Since winning a seat on the Miami City Commission in 2009, Francis Suarez worked hard to forge his own political identity and avoid the type of absentee ballot voter fraud scandal that derailed his father’s mayoral run in 1997. But now the young Cuban American Republican is in full damage…

A dispute over a locked gate prompted Miami attorney John Ruiz, operator of La Ley Sports Complex in Homestead, to call the police on Mayor Steven Bateman this past March 7. According to a recently released investigative report, Ruiz accused Bateman of cutting the lock to the northwest gate of…

The Miami Mayor’s race is still five months away, but a majority of the city’s politically influential power brokers are lining up behind Commissioner Francis Suarez, who is looking to take out popular incumbent Tomas Regalado with more than one million bucks in his campaign war chest. Regalado has his…

Did Jeffrey Bartel’s vicious public beef with his former employer, Florida Power & Light, cost him a seat on the host committee for the 14th Annual Mayor’s Ball this Saturday? Sources tell Banana Republican Bartel was thrown off the illustrious gala’s board about a week ago when FPL representatives voiced…

Earlier this week, the Miami-Dade County Commission approved an 8 percent rate increase to water and sewer bills, which means homeowners will begin paying about $4 more a month on their average water bill. The funds are meant to cover the cost of issuing $4.2 billion — yes that’s with…

A Miami-Dade County bureaucrat who evoked Jewish mob king Meyer Lansky’s name to orchestrate shady deals ripped off taxpayers to the tune of $3 million in a decade. During an afternoon press conference yesterday, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle unveiled charges of racketeering, fraud, grand-theft, extortion and other white-collar…

If it wasn’t already official, it is now: North Miami has the sleaziest politics in Dade. Consider the town’s latest tangled web, which involves a finalist for mayor getting secretly recorded talking about her lady parts. In the days leading up to the May 14 city election, candidate Lucie Tondreau…

The company that won a hotly contested contract at Miami International Airport worth tens of millions of dollars a year is already in the doghouse with MIami-Dade County’s Aviation Department. On Tuesday, department director Emilio T. Gonzalez fired off a letter to Radames Villalon, general manager of Safe Wrap of…

The former head of a Liberty City non-profit agency that assisted veterans will spend 85 days in jail for stealing taxpayer money meant to help vets get back on their feet. Last week, 60-year-old Charles Leon Cutler was sentenced following his conviction in March on two counts of grand theft…

Ever since Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection retook control of the shuttered Coconut Grove Playhouse last year, the storied structure has been left to rot. And until the state closes a deal with Florida International University, Miami-Dade County, and Gablestage to open a new theater on the site, it will…

In the capital of medicare fraud, Miami therapist Paul Thomas Layman and his cohorts pulled off a doozy of a heist, stealing $63 million from the federal government through bogus mental health services. Now Layman will spend the next nine years in federal prison following his sentencing hearing yesterday. The…

Two years ago, Miami New Times was the first media outlet to report on a crew of scammers who swindled $2.4 million out of 15 real estate investors who believed they were getting sweetheart deals on foreclosed properties. The Miami-Dade Inspector General’s Office busted the delinquents last February. Now one…

At last week’s May 15 Homestead City Council meeting, Mayor Steve Bateman got testy with local business owner Michelle Pederson, prompting her husband Kevin to call hizzoner out. The back and forth occurred during the citizen’s comments portion of the council meeting after Homestead resident Mark Bell — hubby to…

The family that grew ganja together is now the family that pleaded guilty together. In the spring of last year, federal agents and Miami-Dade narcotics detectives dismantled a clan of marijuana growers that distributed thousands of pounds of high-grade weed from South Florida to New York City. Gilberto Santiesteban Jr.,…

National magazine journalism may be coughing and gagging its last breaths, but public radio is giving print reporters hope. In an email to supporters late last night, WLRN-Miami Herald News Director Dan Grech announced the station is reopening its Americas Desk. Even better: The desk will be helmed by Tim…

As Miami-Dade County moves forward with its $12.6 billion plan to fix the aging water and sewer collection system, Federal Chief Judge Frederico Moreno yesterday awarded a significant victory to the Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper, an environmental group that claims the county proposal does not address sea-level rises and catastrophic storm…

John Raimondo is a bit player in the 1999 epic three-part Miami New Times series “Pain & Gain,” which blockbuster Hollywood director Michael Bay turned into a passion project that hit theaters over two weeks ago. Starring Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, the film recounts the absurd dark…