It was the mouth that struck a chord. Everything else about her, the rouge on her cheeks, the long brown hair, the dark-tanned skin, was common enough, especially in South Florida. But the mouth? That was special. Giant and audacious. Glorious and monstrous. A mere instrument, a maestro, a mauve-lipsticked…
One extorted $7,000 from a friend who raped his girlfriend and then, after accepting the money, beat her up and went to jail. The other failed an FBI polygraph test while working on an undercover investigation, which one former FBI agent says should have disqualified him from ever working for…
A criminal investigation into an alleged slots theft ring at Gulfstream Park Racing & Casino has led to the ousting of several employees, including the pari-mutuel’s vice president of gaming, according to sources. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is looking into allegations that at least two lower-level employees were…
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating an alleged slot-machine theft ring by employees at Gulfstream Park Racing & Casino. This is the first potential scandal for the fledgling industry, which is both heavily regulated and heavily taxed by the state. And I’m the one bringing you the news…
The e-mails regarding one of the leading 2008 presidential contenders arrive every week or so, and the subject lines aren’t kind. “Obama profits from media cover-up of family ties to slavery.” “Letter to Random House charges Barack Obama book is a fraud.” “The last days of Obama.” “Obama caught in…
A local Website has become ground zero for hate in South Florida. It’s loaded, on an almost daily basis, with racist stereotypes, slurs, and sentimental references to slavery and lynchings. You can see it at this address: www.sun-sentinel.com. That’s right, the oh-so-proper daily newspaper of record in Fort Lauderdale, the…
On the first page of her recently released HarperCollins book Miami Psychic, self-proclaimed clairvoyant Regina Milbourne writes: “Because I believe I got the gift directly from God, I felt I had to do something with it. For more than fifteen years, I dedicated my life to helping anyone who needed…
The extraterrestrial sits on a couch and looks up at a blank artist’s canvas hanging crookedly on the wall. Only it’s not blank. There are vague grayish shapes and blotches in the white background. “That picture is transforming right now,” Prince Mongo proclaims. “It’s the resurrection of the world. The…
As if Hurricane Katrina victims didn’t have enough going against them, now they’re the latest targets of hate radio. Just listen to WFTL-AM (850), the 50,000-watt home of the Florida Marlins. It’s also the home of some of the most radical right-wing voices in America. One regular syndicated host, Atlanta-based…
The small airport at San Andros was exactly what Donna Weaver hoped it wouldn’t be: a desolate place. There was a hangar, a gasoline pump, trash-strewn concrete stalls with a handwritten sign that read “gabbage,” and a dilapidated gazebo. The parking lot led to a lonely, pot-holed road and a…
As she sat at the end of the long, polished cherrywood conference table, Donna Weaver told the story of her husband’s murder. The calm pulling of the pistol on an Andros Island airstrip. The close-range blasts of the gun as bullets pierced her husband’s body. The makeshift burial alongside the…
After reading the article, Donna Weaver only thought, maybe. Maybe her missing husband had been caught up in Operation Airlift, an FBI drug-smuggling investigation gone haywire. Maybe Airlift would supply clues about Gary, who had disappeared in the Bahamas the day before their first anniversary in 1983. Maybe this was…
Donna Weaver didn’t look at the leaden Atlantic Ocean below. Fighting a three-headed monster of fear, mourning, and nausea, she didn’t dare. Donna hated flying in even the largest jets, and this tin can hurtling above the Bahamas — a claustrophobia-inducing cylinder stuffed to capacity with nineteen passengers and a…
The life of Felix I. Rodriguez provides a tour through the dark heart of America. From the Bay of Pigs fiasco to Vietnam to the El Salvador death squads to the Iran-contra scandal, the Cuban exile and self-described “CIA hero” was there. His most famous assassination mission came in 1967,…
A lot of people are whining about World Series tickets. Saying Ticketmaster screwed them, that viperish brokers are charging too much money, that none of it is fair. They’re right. It’s an ugly business. But I’m going to give you an almost sure-fire method to see the Marlins play the…
Two years after the attacks on America, the public still doesn’t know the truth about terror ringleader Mohamed Atta’s entry into the country. It was illegal. Immigration agents shouldn’t have admitted the Egyptian national at Miami International Airport on January 10, 2001. Records show he was allowed to enter as…
Shafayat Mohamed has a dream. He dreams that one day little Muslim boys and girls will join hands with Christian and Jewish boys and girls around the world and walk together as sisters and brothers. He really does. The mosque leader dreams that Palestinians and other predominantly poor and uneducated…
The mysterious Jordanian flew into South Florida on December 3, 2000, armed only with some fake documents and a ludicrous claim that he was a U.S. citizen. Yet Mohammed Braish, who was 22 years old, still made it past the first obstacle: the Immigration and Naturalization Service. With his Jordanian…
Five years ago Walter “Dan” Cadman left South Florida in disgrace. The former director of Florida operations for the Immigration and Naturalization Service had been caught deceiving a congressional task force and then trying to cover up his actions. The U.S. Justice Department, after an investigation into what became known…
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) had terror ringleader Mohamed Atta in its grasp before the September 11 attacks. Then the agency, which stands at the domestic frontline in the war on terrorism, let him go. The 34-year-old Egyptian arrived at Miami International Airport earlier this year on a flight…
Close to HomeThey met at Victory Hospital back in August 1962. My mother had just given birth to me, but owing to problems during the delivery, she needed to be hospitalized for more than a week after I was born. One of her roommates was Rita Grady, who was expecting…
It started as morbid curiosity, like rubbernecking a car crash. The Broward County Emergency Operations Center (EOC), where the manual recount for the presidential election was going on, is just two miles from my house, and I kept seeing the place all over the national news. So, on November 18…
