The story of the lost army commandos of Vietnam, as they have come to be known, is harrowing. It’s a tale of death, betrayal, denial, frustration, perseverance, and finally, vindication. Some 450 South Vietnamese citizens were sent to the North to do our dirty work in the early Sixties, then…
In 1995 Miami voters defeated a proposal to convert a sizable chunk of Virginia Key into an eco-campground. Few of the developers, city officials, and environmentalists who bloodied each other in forums before the election, believed the vote would be the last word on the subject. The chance to cash…
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…
Harvey and Alice are out for a late-evening walk in front of their three-bedroom house in a quiet, fenced-in, botanical-garden-of-a-neighborhood in Coconut Grove. Each has a four-foot, blue nylon strip attached to its neck. Both are off-white American Eskimo hounds. At the other end of Harvey’s leash is Luis Font,…
It was Saturday night at a new club in uptown Miami and a hot young dance band was booked for the evening. An excited group of people waited outside. Inside the concrete building, liquor and beer flowed freely. But this wasn’t the scenario that owners of Timba, located at Biscayne…
In the summer of 1981, Miami attorney Julius Ser began contemplating life after litigation. He dreamed of opening a bookstore, an intimate den filled with his favorite rare texts. “I thought it would be great,” he told the Miami Herald, “just sitting around, selling a few books and talking with…
The recent news that regulators had expelled philanthropist-about-town and South Beach hip-guy Richard Bronson from the securities industry didn’t exactly shock the financial world. After all the 44-year-old investment broker has a reputation as a scammer. And he’s been out of the business for more than a year. Yet the…
Despite the snazzy outfits, boutonnieres, and corsages, everyone knew this vote would be no mere formality. The November 17, 1998, swearing-in ceremony for Miami-Dade County School Board members had proceeded amicably enough, with incumbents Solomon C. Stinson, Manty Sabates Morse, and Perla Tabares Hantman, and newcomers Robert Ingram and Marta…
Wearing his best shirt and clasping hands with his wife and two young sons, Diosmel Rodriguez Vega entered America with a strained smile that melted into tears as supporters surrounded him at Miami International Airport. After the hugs and cheers, a throng of journalists pressed forward to interview the slight,…
Sixty-nine-year-old Francisco Hernandez is taking his daily walk in the early-morning stillness of Amelia Earhart Park, just outside Hialeah. He passes vultures perched, fat and lazy, on picnic tables. He proceeds toward the southwest end of the 515-acre expanse where, for the past four weeks, workers have been laboring for…
For 40 years Goodwill Industries of South Florida has been earning the community’s goodwill by putting disabled people to work, even those with severe physical, mental, or emotional handicaps. Under a federal vocational rehabilitation program, the agency provided counseling, training, and employment to 2100 impaired Miami-Dade County residents this past…
If you missed the picture on page 12a of the February 9 edition of El Nuevo Herald, look again. A bearded fellow sits beside a splintered building. The caption: “A man uses the telephone while seated before the remains of his home in Armenia, [Colombia], which was destroyed by the…
Something, or someone, failed Jarvis. Maybe it was the social worker assigned to visit the family, or maybe it was his mother who couldn’t keep him off the street. Or maybe it was Jarvis himself, a headstrong boy who tried to become a man too quickly.
Joseph Carlin sits behind the bulletproof glass of the walk-up window at Buddy’s Bar, staring out at North Miami Avenue and absently stroking the head of his guard dog, a sweet German shepherd named Nick. Also near at hand is the semiautomatic handgun Carlin keeps tucked in the waistband of…
When the clerk called Tony Martin’s name in federal court Monday, the football star, dressed elegantly in a casual brown suit and dark-brown suede shoes, just nodded. “Indicate your presence,” Barry Garber, magistrate judge, prodded. “Please raise your hand.” Martin, a Miami native and Atlanta Falcons wide receiver, lifted his…
The Oceanside Promenade seems like your average Ocean Drive hot spot. Friday and Saturday nights, the U-shape courtyard is choked with a drinkin’-and-dancin’ throng grooving to the salsa band on the south stage and tossing back booze. But one former employee of that Miami Beach bar alleges all is not…
Eric Bohnenblost backs up his truck until it’s just touching the long, bulky trash bin. At the moment he’s collecting debris from a window-screen manufacturer in Opa-locka, though his job takes him all over South Florida. On a typical day, he could drive from a Miami fabric-cutting factory to a…
Miraflores Viejo is just barely a town — no stores or telephones, not much more than about 70 wood-frame houses on either side of a narrow asphalt highway that connects the small farming communities in the northern part of Cuba’s Ciego de Avila province. Traveling to Miraflores Viejo isn’t a…
Who got burned in the recent program reshuffling at WLRN-FM (91.3) radio? Try Ed Bell, who once hosted seven hours of jazz shows every week and now produces/hosts just one day per week. Or Juan Carlos Villamil, former Rhythm Box emcee who resigned his part-time slot after the Latin-music show…
Amidst the pre-Super Bowl parties, fireworks, and crooning by plastic- surgery goddess Cher this past week, Tony Martin sat down at a table in the Miami Airport Hilton and Towers. A throng of reporters from ESPN, CBS, and NBC, as well as a profusion of daily drones jostled for a…
Info: Dumb and Dumber Luck After squandering much of his lottery jackpot, Bernardo Paz is acquitted of raping his pregnant teenage sister-in-law By Robert Andrew Powell As a daytime television talk show squawks in the background, Emma Castro plops down on an outdoor couch, her bare feet tickling the stone…
Aaron Sanchez, sitting in his office on the second floor of the Miami FBI office, ordered supervisory special agent Jerry Sullivan to show him the money. All $129,324 of it, along with records detailing where it had been. Nine months had passed since the cash was seized from a Deerfield…
