The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office has opened an investigation into a taped conversation between a successful real-estate developer, his lawyer, and a third party in which the three men discuss retaining the services of state Rep. Rafael “Ralph” Arza. The recording was the subject of last week’s cover story (“Caught…
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office has opened an investigation into a taped conversation between a successful real-estate developer, his lawyer, and a third party in which the three men discuss retaining the services of state Rep. Rafael “Ralph” Arza. The recording was the subject of last week’s cover story (“Caught…
In May of last year, Shoma paid $39 million for the former Ryder System headquarters in Doral. Masoud Shojaee, president of Shoma Development, had ambitious plans for the 45-acre property — a pedestrian-friendly town center that would combine 900 residential units with 200,000 square feet of retail space and 150,000…
When Miami-Dade County Police Ofcr. Chad Murphy was shot in the line of duty October 24, 2003, he relied on his sweetheart Elena Rosen and her family to tend to his physical and emotional wounds. “The shooting brought us closer together,” Rosen, 28, revealed during a recent phone interview. “But…
Can things get any worse at the Miami-Dade Transit Agency? In early February county Mayor Carlos Alvarez killed a bailout plan that would have used $143 million from the half-penny transit tax to cover a decade’s worth of operating deficits and looming shortfalls at the beleaguered agency. That came after…
Donald David Diener believes he is a messenger of God. The 67-year-old former Los Angelino is here to unite his Christian brothers and sisters across the world for the Second Coming of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. “I was called to wake up the Christian community,” Diener explained in…
The City of North Miami has yet to conclude its search for a new city attorney, but word on the street says Hans Ottinot, deputy city attorney for Sunny Isles Beach, has a lock on the job. Developer Michael Swerdlow and lobbyist Ron Book are allegedly pressuring Mayor Joe Celestin,…
Miami-Dade County officials have pulled the plug on politically connected electrician Hector Pio Ortiz, whose company, Horsepower Electric, has won $24 million in county contracts over the past five years. As reported here January 13 (“Kicked Back and in the Green”), Horsepower was close to securing a nine-million-dollar, no-bid deal…
For the past five years, Forrest Gordon and other Redland residents have peppered county Commissioner Dennis Moss with requests to allow them to vote on incorporating to form Miami-Dade’s 32nd municipality. Some Redland dwellers want independence from county rule in order to protect the 64-square-mile rural area in the unincorporated…
A blithe middle-age white man on a red bicycle zooms across the intersection of NE 78th Street and Biscayne Boulevard. He is dressed in a pair of denim shorts, a black polo shirt, white Converse sneakers, and a black baseball cap. Tinted glasses conceal his wide, piercing blue eyes. The…
Hector Pio Ortiz is a made man. The electrician owns a Hialeah company that routinely wins multimillion-dollar contracts from Miami-Dade County to install and maintain traffic and street lights. Over the past five years county commissioners have awarded Ortiz’s Horsepower Electric eleven contracts worth about $24 million. Now Horsepower Electric…
Early in the evening on December 29, several residents of the Greens apartment complex in Doral came upon what appeared to be a Muscovy duck massacre on the banks of the property’s manmade lake. There they found five of the waterfowl in the throes of agonizing deaths. “There was another…
Walkiria Ramos is frustrated about not being able to send her seven-year-old blind and autistic son to class at Edison Park Elementary School in Miami. Ramos claims that since December 1 public school officials have been slow to provide the special care second-grader Joel Rodriguez requires in order to function…
“See, this business is filled to the brim with unrealistic motherfuckers — motherfuckers who thought they ass would age like wine.” — Marsellus Wallace, Pulp Fiction Two boxers in full protective gear meet at center ring inside a cavernous warehouse transformed into a boxing gym. They tap each other’s gloves…
It takes a lot to make some people in North Bay Village hide their faces and hang their heads in shame. Consider the recent sightings of former Police Chief Irving Heller at city hall. Earlier this year, Heller resigned when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement began investigating allegations that…
Miami Commissioner Johnny Winton has trouble understanding how anyone can take Xavier Suarez seriously. “He brought this city to its knees!” Winton cries. “He is an absolute opportunist, not to mention an irrational and dangerous man!” From his downtown Miami business office, an incredulous Winton recalls that Suarez had journalists…
For fifty years, the roar of battered, crumpled, home-made stock cars has beckoned gear-heads, racing enthusiasts and curiosity seekers from Homestead to Lantana and everywhere in between. For the weekend racing warriors who pull into the Hialeah Speedway towing their mechanical stallions on flatbed trailers every Saturday afternoon, nothing beats…
The arrest last week of Miami Commissioner Art Teele on assault charges following a wild car chase brought to a climactic close one more scene in the drama that has become his life. The saga began more than a year ago with state and federal agents launching corruption probes into…
Miami Beach resident Jeff Bradley is legally blind. The 53-year-old freelance writer is among the thousands who, through necessity, rely on public transit to get around Miami-Dade County. “I drove a car until 1985, when I lost my peripheral vision,” Bradley says. “I live on the Beach because it’s easier…
For 60 days, beginning the first week in November and lasting through the first week of January, a thicket of towering pine trees along the Palmetto Expressway at Bird Road comes alive with the dazzling sparkle of some five million Christmas lights. It’s Santa’s Enchanted Forest, the holiday-themed amusement park,…
Life could hardly get any worse for Mario Barcia. He’s unemployed and broke. He and his wife have crammed themselves into the home of a relative. A court order prevents him from physically setting foot outside that home. His wife is expecting a baby within weeks. And he is facing…
In the front yard of his salmon-colored, single-story house across the street from Brownsville Middle School, mechanic Lorenzo Jones, 49, slouches on a white lawn chair, holding a cup in his right hand filled with Coca-Cola and Jim Beam. Jones’s bloodshot gaze is focused on the apartment buildings next door…
