A 30-year-old autistic man in Sweetwater was living in a terrifying dungeon straight of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, local police say. According to the Miami Herald, Sweetwater police officers responded to a trailer at 11250 NW Third St. after receiving an anonymous tip about the man’s “dungeon-like” living conditions early…
If you’re the ultimate pessimist, J.D. Patterson’s move to reassign 16 detectives from the Miami-Dade Police Public Corruption Bureau to other units means the fight against public rackets just got weaker. Political blogger Elaine de Valle, who first broke the news, offered her cynical take: “Guess we’re done with the…
Community outrage over Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s decision to potentially shutter 22 libraries has led to his administration removing six sites from the closure list. For now, the Culmer, Opa-locka, Lemon City, Little River, Shenandoah, and Lakes of the Meadows branches will remain open unless county commissioners vote otherwise in…
Tino Martinez got a little too personal with his players, and now he is out of a job. The Miami Marlins hitting coach quit the team yesterday following a Miami Herald report that he verbally abused players in a ball club that ranks last in the majors in runs, home…
In what has to be one of the most absurd match-ups in Mixed Martial Arts history, former Miami backyard street fighter Rene “Level” Martinez is facing off against ex-professional boxing champ Ricardo Mayorga in Managua, Nicaragua this Saturday. Mayorga’s boxing career washed out in 2011 after losing to Miguel Cotto…
Cuban gangster Raonel Valdez won’t have to worry about his victim George Villegas testifying against him. Over the weekend, Villegas died of a heart attack in his Coral Gables apartment, the same one Valdez had been staking out for months in late 2012 hoping to catch Villegas slipping. On October…
If you wake up to WLRN weekday mornings, you might have noticed a familiar voice missing from the airwaves. Last week, the Miami-Dade County School Board-owned public radio station fired anchor/reporter Phil Latzman after he allegedly stormed out of a training session. Latzman’s departure follows the canning of news director…
Coral Gables is a city that prides itself in looking classy and keeping its aesthetics pleasing to the eye. The City Beautiful, after all, spent a quarter of a million tax dollars and fought all the way to the Florida Supreme Court in 2003 to keep its prohibition on trucks…
The charges are piling up against embattled South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez De Castro. Last week, De Castro pleaded no contest to Miami-Dade ethics charges that he steered police department business to his wife’s auto tag and car insurance companies, violating a city law that prohibits city employees from…
In early May, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez and the County Commission delayed the certification of 11 affordable-housing developers because one of the firms, Carlisle Development Group, is under investigation by a federal grand jury. Citing a Miami Herald report, Gimenez’s administration put on the brakes because the feds suspect…
Embattled South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez De Castro is facing new accusations that he abused his power to conduct illegal criminal background checks on his perceived enemies. Last week, De Castro pleaded no contest to Miami-Dade ethics charges that he steered police department business to his wife’s auto tag…
John DuBois is one freaked-out Palmetto Bay Village vice-mayor. In an odd twist to the millionaire security systems entrepreneur’s ongoing legal war with the Miami-Dade County Department of Environmental Resources & Management, Dubois thought he was being spied on by unknown individuals in a helicopter and a boat on the…
Raonel Valdez strolls through the quiet parking lot behind a salmon-colored Coral Gables apartment building. As dawn pales a warm autumn morning, the small-framed 33-year-old Cuban refugee with short, gelled black hair patiently scans a third-floor window, waiting for signs of life. Known to his cohorts as “Matojo” for his…
Juan Kuryla must be the happiest man working for Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who recently announced he wants property owners to swallow a 5 percent tax rate hike to balance his proposed budget. On April 29, Mayor Carlos Gimenez promoted Kuryla from deputy seaport director to the head honcho…
Word to the wise aspiring politicians: If you omit financial information when disclosing your personal net worth to voters, you will get caught. Just ask Mark Weithorn, who ran a failed campaign for state legislative seat representing Miami Beach last year. At its regular meeting in June, the Florida Commission…
While Miami-Dade residents are gearing up to celebrate American Independence, the Christian Family Coalition is making sure one group of people don’t get to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In response to a proposed amendment to the county’s human rights ordinance that would protect transgender folks from…
Boy, Steven Bateman doesn’t know when to quit. Today, the Miami Herald published an article about another suspicious deal involving the Homestead mayor that appears riddled with conflicts-of-interest. It’s becoming a pattern that has spawned separate investigations by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and the Miami-Dade Ethics Commission into Bateman’s…
Ernesto Perez, founder and president of Dade Medical College, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons this month. As the Miami Herald reported June 8, the Miami-Dade State Attorney and the Miami-Dade Ethics Commission are conducting separate probes into why Homestead Mayor Steven Bateman pushed officials to…
Did you hear, bro? Gov. Rick Scott is such a buzzkill. He just signed a law that makes it illegal for smoke shops to sell just about every pipe, bro! Glass, wooden, acrylic, stone, metal, with or without screens, with carburetors too! We’re gonna have to stock up on apples…
Terri Wright will forever regret granting an exclusive interview to Chris Sweeney, a former New Times staff writer who wrote about her questionable conduct as a jury forewoman during the 2011 drug trafficking and gun trial of reggae megastar Buju Banton. Earlier today, Tampa federal judge James S. Moody Jr…
Ah, there is nothing quite like a scam perpetrated in Miami. Just about any racket can thrive in this sunny place for shady people. All it takes is a little moxie and a whole lot of deviousness. The latest example involves four locals who suckered 11 banks and two credit…
Ernesto Perez, founder and president of Dade Medical College, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons this month. As the Miami Herald reported June 8, the Miami-Dade State Attorney and the Miami-Dade Ethics Commission are conducting separate probes into why Homestead Mayor Steven Bateman pushed officials to…
