North Miami Beach has fired two police department employees after they allegedly were caught in the office trying to cast a Santeria curse on the city manager shortly before mass layoffs were planned. Veteran officer Elizabeth Torres and office manager Yvonne Rodriguez were canned last week over the ceremony, says…
After being convicted of second-degree murder for stabbing a classmate during school at Coral Gables High School, Andy Rodriguez, 19, has avoided life in prison, but was sentenced to 40 years in jail this morning. Following his release, at the age of 59 if he serves his full term, he…
Oneal Ron Morris, the amateur plastic surgeon who’s alleged to have performed bizarre procedures on numerous patients, including injecting a mixture including fix-a-flat tire repair material in the behind of one victim, bonded out of jail yesterday on the same day that one of her alleged victims went public. Rajee…
Stripteases, sexual favors, booze, porn mags, and fat stacks of cash would be run-of-the-mill in many Miami strip clubs. But at downtown’s maximum security Federal Detention Center?Multiple attorneys interviewed by Riptide say the FDC visitor rooms have been taken over by South American pole dancers posing as paralegals for wealthy…
Enrique Gomez de Molina’s sculptures are to die for. Literally.The Miami-based artist was charged today with illegally smuggling exotic animal parts — including birds of paradise and the world’s cutest animal, a slow loris — into Florida from Indonesia. Then he stitched, glued, and stuffed the parts together into Frankenstein’s…
Just in time for Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami Dade Police have taken Jorge Gonzalez, an alleged art thief, out of the galleries and into the slammer. Police believe more of Gonzalez’s victims may be out there, however, and that the total amount of his fraud and theft could have…
Miami Gardens police were following a stolen car last night when one of the suspects pulled out a gun and began firing at a police cruiser. Police are now searching for the gunman, but have not released a description…
Yesterday, while most of us were busy making our asses fat the traditional way — with lots and lots of delicious stuffing and turkey — police were still busy dealing with the saga of Oneal Ron Morris, the fake doctor accused of injecting patients’ butts with a mix of cement…
A Carnival Cruises employee finds himself in hot water after being accused of engaging in sexual acts with a 14-year-old girl earlier this month. Kert Clyde Jordan, a 35-year-old ship employee, now faces federal charges after he allegedly lured the young passenger into a bathroom and engaged in statutory rape…
A couple of years ago, I went to the Hollywood home of former mega-smuggler Jon Roberts– featured in the documentary Cocaine Cowboys– hoping to do a profile on the quiet life of a retired criminal lifer in the ‘burbs. It didn’t turn out that way. After a couple of interviews,…
Elias Garcia Garcia and Maria Angela Plancarte, both 53-year-old residents of La Feria, Texas, have plead guilty to selling jaguar skins throughout South Florida. Jaguars are of course protected by the Endangered Species Act, and the sale of their pelts is explicitly outlawed…
Since the arrest of Oneal Ron Morris on Friday made headlines across the country, several other victims of the fake doctor have now come forward. Morris, who identifies as a transgendered woman, was accused of injecting a patient looking for butt implants with a mixture of super glue, cement and…
Ten cats were found dead in a yard in the Hammocks on Monday morning, and another three were so ill they had to be euthanized. One of the cats was found with signs of head trauma, but authorities suspect that all of the felines were likely poisoned…
Horsing around with a coworker on an active construction site already seems like a fairly terrible idea — but when the play-fighting includes a real knife and an accidentally loaded gun, the game is downright fatal. Police now say that’s exactly what went down at an abandoned lot in El…
If you watched the video we posted Saturday of a hog being slaughtered in incredibly brutal fashion, these are the three fellows you should thank for putting you off your lechón forever. Fifty-seven-year-old Rudesindo “Rudy” Acosta, 43-year-old Javier Estevanez, and 24-year-old Luis Cardoza were booked Saturday by Hialeah police after…
“Dr.” Oneal Morris has a very literal solution for patients looking to add a little junk to their trunks. She injected a woman looking to add a little more oomph to her caboose with a solution made of cement, superglue, mineral oil, and Fix-A-Flat tire mender. Thirty-year-old Morris was arrested…
Sure, John Philip Stirling may be Canadian, but he’s also the most Miami-flavored drug smuggler to land in local federal court since the heyday of the Cocaine Cowboys. When he was caught at sea last week off Colombia with 800 pounds of coke, the good captain flat-out told the feds:…
Arthur Balom, an Opa-locka police captain, has been arrested on allegations he helped protect a South Florida drug ring and had knowledge of the murder of a Brinks armed truck guard that happened last year. The arrest was part of an FBI investigation. Three other men, members of the drug…
A national legal magazine for prisoners has filed suit against the Florida Department of Corrections, claiming it’s been censored from distributing in Florida prisons due to a vendetta by the state agency. According to a complaint filed today, the DOC has rejected Prison Legal News off-and-on since 2005 because of…
Miguel Exposito may be gone, but the blowback from his turbulent reign atop the Miami Police Department hasn’t ended yet. Eight months after the last of seven fatal shootings of young black men by Exposito’s force, the U.S. Justice Department is set to announce this morning that federal investigators will probe…
Twin brothers, one an FIU student and another a UM student who was on track to become a Marine officer, have found themselves on the wrong side of the law after about $75,000 worth of marijuana plants were found in their shared South Miami apartment. The discovery was made after…
Paul Michael Mira, the athletic director of Archimedean Middle Conservatory and Archimedean Upper Conservatory, two associated Miami-Dade charter schools, is on the run after being accused of committing sexual battery on a 12-year-old girl. Police report that Mira has told relatives that he’d sooner kill himself than be caught alive. …
