Four years have passed since Laura Russell, an off-duty Metro-Dade police officer, shot and killed Andrew Morello while the sixteen-year-old and his friends were trying to steal stereo speakers from a Jeep Cherokee belonging to Russell’s neighbors. Russell claimed she shot the teen in self-defense as Morello was about to…
At four o’clock in the morning, County Commissioner Bruce Kaplan looked beat. He got up to stretch his legs and walked along the makeshift dais set up in the gymnasium at Southridge High School in Cutler Ridge. As he passed his commission colleagues, he tapped several of them on the…
Times are tough over at One Herald Plaza, home to both the Miami Herald and its corporate parent, Knight-Ridder, Inc. A sense of gloom pervades the Bunker on the Bay, as the obsession to increase profits has led to layoffs and an unprecedented exodus of some of the paper’s best…
Steve Mann was on his way to work one morning last November, when a golden-brown Mercedes sports car caught his eye. “I noticed it because I’ve always liked cars, and it’s not the type of car you see every day, especially in those colors,” Mann recalls. The car, which he…
The narcotics unit of the North Miami Beach Police Department had just set up surveillance this past March 30, and already the operation had hit a snag. Overworked and pressing to keep up with their superiors’ demands for increased arrests, Sgt. Steve Diaz’s squad couldn’t get anyone to sell their…
PE.Over the past three decades, you have amassed fame, fortune, and — most important of all — respect. Heck, you even have your own steakhouse! But there are evil forces out there working against you: The maniacal owner. The fickle press. The expectorating linebacker. Late in the fourth quarter of…
It is unlikely that either Willy Falc centsn or Sal Magluta will take the stand during their trial, but in a 30-minute conversation with New Times earlier this month, Magluta talked publicly for the first time since his arrest. Speaking by phone from the federal jail in downtown Miami, Magluta…
If America learned anything from the O.J. Simpson trial, it was the value of the courtroom as theater. But not every blockbuster can emanate from Hollywood, and most will never be televised. And so it is hardly surprising that the last great drug trial of the cocaine-cowboy Eighties is taking…
If there was one moment that best highlighted the difference in style between defense attorneys Roy Black and Albert Krieger, it occurred on the very first morning of jury selection. Krieger rose solemnly from his chair, almost seeming to bow before his audience of prospective jurors. “Good morning, ladies and…
Sitting in her penthouse apartment overlooking Biscayne Bay, Terri Harris is telling the story of how she overcame fear. How two years ago, when she was faced with a sudden bout of anxiety, she fought back, regained control of her life, and now possesses a skill she wants to share…
Ron Book is facing the toughest lobbying campaign of his career, more challenging than anything he ever did for Wayne Huizenga or Ralph Sanchez or Metro-Dade County or any of his other prominent clients. Book must try to sell the public on his own integrity. It’s not the first time…
Ask Ron Book what makes an effective lobbyist and he’ll talk about “the sanctity of the information that you convey to people” and how “a good lobbyist is someone who thinks quickly on his feet, someone who is creative, someone who brings both sides of the issue to the table.”…
First there was Moses and his Ten Commandments. Then David Letterman and his Top Ten List. And now Miami Herald publisher Dave Lawrence introduces his Nine Pillars of Excellence. Faced with a newspaper in decline and staff morale at an all-time low, Lawrence and Herald president Joe Natoli issued a…
At the trophy presentation following this year’s Lipton Tennis Tournament, victor Andre Agassi waved his heartfelt gratitude to the legions of cheering fans. Being the deeply religious fellow that he is, at some point in the proceedings he more than likely raised his gaze skyward in thanks to an even…
Like many trade associations, the owners and operators of duty-free stores around the world get together once a year for a convention that provides opportunities to study industry trends, listen to presentations from their peers, and to pass around business cards in that never-ending endeavor known as networking. This year’s…
When Liz Balmaseda described Gloria Estefan’s late-August trip to the Guantanamo Naval Base as “a most personal journey,” the Miami Herald columnist was in a good position to judge. Balmaseda was at Estefan’s side as she toured the camp, close enough to see the tears welling up in the singer’s…
La Toya Jackson came up with one. So did Dionne Warwick. And Walter Mercado. And Celia Cruz. Never one to miss a trend, premier actor and recording artist Philip Michael Thomas has pounced on the infomercial-clairvoyant craze, promoting his own network of psychics on late-night TV. Presumably handpicked by the…
Spend enough sleepless nights watching wee-hours infomercials and you’re bound to surf across Miami Tonight, a slickly produced 30-minute advertisement for Kendall Toyota that appears in the guise of a talk show. The host — and the car lot’s general manager — is Mark Jacobson, a friendly sort with a…
On Tuesday, July 25, the Dade County Commission convened its regular weekly meeting. But this particular gathering of the county’s elected officials was special. It was the commissioners’ last meeting before they closed up shop for a seven-week summer recess. As such, it was also the last opportunity for commissioners…
On August 4, Juan Tamayo resigned his post as foreign editor of the Miami Herald to return to reporting duties for the newspaper. An office memo circulated by managing editor Saundra Keyes provided no explanation for Tamayo’s unexpected decision, but his resignation was widely believed to have been the result…
For the past year Miami Herald staffer Donna Gehrke has been developing a new magazine, one that would focus attention on the contributions made by women from the Florida Keys to Palm Beach County. “We really want to be a special voice for women in South Florida,” says Gehrke, a…
Carlos Herrera stands in the family room of his Kendall home, encircled by the hauntingly vacant stares of more than two dozen dead animals. Herrera killed each of them — deer, elk, caribou, moose, impala, buffalo. Twenty-eight animals in all, their heads cut off and stuffed, their eyes replaced with…
