhouse ... More >>

With Darsi Ferrer Sentencing, Cuba Cements Its Reputation for Justice

Darsi Ferrer​There aren't many countries where being sentenced to 16 months for having two sacks of cement in your home is considered a victory for human rights. But this is Cuba, and Tuesday's sentencing of dissident Darsi Ferrer after a reportedly tense two-hour trial, was being hailed as ... More >>

Scott Rothstein Sentenced to 50 Years in Prison

Kim Rothstein and friend Stacie Weisman leaving the courthouse after the sentencing.​Unless you've been under a rock for the past few months, you should know that South Florida got stuck with its own mini-Madoff who goes by the name of Scott Rothstein. Yesterday, Rothstein was sentence by U.S. Dis ... More >>

A Poor Man's Bernie Madoff Screws Haitian-Americans

News Roundup: Lil Wayne Gets Eight Root Canals

Lil Wayne had his sentencing delayed so he could return to Miami for oral surgery. Well, TMZ said he underwent a marathon session yesterday and got eight -- yes, eight! -- root canals. You'd think that would be punishment enough for his weapon charges, but he'll still likely spend eight months to a ... More >>

Letters from the Issue of December 3, 2009

Miami's Black-Market Cigarette King Pleads Guilty

Earlier this summer, New Times brought you the story of Roman Vidal, a 54-year-old Cutler Bay resident accused of funneling millions of dollars' worth of black-market cigarettes through the Port of Miami to criminal gangs in Europe.​Just before 11 a.m. today, Vidal pleaded guilty to four counts of ... More >>

Two More Miami-Dade Swine Flu Deaths; Outbreak in Women's Prison

via Esparta's FlickrSwine Flu has claimed two more lives in Miami-Dade County according to the Miami Health Department. The total number of confirmed cases in the county has ballooned to 493. A 31 year-old female and a 69 year-old male are the latest confirmed deaths. Meanwhile, an outbrea ... More >>

Dade Tries Out Jail/Hospital Combo for Mentally Ill

In an attempt to fix a broken system, Judge Steve Leifman announced plans this morning for a first-of-its-kind "pilot facility" to house mentally ill individuals with criminal charges in Miami-Dade. Leifman -- an articulate, bespectacled advisor to the Supreme Court on mental health issues -- expl ... More >>

Death Row Inmate Wants to Be the Next Supreme Court Justice

Who says the electric chair should stand in the way of your dream job? Not Michael Lambrix. Sure, the 48-year-old waits on death row for fatally bludgeoning and strangling two people outside Fort Myers in 1983. But that hasn't stopped the articulate, overachieving inmate from applying to be Florid ... More >>

Hey, Miami, You're Stupid

Public figures offer comic relief.

Homeless Sex Offenders Face Eviction

State officials scrap under-the-bridge policy.

Frotesters

Miami-Dade Corrections officers think a new uniform code discriminates against black men

Eye for an Eye

Three teens allegedly killed a man for eleven dollars. Do they deserve the needle?

Freedom for Sale, Part 1

A lawyer offered convicts reduced sentences for a price

Africa Unwrapped

At MAC, "Snap Judgments" breaks from clichés

Free Bird?

New evidence may exonerate Luis Diaz, imprisoned for 26 years as the Bird Road Rapist

Politically Tone Deaf

George Burgess, the county manager, hits a sour note

Blue Lines, Steel, and the Hour of Myth

Women in prison transcend violence, tedium, and the past

County Jail's #1 Problem?

Parking -- that's right, parking

Goon Over Miami, Part 4

South Beach clubland tough guy Chris Paciello may soon show himself to be not so tough after all

River of Sleaze

A top Miami-Dade schools cop is the focus of a probe that recalls the area's biggest police scandal

Pain & Gain, Part 3

A wealthy couple disappears, the slumbering Metro-Dade Police Department awakens, and the ghastly deeds of Miami's Sun Gym gang at last come to an end.

The Imperfect Murder

Stanley Cohen's wife went to prison for arranging to have him killed. Years later a Miami journalist reveals a secret. Now the entire case may be unraveling.

News of the Weird

The Cesar Odio Sentence Reduction Plan

If at first you don't succeed in getting your sentence reduced, invoke the terminally ill mother

News of the Weird

Defense Mechanism

News of the Weird

Snoop Dogg Howls Again

Incarceration Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

When he was booked into the Dade County Jail, Earl Cole was a sick man. Not for long.

Prisoners and Politics

The Trial of Willy & Sal

Smuggling coke by the ton and making money by the bushel. Getting tortured in Panama and eating smoked pork loin in Houston. The courtroom show is riveting, but like Al says, where's the justice?

Lock a Block

An appeals court nudges convicted orangutan smuggler Matthew Block a little closer to prison

Making the Streets Safe Again -- Quickly

Birds Do It, Bees Do it

But is that any excuse for Matthew Block's lawyer to send Shirley McGreal a card that shows zebras doing it?

Gorilla Warfare: Part 2

Ape trader Matthew Block has been sentenced in the case of the Bangkok Six. But the monkey business continues.

What A Differencea Year Makes

With an immunity deal secured through 1986, coke broker Tommie Sikes sang like a canary. Make that "secured through 1985." Oops!

The Further Adventures of Willy and Sal

Chapter Two, in which the alleged drug kingpins are linked to a cellular telephone smuggled into their unit in the federal pen