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…
The little green wooden cottage near Biscayne Bay survived thrashings from the mighty hurricanes of 1926, 1935, and 1992. But starting in fall 1997, human forces accomplished what the storms could not: A construction crew up and moved the one-story, pitch-roofed bungalow a few hundred feet to a new resting…
“Come around eleven o’clock. It starts gettin’ thick ‘n’ chunky around then,” Bo the Lover growls into his cell phone. Bo, a.k.a. Brindley Marshall, has promptly returned a page. It’s Friday night and the caller is inquiring about a hip-hop dance party that Marshall’s Pure Funk DJs are throwing at…
It was just a few weeks ago that the Clinton administration nominated a new chairman for the board that oversees Radio Marti. The president also announced increased efforts to make the shortwave U.S. government station more widely heard. But the news is not all good. New Times has obtained a…
Not so long ago the international rock star Marilyn Manson played local dives such as the now-defunct Plus Five in Davie. Launched in 1990 as Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids, the band evolved from an obscure novelty act with adolescent stage names to a wildly popular novelty act with…
Saturday nights usually start off low-key at the Elks Lodge on SW Eleventh Avenue in Homestead; members check in a few at a time at the front door, then find seats at cloth-covered tables in the cavernous banquet room. A disc jockey spins soul selections from the Seventies and Eighties,…
Eunice Liberty is describing her recent police-assisted move to a nursing home: “They came and picked me up like a piece of lumber and threw me in the van. They tied me up like a young girl. Now do I look like I could run away?” It is not the…
Ronald Hayes likes to refer to it as “my third war.” There was World War II, Korea, and now there’s Miami Beach’s North Shore Open Space Park. Tall, thin, and slightly stooped, Hayes strides along a paved park trail that winds through sea grapes and pines toward the beachfront dunes…
Despite the trophies mounted on the wall nearby, Juana Moraes is bemoaning the one that got away. “This man came in and he grabbed one of the double dildos, the big ones, and he ran out like he saw the devil,” recalls Moraes, assistant manager of South Beach’s Pleasure Emporium…
Monday. A work day. Sonya is up at 6:00 as usual, strolling toward the pool. Her toes curl on a cool, pebbly patio as she strips down to a black bikini. Her belly is flat and the cut of her swimsuit shows off her youthful legs. The single mother swims…
On August 23, 1992, the day after Hurricane Andrew decimated parts of South Florida, Robert Hammel arrived at Matheson Hammock County Marina, where he works as a park attendant. He found twisted metal piers and 40-foot boats marooned in parking lots more than 100 feet from the shore. Some craft…
Alan Diaz is a senior at Florida International University. He has served as the editor of the college newspaper, and he was our most recent editorial intern. He’s also one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. He turned 21 years old this past November, which made him old enough…
The Delano’s Beach Village is fabulous. The cluster of structures — the yellow-and-white wood-slat lighthouse, the shade and massage tents, the cabanas — offer spa services, food, and towels to a hyperhip clientele. This extension of the hotel’s magic to the water’s edge has garnered universal acclaim from national and…
In some Miami neighborhoods, Pop Warner football is a community rallying point. Weekend games for kids age eight to fifteen draw thousands of spectators. Families gather to barbecue chicken and watch with passionate interest as tiny players wobble down the field in oversize helmets. The events are “therapy,” says one…
For the football players at Jackson High School, the game was a ticket to the state championship. For the thousands of Generals fans dancing in the Orange Bowl, it was bragging rights over their arch rivals, Northwestern, for the first time in twelve long years. For athletic director Jake Caldwell,…
