Attorney Hank Adorno had represented the interests of Jorge Mas Canosa for more than a decade and was both a friend and a trusted advisor to the patriarch of Miami’s exile community. Adorno was also considered to be very close to Mas’s son, Jorge Mas, Jr. Both men own summer…
Dear Jim: I was greatly disturbed by the recent efforts of some city officials to ban Cuba’s Los Van Van from playing in Miami, and was particularly appalled by how smug and self-righteous the mayor and several city commissioners seemed throughout the entire charade. Don’t they realize they are behaving…
If there is one moment, one 30-second span of time, on the FBI surveillance tapes of James Burke that is more striking than any other, it is the instant Howard Gary handed Burke $5000 in cash — “a down payment” Gary called it, for a larger bribe to come. Burke…
The overwhelming defeat of Alex Penelas’s proposal to raise the sales tax by a penny leaves the mayor in strange and unfamiliar territory. Until now he had been the golden boy of Miami-Dade politics, his political savvy having always landed him on the winning side of important issues. Never before…
Celebrating like members of a football team who had just won the Super Bowl, dozens of federal prosecutors and law-enforcement agents gathered on the back patio of Tobacco Road, reveling in the conviction a few hours earlier of Miguel Moya, the jury foreman in the 1996 trial of reputed drug…
Although investigators say they believe the victim, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office has decided not to file criminal charges against North Miami Police Det. Fred St. Amand for allegedly exposing himself and masturbating, on three separate occasions, in front of a female co-worker. The State Attorney’s investigation, which was released…
n June 29 Ramon Saul Sanchez was working at his day job as an office manager for a community development corporation in Little Havana when he first learned that something terrible was taking place off the coast of Surfside. Tellingly, the first person to call him was a TV reporter…
One of Pres. Bill Clinton’s few endearing qualities is his ability to adopt as his own the emotions of those around him. So it was when he came to Miami last week. At a state Democratic Party fundraiser the president couldn’t help but feel the pain of Miami’s Cuban-American community…
The day after the Coast Guard fiasco involving six Cuban rafters off the beaches of Surfside, Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart went to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and called on the Clinton administration to suspend its 1995 immigration accord with Cuba. “This administration’s policy toward Cuba can no…
Fidel! Quick turn on the TV news!” “What is it? Can’t you see I’m watching the autographed copy of Titanic that Leo gave me last year.” “Please, Fidel, it’s important.” “Okay, okay. What station?” “Try Channel 10 out of Miami.” “Are you kidding? You want me to turn off Kate…
Cheryl Wolosz tells me she feels sick. “I just threw up,” she says, her voice trembling over the phone. “They told me he’s coming back to work next week. I cannot believe this is happening. They are not going to do anything about him. He shouldn’t be a cop.” Wolosz…
Last week something remarkable happened. Something I wasn’t certain was possible. Last week Alex Penelas became mayor. Oh, sure, I know he was elected mayor back in 1996, but all that did was confer on him a title. Until now Penelas has simply been playing mayor. He dresses up in…
A member of Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas’s staff has admitted bilking the county out of at least $5000 during the past several years. The employee, Joseph Jean-Baptiste, who is chief of protocol for the mayor’s office, gave his wife and another relative passes that allowed them to park for free…
People often ask me: “Jim, is the county always going to be a mess? Are corruption and incompetence so pervasive that eliminating them is simply impossible?” I’ll grimace slightly in response, nod my head, and say, “I sure as shit hope so. Otherwise I’ll be out of a job.” Lately,…
It came as no surprise that Phil Hamersmith’s memorial service this past Sunday was a standing-room-only affair. Hamersmith, who died last week after suffering a heart attack, had been a political force in South Florida for more than twenty years. The list of politicians who came to pay their final…
If events at Miami International Airport took the form of a Western, then three months ago G.T. “Tom” Arnold would have walked into one of the airport saloons, tossed his Stetson on the bar, and announced his arrival by declaring, “Boys, there’s a new sheriff in town, and there’s gonna…
MEMO Date: May 20, 1999 To: The Dade State Attorney’s Office, The Miami-Dade Police Department, The Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department, The Florida Division of Insurance, The Federal Bureau of Investigation (Miami Field Office), The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, and The Internal Revenue Service…
I love baseball. And being a Yankees fan, I also love to watch the Baltimore Orioles get clobbered. So last week’s game between the O’s and a group of Cuban all-stars was great fun for me. I must admit, though, that while watching this particular game, as well as the…
Nobody messed with Smokey. Smokey was a “houseman,” a prisoner inside the county jail who ruled his cellblock. If a new prisoner wanted to use the telephone, he had to ask for Smokey’s permission. If a new prisoner wanted to use the bathroom or watch TV or go to sleep,…
Looking out his window, Albert Scaletti, Jr., watched as police officers surrounded his home. His heart pounding, Scaletti felt a wave of nausea rush over him. When one of the officers looked up and saw him at the window, he quickly slinked to the side, hoping to avoid being seen…
An aspiring bail bondsman must take an 80-hour certification course and a 20-hour correspondence course, and pass a state examination to become licensed by the State of Florida. Even then he or she can’t open for business until signing a contract with an insurance company, which gives the bondsman authority…
The witness, having been duly sworn, appeared on Monday, April 12, 1999, before the grand jury investigating county lobbyists. “Please state your name for the record.” “Jim DeFede.” “Now, Mr. DeFede,” the prosecutor begins, “I see here that …” The prosecutor hesitates, shuffles through a stack of papers. “Excuse me,…
