Last summer, New Times brought you the story of Roman Vidal, a quiet Cutler Bay resident whom authorities linked to a very troubling international conspiracy. Starting in 2001, the 57-year-old smuggled millions of South American cigarettes through the Port of Miami, hidden beneath floorboards and shipments of yarn on freighters, bound…
Nearly a month after the body of aspiring model Paula Sladewski was found in flames in a dumpster, North Miami Police have finally released a sketch of a man they say witnesses last saw her with.Sladewski was visiting Miami with her boyfriend, Kevin Klym, to catch Lady Gaga’s New Year’s…
Jose Armando Rodrigues really wanted to get back home to Miami, so apparently it was a big bummer when his friend’s car, which he was ridding in, broke down on I-95 near Boynton Beach earlier today. We can understand wanting to get out of Boynton Beach as soon as possible, but…
It’s been more than one week since Carlos Bertonatti slammed into cyclist Christophe Le Canne on the Rickenbacker Causeway and then sped away as the 44-year-old died on the roadside, but the crime is still reverberating in the Magic City. Bertonatti, as we first reported here in Riptide, had a…
Lord knows one of the worst crimes haunting our community is the evil of unlicensed massage. We just don’t understand how parents can sleep at night knowing their children are growing up in a world where women, without proper documentation and trying to make ends meet, are lubing up the backs of…
Eighteen-year-old Chonshi Thompson died Thursday morning in the South Beach parking garage near 1601 Washington Ave. Two other victims were involved: 18-year-old Sandro Louis was shot in the groin, and 21-year-old Cesar Gonzalez took a bullet to his left hand. Both had fled the scene by the time police arrived…
Police have released the identity of the couple involved in yesterday’s apparent murder-suicide in Miami Beach.Thirty-five-year-old Sheila Mora was found stabbed to death in the couple’s apartment, Unit 3707 in the beachfront Akoya building on 6365 Collins Avenue. Police discovered her body after they were called earlier yesterday morning about a…
Nearly three weeks after the body of aspiring model Paula Sladewski was found burning in a trash bin on a street in North Miami, Police have few new leads in the case.Riptide briefly joined North Miami Police spokesman Lt. Neal Cuevas and Paula’s brother on Headline News’ Issues with Jane…
Once Miami-Dade police finally arrested Carlos Bertonatti on Sunday morning — after he’d slammed into a biker, sped away and led police on a several mile chase with a bike lodged under his front fender — the singer-songwriter refused to acknowledge that he’d just killed a man. So says an arrest…
Miami Beach Police were called this morning to Akoya, the luxury high-rise condo with the familiar crown-like structure on top in Mid-Beach, to face the possibility of a jumper. When they arrived at 7 a.m., they found the dead body of a man on the south side of the building.Inside…
What kind of person drunkenly slams into a cyclist on the Rickenbacker Causeway and then speeds away while the biker bleeds to death on the road?In the case of this Sunday’s horrific crash, according to police, it’s the same kind of person who can rack up more than 40 traffic…
Including an unprecedented surge of text message donations, people have now contributed more than $150 million to earthquake relief in Haiti, according to figures released yesterday by The Chronicle of Philanthropy. That’s five times the amount donated in the days immediately after the 2004 Asian tsunamis, and more than the…
An up-and-coming Miami pop singer with slick looks and a Sony recording contract has been charged with vehicular homicide in a horrific hit-and-run crash near Key Biscayne yesterday. Carlos Bertonatti, a 28-year-old who lives on Key Biscayne, was arrested yesterday near his battered Volkswagen after a short police chase. Officers…
On December 29 around 11 p.m., the call came in: A woman was being assaulted near NE 70th Street and North Miami Avenue.A few minutes later, a squad car pulled into an alley behind 45 NE 70th St. Cops found Regina Renee Crawford on the ground, unconscious and with bruises…
Your pride at making the varsity squad notwithstanding, if you’re the type of person who might conceivably bust a cap in some fool’s ass over a dispute at the corner store, you should probably leave your high school letter jacket in the closet. You really can’t go wrong with a…
In 2008, a New Times investigation brought you the story of the growing problem of South American gangs targeting local jewelers in violent robberies. “Highly organized South American theft gangs” are targeting local merchants, we wrote, employing “sophisticated surveillance and commando-style assault tactics.” The gangs struck again two weeks ago,…
Police are searching for a new person of interest in the murder of Paula Sladewski, the aspiring model who was found burned to death in a dumpster in North Miami-Dade after traveling to Miami for a Lady Gaga concert New Year’s Eve.Surveillance video from that weekend shows Sladewski leaving Club Space alone…
Last Wednesday, the early contender for young 2010’s most senseless murder of the year went down at the People’s Self-Storage on NW 79th Street. Just after 12:30 in the afternoon, a 55-year-old Haitian-American woman named Joslin Augustin visited the center to pick up some blankets and warm clothes she’d stored…
Paula Sladewski regularly sent text messages to a former boyfriend that boyfriend Kevin Klym was trying to kill him, according to her Stepfather. Richard Watkins, the stepfather, spoke to FoxNews.com and says that since her body was found burned in a dumpster in north Miami-Dade, he’s been in contact with…
Mansor Mohammad Asad sure picked the wrong month to have a crazy-guy episode on a Detroit-bound airplane. As you’ve surely heard by now, Asad was arrested on the tarmac at MIA last night after disrupting a Delta flight scheduled to head for Detroit by screaming “I’m Palestinian and I want to kill…
A pretty young girl winds up burned to death in a dumpster and all anyone can focus on is the fact that she once appeared in a Playboy video.
Police have identified a body found in a burning trash can as 26-year-old tourist Paula Sladewski.
