Back in July, three-fourths of the security guards on South Beach signed cards asking to unionize — a move that set off months of nasty fights with their employer, Security Alliance. Company leaders bullied employees to find out who had signed up. At meetings, the bosses reminded the guards that…
In a case custom-built for Internet pun headlines, a woman crashed her car in the Keys last week while shaving her bikini line in traffic. Here at Riptide, our high-paid team of tabloid-producing nickname writers spent literally minutes considering the case of Megan Mariah Barnes before deciding to endorse “Pubic…
Phil Busch has always been one angry dude. In 2006, the musclebound motivational speaker and born-again Christian fueled worldwide headlines when he sued über-evangelist Pat Robertson for using the bodybuilder’s well-greased, vein-popping physique to sell a mass-marketed protein shake without permission — and damn was Busch pissed about it. “Look in…
Anyone in Miami who managed to sweat it out through four hours of insipid red carpet interviews, Joan Rivers’ scary talking plastic face, and what felt like fourteen different sound editing categories at the Oscars last night was rewarded toward the end with a big-time local win.Activist Ric O’Barry, a…
This morning, there was food in my Miami Herald. Real, actual food.A “Sweet and Salty Nut” granola bar, to be exact. Inside my newspaper, which was buried underneath a bush, half covered by wet dirt, right next to the poisonous rat traps outside my apartment.To be fair, it’s not like…
Conjuring up 9-11, which was carried out in part by terrorists who’d used phony student visas to enter the States, federal prosecutors charged two Miami women this afternoon with running a bogus school in Miami to sell fake visas to foreigners. Lydia Menochal, who is 58, and 75-year-old Ofelia Macia…
Just when we were starting to worry that Miami was losing cachet as ground zero for all crimes cocaine-fueled — maybe that study about coke making your heart explode in the Miami heat really freaked everyone out? — the DEA swoops in to remind us that we’re still number one,…
Did fringe movement Sovereign Citizens trick a Miami man into filing a $14 trillion tax return?
Soon after a killer whale named Tilikum dragged a SeaWorld Orlando trainer to her death last week, news emerged that the incident wasn’t the whale’s first violent outburst. Tilikum, in fact, had already killed twice before, drowning a trainer in 1991 in a Vancouver park and fatally injuring an after-hours…
Marlon T. “X-Large” Moore sure looks like one of the dumbest criminals in Miami history.Late last year, the 38-year-old Miami native was arrested while on probation from federal prison for filing false tax claims — to the tune of $14 trillion. Yeah, trillion. With a t. If the IRS had…
On Friday, Miami’s best and brightest crowded inside City Hall to watch the city commission confirm Mayor Tomas Regalado’s pick for our new city manager. Carlos Migoya, a career banker and philanthropist, pledged to right Miami’s battered budget — and to do it for free, forgoing his job’s $300,000 annual salary…
President Obama has officially nominated a candidate to take over as U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida: former Janet Reno aide Wilfredo Ferrer.Ferrer, who currently works for Miami-Dade County, becomes the first Cuban-American lawyer nominated by a Democrat to the slot. He’ll need confirmation from the Senate before…
In 2003, a ragtag team of Colombian soldiers hacked through the jungles on a search for three American contractors who’d been kidnapped by FARC rebels. Instead of finding the victims, the soldiers stumbled upon an underground stash of rebel cash totaling more than $20 million. The American contractors — Keith Stansell,…
To the cynical of Miami who believe there’s nothing worth watching at the Winter Games, we humbly present Prince Hubertus von Hohenlohe … The Most Interesting Man in the World.German prince. Mexican Olympian. World-class photographer. Professional musician. Fluent in five languages. Heir to the Fiat fortune. As far as Riptide…
For years, Lew Freeman was Miami’s go-to “forensic accountant” — the numbers guy who cleaned up the mess when a high-profile company imploded. As detailed in Jay Weaver’s excellent profile back in October, Freeman gave to charities, boosted the University of Miami and palled around with politicos. When then-Commissioner Joe…
Mayor Tomas Regalado will name Carlos Migoya, a former Wachovia Bank president and Autonation executive, as interim city manager later this afternoon, Riptide’s sources say. Migoya will take over from Pete Hernandez, who handed in his resignation on Friday amidst a widening federal probe into the city’s disastrous finances. …
If you’re like Riptide and you live in Miami, chances are you don’t think about Homestead, our fine neighbors to the south, all that often.But these last couple weeks, the good politicians of that southern burg have done everything they can to put their hamlet back on our radar by…
Miami City Manager Pete Hernandez has handed in his resignation, two of Riptide’s sources at City Hall have confirmed. Herandez’s ouster is a major victory for Mayor Tomas Regalado, clearing the way for Regalado to bring in an ally to fill the slot. Sources say that Regalado confronted Hernandez yesterday about…
Edgar Giovanni Castillo, how dumb — and disturbed — you are. Let us count the ways. First, police say, you molest children and film it. Then you keep said films and videos on your cell phone’s smart chip, of all places. And then, for a coup de grace, you try…
Pablo Guzman ran away from a Super Bowl week shooting outside a downtown club, evaded an off-duty cop’s barrage of bullets, and successfully made his escape to Cancun, Mexico. But his luck ran out when he tried to catch a flight from Cancun to Panama City over the weekend. Guzman,…
Who executed a career criminal wanted in connection with a February slaying in Miami? That’s what the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Department is trying to piece together this morning after a 21-year-old Miami native named Travis John Lattimore was found dead behind an a abandoned house outside Fort Pierce. Lattimore’s…
Three Miami-Dade police officers lied under oath last year when they told a judge that they read a suspect his Miranda Rights during a traffic stop that led to a felony weapons charge, federal officials say. The three officers — patrolmen Jorge Luis Gonzalez and Alkibiades Dodge, and Sgt. Waell…
