Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko may be gone, but he is not forgotten. On January 12 a group of prosecutors and U.S. Customs agents gathered in Miami to discuss the mysterious West African millionaire, suspected of embezzling nearly $250 million from a Middle Eastern bank. Federal officials flew in from New…
A week after his release from the Krome detention center, Jorge de Cardenas is sitting at home recalling the events of the past two years — his indictment and conviction on corruption charges, the year he spent at a federal prison in Kentucky, and his three months in the Kafkaesque…
I wanted to be supportive. I tried to like it. But I’m sorry, I think all the hoopla surrounding the Miami Circle is just asinine. How in the world did a hunk of limestone with a giant septic tank in the middle of it become the most important issue in…
On the morning of January 6, on the ninth floor of the James Lawrence King Federal Courthouse, the man for whom the building was named, Senior U.S. District Court Judge James Lawrence King, presided over what will long be remembered as one of the more bizarre moments in South Florida’s…
Embarrassed after suffering the biggest loss of a narcotics case in U.S. history, federal prosecutors in Miami are preparing a major new indictment against legendary drug kingpins Willy Falcon and Sal Magluta. Since their failure three years ago in the original Falcon and Magluta trial, in which the pair was…
Here’s an old joke: Two guys are eating at an Italian restaurant in New York’s Little Italy. The first guy whispers, “Hey, see that fella over there? He’s got mob ties.” “Mob ties?” the second guy asks incredulously. “Yeah,” the first guy says, “and those ties keep getting him in…
Place Date Cost Madrid, Spain October 20-27, 1996 $2000 Secaucus, NJ March 15-16, 1997 $566 Tampa, FL April 3, 1997 $134 Madrid, Seville, Spain April 11-22, 1997 $4300 Cascais, Portugal April 26-29, 1997 $600 Philadelphia, PA May 27, 1997 $150 Key West, FL May 28-29, 1997 $480 New York, NY…
As Gov.-elect Jeb Bush ponders whether Miami-Dade County Commissioner Natacha Millan merits a position in his administration, he may first want to make sure the state’s travel budget can afford her. Millan loves to visit faraway places, especially when somebody else is paying. In the past two years she’s taken…
Call it trickle-down corruption. After years of watching politicians and senior county officials line their pockets — a few getting caught, most not — a group of low-level, rank-and-file county employees apparently decided it was their turn. New Times has learned that a ring of eight employees at Miami International…
Less than ten minutes after the county commission voted to pass the gay rights ordinance, a stunned Miriam Alonso rose from the dais, walked solemnly to her office, closed the door, and threw an old-fashioned, wall-rattling temper tantrum. She screamed. She ranted. She raved. According to several bystanders who walked…
No one may be happier to see this year come to a close than Calvin Grigsby. In January the San Francisco-based bond dealer and businessman was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly offering bribes to former county Commissioner James Burke for a piece of Miami-Dade’s lucrative bond business…
She’s crying now. Halfway through the story of how the principal and assistant principal at the school where she teaches threatened and harassed her after learning she was a lesbian, her voice cracks and she begins to sob. She tells me she has taught in the county’s public school system…
Last week voters in Colorado’s Second Congressional District elected a new representative to replace David Skaggs, a respected Democrat who is retiring after serving twelve years in the House of Representatives. Ordinarily the departure of a congressman whose district is more than 1500 miles away would pass without much notice…
Jeb Bush and I first met in 1994 during his run for governor. For six days I crisscrossed the state with him in a motor home, listening to more stump speeches than I care to remember. How often during that week did he invoke the hokey phrase And when I…
After spending the past year at war with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Howard Gary has agreed to a truce; he will remain the government’s star witness in the bribery case against former Miami-Dade County Commissioner Jim Burke, California financier Calvin Grigsby, and Burke’s former chief of staff Billy Hardemon. Of…
Merrill Crews is the Republican Party candidate for the Florida House of Representatives in District 119, which encompasses a large portion southern Miami-Dade County. His campaign brochure features a picture of him with his wife and children, and a second snapshot of him with the family pet, a black Labrador…
Around 6:00 a.m. Friday morning, with the worst of Hurricane Georges still a few hours away, Doug Hawley is totaling up the register receipts at Jack’s Bait and Tackle. “Fifty-six dollars in the last six hours,” he tells his brother Gary, disappointment evident in his voice. “Not too many people…
After spending seven years covering politics in Miami, recent events have caused me to realize that I owe several people apologies. Let me start with the most obvious: Joe Gersten. Joey, I’m sorry. Speaking not only for myself but on behalf of all those “media elites” who ran you out…
Mary Williams remembers the day Ed Williamson told her he intended to purchase the vacant lot near her Kendall home and move his Cadillac dealership there. It was a June day in 1997. Williams says her recollection is clear because she was dumbfounded by the prominent businessman’s pronouncement. First, she…
Last month Miguel Moya was walking to his car in an employee-only parking lot at Miami International Airport when he was approached by a large and rather ominous-looking fellow. The man stood approximately six feet four inches tall and appeared to weigh in excess of 300 pounds. His face was…
The Miami Herald used fourteen reporters last week to cover the resignation of its publisher, David Lawrence, Jr. Fourteen! With so many people on the story, you might have thought Lawrence had made his announcement from the deck of the burning Ecstasy. Testimonials gushed forth from the governor, lieutenant governor,…
The nomination of Daryl Jones to become Secretary of the Air Force may be dead, but his transmogrification into a martyr — crucified on a Republican cross of racism — is proceeding nicely. Indeed, the reaction to Jones’s rejection by the Senate Armed Services Committee last week was both predictable…
