Jon Spear: Retired Miami homicide detective who, in 1993, reportedly expressed doubts about the hit-man theory. Gail Bright: Channel 10 crime reporter who recently revealed that Spear had expressed those doubts. Mario Hernandez: Bright’s Channel 10 cameraman. Stanley Cohen: Millionaire builder murdered March 7, 1986, in his Coconut Grove mansion…
The day after Hurricane Georges bodyslams the Keys, September 25th, Miami is a ghost town. Though the winds barely reach gale force, businesses close and workers shutter storefronts in a post-traumatic-stress flashback to Hurricane Andrew. Windblown detritus clogs empty roads: palm leaves, newspapers, scraps of wood. By late afternoon a…
Miami homicide detective Jon Spear pointed at the video camera and asked, “Is that thing off?” In a fenced area just outside Miami Police Department headquarters, in November 1993, WPLG-TV (Channel 10) reporter Gail Bright and cameraman Mario Hernandez were winding up an interview about one of Miami’s most notorious…
John Cunningham, an attenuated beanpole of a fellow in baggy shorts, a faded plaid Levi’s shirt, and a pair of navy-blue Vans, is haunting the front of Sylvester Stallone’s soon-to-be-former Miami mansion, awaiting the odd delivery truck. His Panasonic Palmcorder, as always, is in his right hand. “Afternoons are good…
As the waning moon rose over Dinner Key on December 8, Mary Barr Munroe, the wife of Coconut Grove pioneer and author Kirk Munroe, returned from the grave. Pink-cheeked and clad in Victorian dress, she begged Miami commissioners to stop two Boca Raton men from building 41 four-story townhouses amid…
Three Miami New Times staffers took honors in the recent Florida Press Club’s Excellence in Journalism contest. The newspaper was named the best in its class among Florida weeklies. Art director Dean Sebring placed first for a photo illustration and third in front-page design. Robert Andrew Powell also garnered two…
The final bell rings at G. Holmes Braddock Senior High in West Miami-Dade. Kids wearing jeans and backpacks stream out, the majority headed home to neighborhoods that spread to the Everglades’ edge. Dozens of parents wait outside to chauffeur their children back to sylvan housing tracts with names like Lakes…
Info:Correction Date: 12/17/1998 The Doctor is Out Beset by internecine battles, troubled leadership, and funding cuts, the local office of the Florida Department of Health is in need of intensive care. By Ted B. Kissell Dr. Kunjana Mavunda sits, arms folded, behind her desk in the small, gray office of…
The DOH’s internal brawl, with its allegations of substandard care, political infighting, and a brain drain of talented recruits, has taken place mostly out of public view. During the past two years, however, the Miami-Dade DOH has taken very public criticism over its attempts to shut down a single clinic:…
Chris Dundee’s death on November 16 was not a surprise, but it was an event that his family, friends, and admirers fervently wished could have been postponed. Boxing professionals revered Dundee as a symbol of an era they had mourned for years: the sport’s best days, when they caught its…
If Walter Reynoso was apprehensive, he didn’t show it. Reynoso was about to give his closing statement last week in the federal drug-conspiracy trial of six men, including his client, Fritz LaFontante. The handsome lawyer, in a dark suit and white shirt with cuff links, launched into an aggressive speech…
Anton McIntosh slept curled up beneath a palm tree as policemen tromped from the overgrown foliage at the edge of the beach, their white uniforms crisply pressed. It was a Saturday afternoon in August, and the beach was overrun with young families nibbling from picnic baskets and sprinting toward the…
Dan Marino, perhaps the greatest quarterback in the history of pro football, slumps on a bench in front of a locker and starts ripping wads of tape off his legs. The Dolphins have just lost to the Jacksonville Jaguars in a road game 500 miles north of Miami. Marino was…
You’re driving down South Dixie Highway. It’s a blissfully cool fall day in Miami. Traffic is crawling, but you’re taking advantage of the slow pace to look around. The Metrorail snakes overhead, and palm leaves rustle above a Burger King. You approach Le Jeune Road, and what’s this? A parking…
Miami-Dade County lays claim not only to an endless stream of Fidel Castro-related paranoia, but also to a rich history of actual espionage. Havana’s agents have infiltrated a half-dozen exile groups. Some highlights: Bay of Pigs veteran Carlos Rivero-Collado formed a paramilitary group called the Pragmatistas in the early Seventies,…
Michael Band is packing. The stacked boxes of files make his sparsely decorated office look even more austere. For twenty years Band has operated in rooms like this one on the second floor of the E.R. Graham Building in Miami, stripped of adornment in service of the people. Band, one…
The deck seemed stacked against Ira Paul. The Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High School math teacher had spent the better part of three years proving school administrators broke a promise about the number of hours he was required to work. And he did it all by his lonesome. A nervy, overweight…
With six seconds left in the first half, Florida City scored again. Charging downfield like the razorback hog that adorned his baby blue helmet, a Florida City wide receiver snagged a long pass and plowed his way into the end zone. And so the Razorbacks’ lead stretched to nineteen points,…
On one of those brilliant aqua-hued Miami Beach afternoons, 28-year-old Joel Reist is 25 feet high, wrapped around a thin but sturdy royal palm. The tree towers over a large open-air patio area surrounded by the Plymouth and Ansonia hotels. Reist is hanging a string of tiny Christmas bulbs as…
Across the Tamiami Trail, past The Pit barbecue and the Miccosukee gambling palace, and following 90 miles of monotonously swaying sawgrass sits a bar. This screened-in hut serves as an unofficial gatehouse to the fishing village of Everglades City. On a Friday at dusk, as the setting sun stains the…
Things were looking grim in the war room. It was June 3, 1997, the day Miami Beach citizens were to vote on the so-called Save Miami Beach amendment. Inside the Fifth Street storefront office that housed Miami Beach Citizens Against Higher Taxes, the atmosphere was apprehensive. Veteran campaigners, all gray…
Last month the Cuban American National Foundation filed a libel lawsuit against three men who strongly oppose the hard line on Fidel Castro. One of the defendants is Miami attorney Alfredo Duran, who wrote nothing defamatory but simply belonged to an organization that distributed information authored by others. Now the…
