Perhaps no one really believed the issue would lie dormant for long. Too much politics, too many passions. Indeed, the heated debate surrounding a new public law school in Florida — whether one is needed, where it should be located, and who ought to run it — energized the state…
If there was one place Simon Steckel didn’t want to be last Wednesday morning, it was Courtroom 3-2 of the Metropolitan Justice Building, where Dade County Circuit Court Judge Paul Siegel had convened a hearing to shed a ray of judicial light on a matter the Coral Gables attorney would…
Fear and temerity commingle in the voice of Alex Daoud, phoning the New Times offices to announce that he is finally on his way to prison. “Hey buddy, I’m in South Carolina, heading into Estill,” he barks into a mobile speaker phone, in the manner of a radio correspondent filing…
Two guys you might never expect to find in the same place at the same time — a skinny, balding white fellow in preppy shorts and sandals and a heavyset black man in grease-stained blue work pants and a grimy T-shirt stretched taut over his considerable girth A are staring…
Amid the usual cacophony of midday airport sounds, passengers who happened to have heard the explosion probably didn’t think much of it. A brief roar off in the distance barely intruding on the aural blur of arrival information and public announcements, crying children, vehicles loading and unloading travelers. Perhaps the…
This past September brought bleak news to the parents, students, and teachers at a northeast Dade grade school. Rumor had it that an Oak Grove Elementary staffer had walked off with thousands of dollars in school funds, necessitating a drastic cutback in supplies and the cancellation of all field trips…
Why would the Dade County Commission approve a two-million-dollar contract for undercover cop cars that: A) actually caused police to ration their undercover vehicles? B) subverted the county’s standard bid procedures?, and C) left the county embroiled in a nasty lawsuit? Well, son, as your father used to say, it’s…
As anyone who works there knows, the Juvenile Justice Center is a locale in dire need of distractions. Morale at the cozy complex of courtrooms on NW 33rd Street is running low these days, thanks to a rash of highly publicized crimes against tourists. While prosecutors ship more and more…
It looked like the beginning of the end for Temple Beth El. Here it was, the first night of the Jewish High Holidays in September, and the temple’s last-ditch appeal for new members in the North Bay Village News seemed to have fallen rather flat. “Dig deep into your hearts…
Earlier this year Octavio Visiedo and I exchanged thank-you notes. Mine was more than a little disingenuous. I suspect his was, too. Visiedo, of course, is superintendent of the Dade County Public Schools. I’m a parent of a child at Springview Elementary, about a mile north of Miami International Airport…
Lionel Goldbart is an unlikely hero. Working the Lotto hardware at Art Barker’s News on a Saturday afternoon, he’s somewhat forgettable in his worn T-shirt and shorts buoyed by suspenders, stubbly of chin and thinned out on top, bespectacled, round and a little bit droopy. To anybody who asks, he…
As Metro commission meetings go, this one was running relatively smoothly. Commissioners had agreed to ask voters to consider a new property tax, with the money to be earmarked to fight juvenile crime. They passed an anti-graffiti ordinance and a measure urging the federal government to build a new commissary…
Yosemite Valley, California, September 25: During a weekend layover in San Francisco, Gersten found time for some adventure at Yosemite’s famed Half Dome. Park rangers briefly detained him for climbing without a permit. Bristol, England, October 11: Billing himself “Joey the Magnificent,” Gersten joined his cousin Gertrude for several days…
From the condos of Aventura to the trailer parks of Homestead, there is a growing realization that Dade County just isn’t the same without Joe Gersten. Life in the tropics is definitely less interesting without his cherubic smile, his bullyboy personality, his knack for making great headlines. Miriam Alonso did…
Ever since Smith chose his moniker in a preseason contest, the Heat and the Miami Herald, which sponsored the nickname game, have attempted — somewhat unsuccessfully — to imprint it on the local consciousness. “Tricky,” observed a nine-year-old fan who watched Smith pile in 24 points this past Thursday in…
Clearly, Steve Clark’s security detail was nervous. Having finished his victory speech, the newly elected Miami mayor was in the midst of a series of television interviews when the throng of well-wishers began pressing closer, surrounding the television cameramen on their two-foot-high platform. “Get back, get back!” one plainclothes detective…
“Everything goes on in this world, until you get caught.” — Marty Abrams It didn’t matter that Marty Abrams was the smart one. That didn’t mean you could turn your back on him. Hell, you didn’t turn your back on anyone while the Price Wars were raging. Not your partner…
A little more than 50 years ago, in the Sevillano neighborhood of Havana, Mirta Valdes was living a parent’s worst nightmare. Her one-year-old daughter Lazara was dying of pneumonia and there was nothing Mirta or her husband Ulises could do to save her. A doctor had come and gone; his…
Mario Gonzalez was confident he would never be caught. Indicted in 1989 on federal charges of drug trafficking and weapons violations, he knew the cops were looking for him. He’d even seen his own picture on television, where he was described as a violent fugitive. But the 28-year-old Gonzalez never…
On the question of whether the recently opened Federal Justice Building downtown should be named after Senior U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King, the jury is still out. But even as bigwigs on the judicial district’s Civil Justice Advisory Group ponder the possibility of honoring the jurist for his 23…
The last two hours of October 28 sounded like death. Anyone listening that night to 88.3 FM (home of pirate Radio X) heard a grueling, cacophonous dirge — as if someone had locked a gang of Gregorian chanters on acid in a room with a symphony of drunks, recorded every…
On July 23, after nearly four years of legal wrangling, the family of Drs. Lisette and Andres Nogues was finally reunited. In September 1989 state child-protection workers had removed the seven minor Nogues children from their Kendall home after Aimee, who was fifteen years old at the time, accused them…
