The Lexus Leprechaun Filed under: Flotsam Early last week the embattled John Timoney suggested that a friendly guy, of Irish ancestry, could walk into a Lexus of Kendall dealership, make friends with the owner, and be granted an indefinite test drive. Well, he didn’t say that. But he expected everyone…
Check out this sad, sad e-mail exchange. It allegedly took place at Christmastime 2002 between cyber-Casanova Abel Lera and a county hall boss named Benigna Marko, a.k.a. Bennie. It smells like a breakup. Benigna: I know you will be strong — please be. But I will not! I know myself…
Burger Sting Filed under: News It can’t feel good to get scolded by a nine-year-old. How about 100 of them? Burger King vice president Steven Grover might feel like he’s been sent to the corner after receiving several dozen handwritten letters of reprimand from children accusing his company of being…
“Happy” Mother’s Day, for $2.99 Filed under: Flotsam One night, back in 1999, at Monty’s on Miami Beach, Erik Goldman mused over the men buying cocktails for potential sheet-mates, and tallied up how much it costs for a guy to get laid. His calculation: $200, including dinner and drinks. There…
For the past two years, two months, and ten days, out on the western fringes of Miami-Dade County, Lionel Tate has been sitting inside a prison cell at the Everglades Correctional Institute for a crime he almost certainly didn’t commit. In fact two South Florida private investigators allege DNA evidence…
It’s July 13, and in an effort to evade the brutal midafternoon sun, Cesar Ramirez cools off in the shade of a tree near the entrance of Allapattah Middle School. The wiry Puerto Rican waits for his daughter Amanda to emerge through the turquoise-color doors. From 8:00 to 4:00 Monday…
Last year a 42-year-old convicted felon with a history of fraud stole my identity. Though Thomas Barrett Stringer admitted to spending lots of money (an estimated $4000) in my name — renting a car, opening two credit card accounts, and connecting three cell phones — the cops can’t bust him…
Slinging Mud in the Land of Sand
Danny is an addict. “He first experimented with marijuana and nitrous oxide when he was thirteen,” says his ex-girlfriend Jessie, a petite, curly-haired brunet with a tender voice. “He graduated from cocaine to crack in his late teens and hasn’t stopped since.” Since 1999, Danny has been arrested six times…
The Go-to Guy for the Gun-Shy Filed under: Flotsam The bulletproof window near the entrance of the Opa-locka Police station features what looks like a poster for a shitty rap concert: Ten hundred-dollar bills fan out to form a backdrop for a thousand-dollar bill, Grover Cleveland’s green mug obscured behind…
Investigative journalist Mike Kirsch remembers undercover cops pinning him against his car in Cicero, Illinois, in the late Eighties, when he was working for a CBS affiliate. He says the officers were miffed that he was investigating a tip that they’d accepted favors from some neighborhood hookers. In 1996, while…
Souto Steamed Over Suit Support Filed under: News In their battle to stop Jorge Perez’s luxury condo project on land owned by Mercy Hospital, supporters of Vizcaya have drawn the ire of Miami-Dade County Commissioner Javier Souto. Last week Souto introduced legislation ordering the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens Trust to…
Bazooka Babes Filed under: Culture In a lush field somewhere deep in the heart of Homestead, a gorgeous brunet in a brown bikini lies atop a camouflage tarp, cradling a .50-caliber sniper rifle. The firearm’s muzzle is as long as her deliciously toned, boot-strapped legs. Despite the brutal heat and…
Back in April 2003, Miami-Dade County Commissioner José “Pepe” Diaz attended an anti-cancer charity shoot at the Trail Glades Gun Range. It was a balmy, sunny day just east of the Miccosukee casino on the Tamiami Trail, and several dozen recreational shooters hurried through 200 target competitions. Most were members…
Whore Hounds, Unite Filed under: Culture Thank God for the Internet. Should all of South Florida be swallowed up by the sea, scientists 50 years from now will still be able to create a digital map of where to get the best handjobs in Miami. You don’t need a white…
See the World, One Couch at a Time Filed under: Flotsam Want to cross oceans, continents, and cultures, but lack the necessary scratch for a room in a sleazy hostel, let alone a tony hotel? Thousands of financially challenged would-be voyagers have found a way. Enter the Couchsurfing Project: an…
Early one afternoon in June 2003, a bushy-haired, 28-year-old sergeant from Miami sat down on the hard floor of a steamy, furniture-less room in Ar Ramadi, one of the most dangerous locations in Iraq’s Sunni Triangle. The space, on the second floor of the city’s government center, had been previously…
Miami-Dade County Commission Chairman Bruno Barreiro is holding court at a Little Havana library. It’s still early and his audience consists of about two dozen three- and four-year-old students from nearby Lincoln Marti School and Pin Pon Nursery School. The photogenic 41-year-old Cuban American is narrating We’ve All Got Belly…
While You Were Out Filed Under: News While you were out partying, doing hallucinogenic drugs, and having hedonistic (and maybe unprotected) sex during the recent Winter Music Conference, the University of Miami’s medical school provided New Times with some astonishing, sobering facts: The AIDS rate among young people in Miami-Dade…
For 35 years Diane O’Quinn Williams has been a fixture at County Hall. She climbed the ranks from clerk to top administrator with a quiet, efficient style that calmed angry applicants and pleased nervous supervisors. In 2001 then-County Manager Steve Shiver made her planning and zoning director, one of the…
Take Us to the Bridge Filed Under: News Following revelations by New Times that a parking lot under the State Road 836 bridge was being used by probation officers as a dumping ground for homeless sex offenders — and that the lot was located within 2500 feet of eight schools,…
Just four blocks from Ocean Drive and haute high-priced South Beach eateries China Grill and Tuscan Steak, a rail-thin homeless man sat in the trash-strewn parking lot of a Walgreens this past December 28. Reynaldo “Flaco” Martin took a swig of vodka, then noticed Carlos Bustamante, a fellow Cuban-American in…
