Investigators probe cash missing from Hollywood Police Department’s evidence room

Broward County and state law enforcement authorities are investigating a tip that as much as $175,000 may be missing from the Hollywood Police Department’s evidence room, prompting an investigation into possible criminal wrongdoing by police officers or other city employees, sources have told The Miami Herald.

The missing money has drawn the attention of the Broward State Attorney’s Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

A recently retired police sergeant whose job included overseeing the evidence locker for the last few years is said to be the focus of the probe, although everyone who has overseen the evidence locker for the past few years is being scrutinized, the sources said. The sergeant was allegedly captured on video moving boxes out the property room’s back door.

The inquiry is the latest in a stream of crises the city has faced over many years and comes just days after Hollywood officials traveled to the state Capitol to answer questions about gross mismanagement of city finances before a Joint Legislative Auditing Committee. At the hearing, state senators grilled the city’s financial director and city attorney about their decision to declare a state of “financial urgency” in 2010.

The move led to higher taxes, layoffs and pay cuts for city employees, and may not have been necessary, the auditors concluded.

The Police Department, which has weathered an abundance of corruption scandals over the years, has a new interim police chief, Vince Affanato, a former Hollywood police major who replaced retired chief Chad Wagner a few weeks ago.

Affanato did not return repeated phone calls by The Miami Herald. Wagner, now a captain at the Broward Sheriff’s office, also did not return phone calls.

The money allegedly disappeared under the watch of Sgt. John Nevins, who retired in April. He is now part of the criminal investigation, although nothing in his personnel file reviewed by The Herald indicates that the police department’s Internal Affairs unit or then-chief Wagner took any action.

However, Frank Fernandez, Hollywood’s assistant city manager who supervises the police department, said Thursday that he first became aware of the issue just after he was hired in August. He said Wagner informed him of the probe that had been referred to FDLE and the state attorney.

“I don’t know specifics,” he said.

Reached Thursday night outside his Cooper City home, Nevins said he was not aware of the investigation.

“The rumor mill has been going and there have been a lot of phone calls as of late,” he acknowledged. “Many people worked in there.”

The Broward State Attorney’s Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are handling the probe. Spokesmen for those two agencies declined to provide details.

However, Jeff Marano, head of the Broward County police union, said he was aware that there has been some questions raised about missing evidence, including money.

“They went to retrieve some evidence for a case and apparently found that some money was missing,’’ Marano said. The money, which went missing sometime last year, ranges anywhere from $125,000 to $175,000, according to several sources close to the investigation.

The evidence depository, which is under video monitoring and scanned inventory control, stores all property seized in connection with a criminal case. Often this includes money, drugs, guns and other valuables collected at a crime scene.

Read More..

American Airlines, US Airways announce merger

After a nearly yearlong courtship, the union became official Thursday: American Airlines and US Airways have formally announced plans to merge.

An early morning announcement by the airlines confirmed reports widely circulated after boards of both companies approved the merger late Wednesday.

The move brings stability to one of Miami-Dade County’s largest private employers more than a year after the airline and its parent company filed for bankruptcy protection, leaving the fate of thousands of employees — and the largest carrier at Miami International Airport — in question.

According to the Thursday announcement, the deal was approved unanimously by the boards of both companies, creating the world’s biggest airline with implied market value of nearly $11 billion, based on the Wednesday closing price of US Airways stock. The airline will have close to 100,000 employees, 1,500 aircraft, $38.7 billion in combined revenue.

The deal must be approved by American’s bankruptcy judge and antitrust regulators, but no major hurdles are expected. The process is expected to take about six months, according to a letter sent to employees Thursday by American CEO Tom Horton.

Travelers won’t notice immediate changes. The new airline will be called American Airlines. It likely will be months before the frequent-flier programs are merged, and possibly years before the two airlines are fully combined. The new airline will be a member of the oneWorld airlines frequent flier alliance.

And for Miami travelers, it’s unlikely that much will change at any point. American and regional carrier American Eagle handled 68 percent of traffic at the airport last year, while US Airways accounted for just 2 percent. American boasts 328 flights to 114 destinations from Miami.

“We don’t expect any substantial changes at MIA if the merger occurs because our traffic is largely driven by the strength of the Miami market and not the airlines serving it,” said airport spokesman Greg Chin.

American has said for more than a year that its long-term plan calls for increasing departures at key hubs, including Miami, by 20 percent. That pledge has already started to materialize; in recent months, the airline has added new service to Asuncion, Paraguay and Roatán, Honduras.

During its bankruptcy restructuring, about 400 American employees lost jobs, leaving American and its regional carrier, American Eagle, with 9,894 employees in Miami-Dade County and 43 in Fort Lauderdale. US Airways has few employees in the area.

“It really isn’t going to affect Miami in a very major way anytime soon,” said Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant in Evergreen, Colo. “Only because US Airways isn’t a big player in South Florida.”

At Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, American and US Airways combined would still only be the fifth-largest airline after Southwest, Spirit, JetBlue and Delta, a spokesman said. The two airlines have little overlap in routes from Fort Lauderdale.

Despite the lack of major changes, Boyd said the merger would be a good development for Miami.

“It should be positive for the employees and it should be positive for the communities that the airlines serve,” he said.

Robert Herbst, an independent airline analyst and consultant, said US Airways will add a “significant amount” of destinations in the Northeast, including Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Read More..

Jessica Chastain's Retro-Modern Style

ET caught up with Zero Dark Thirty star Jessica Chastain at the Calvin Klein Collection fashion show in New York City on Thursday, getting the Academy Award nominee to dish on her red carpet style and what she might be wearing to the Oscars.

PICS: Stars at New York Fashion Week

"I think my sense of style is all about embracing silhouettes from the past, especially feminine silhouettes, and making it modern," the actress said. "I love the actresses of the 1940s and '50s and '60s, and I think Calvin Klein does do that."

This style inspired the dress that Chastain wore to the Golden Globes, where she took home the statuette for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama.

"[Women's Creative Director of Calvin Klein] Francisco [Costa] designed my Golden Globes dress and I really felt it was like Rita Hayworth -- the silhouette -- but he made it very modern and striking and interesting," said Chastain.

Olivia Wilde voiced a similar perspective, saying, "Francisco always comes up with something really modern and really cool while maintaining that chic simplicity ... It's not over-the-top and that's why it's always timeless."

As for what Chastain has in mind for the Oscar red carpet, she told us, "I'll probably wear color. I won't be the wallflower at the Oscars -- that's for sure."

Watch the video for more.

Read More..

Designer rapist Anand Jon has 48 sex-attack counts dropped, still faces 54 years

Manhattan prosecutors have dropped almost their entire case against a notorious California fashion designer-turned-serial rapist, allowing him to plead guilty to just a single sex-attack count in what was once a twelve-victim, 49-count indictment.

Under a plea taken in Manhattan Supreme Court today, Anand Jon -- whose designs have been worn by Paris Hilton, Oprah Winfrey and Janet Jackson -- admitted only to forcing oral sex on one adult, aspiring female model.

On April 2, Jon will be sentenced to the five years he has already served in California; he still has 54 years-to-life remaining on that sentence, which covers his convictions on casting-couch sex assaults involving 16 women and girls.

AP

Fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander in LA court in 2008.

He still faces additional similar charges in Texas, prosecutors said.

ADA Maxine Rosenthal told a judge that the deal was accepted, "to spare the victims from having to testify at multiple proceedings" and in consideration of his lengthy sentence in California.

Jon lawyers called the deal a victory, and said that some of the materials turned over by Manhattan prosecutors as part of the pre-trial process here will be extremely valuable as he continues work on his California appeal.

"We've accomplished what we wanted, which was to obtain records," said Jon lawyer Kimberly Summers.

Jon's appeal argues that he had ineffective counsel in California; the Manhattan documents indicate that the CA lawyers never obtained vital police documents and correspondence showing his accusers were squaring their stories among themselves and with civil lawyers, Summers said.

The designer - who has appeared on America's Next Top Model - didn't let prison hurt his style. He appeared in court in a dapper Mandarin collared grey suit and freshly cut hair.

"Considering that the initial 49 charges included allegations of rape, drugging and mafia death threats, the settlement of one conviction involving Mr. Alexander's giving oral sex to an adult female is acceptable," defense lawyer Angelyn Gates said in a written statement.

Read More..

Was that Che in Beach hotel? Not any longer

Gus Exposito, 51, of Davie, couldn’t believe what he saw in the marble walls of South Beach’s W Hotel: a larger-than-life framed photograph of what looked like communist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

“He was a mass murderer, killed thousands of Cubans execution-style,” Exposito wrote in an email, comparing the long-dead Fidel Castro pal to Adolf Hitler or the Ku Klux Klan. “I spoke to the manager and he referred to it as art!”

A hotel employee said complaints started almost as soon as the photo, about seven feet tall, went up last week. It came down Tuesday.

“We did it as a matter of respect and sensitivity toward the local community,” hotel manager Damien O’Connor said. “We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused.”

The man in the photo looks a little different from the iconic image of Che Guevara taken by Alberto Díaz “Korda” Gutiérrez in 1959. Is this a younger Che or someone dressed like Che? Or perhaps a post-modern self-portrait of artist Gavin Turk?

In The Guardian, a London newspaper, Turk said he made a photo of himself posed as Che to advertise an exhibition: “It was quite a degraded, grainy image, so I could photograph myself in such a way that you wouldn’t recognize that it was me and not, in fact, Che. You only need key elements of the photo — the beret, the long hair, the position of the eyes (as with classical icons, looking up and to the right), a bit of beard — to make it function as a symbol.”

But it sure looks like Che.

The image is common enough, and enough time has passed since the 1959 revolution, that not every Cuban-American is outraged. Asked about the idea of hanging a Che poster in a South Florida hotel, a regular Miami Herald reader named Mario Iglesias said it’s time to grow up.

“I think the Cuban-American community has to mature and learn that the right to put up a picture of Che is the very reason we find Castro and Che so repugnant — because they would act to quash opposing speech,” he wrote in an email. “It is the very result of being in favor of a free society that there will be holocaust survivors who have to tolerate Nazi marches and Cuban-Americans have to recognize that not protesting a Che poster is not the same as supporting Castro.”

For Exposito, though, the right to post a Che picture doesn’t translate into a good reason to display it. It seemed to ruin his night out.

“We went to dinner with my wife and two couples at Mr. Chow and after dinner we took a walk to the rear to smoke a cigar, and — bang — there it was. We could not believe our eyes!” he wrote.

El Nuevo Herald Staff Writer Juan Carlos Chavez contributed to this report.

Read More..

Now owned by top executives, Cruise Planners on course toward continued growth

With a background in travel and present-day focus on raising her two small children, Lori Jahner set out to find work she enjoyed that would give her the flexibility she needed.

The 33-year-old from Aurora, Colo. decided on Cruise Planners — American Express Travel, a home-based travel agent network headquartered in Coral Springs.

“They have so much training to offer, ongoing education, and the branded name alone is so reputable and distinctive,” Jahner said. “Out of all the ones that I kind of looked into, this is the one that was standing out. More or less, it’s just the perfect opportunity so that I can do what I love, which is raising my kids but also selling travel.”

She has plenty of company. More than 850 franchise owners around the country are actively selling travel through Cruise Planners after paying startup costs that range from zero to $9,995. Those costs cover initial and continued training, marketing and advertising programs, a website, accounting and customer management software and support from the home office.

Fueled by everyone from stay-at-home moms to firefighters and retirees, the number of franchisees has grown by 14 percent annually for the last few years.

That has not gone unnoticed by cruise lines, who welcome more voices pitching their product.

“I think they are very important,” said Camille Olivere, Norwegian Cruise Line’s senior vice president of sales in North America. “They’re big supporters of ours and they’re bringing new people into the industry — and that is something that we desperately need.”

Cruise Planners agents sold $156 million in travel and related services last year, a 16 percent increase over 2011 and 48 percent jump over 2009.

Confident in continued growth, top Cruise Planners executives bought the company late last year from Palm Beach Capital, the private equity firm that had been majority owner since 2007.

CEO Michelle Fee, who has always held a stake in the company and now owns 50 percent, said she and fellow owners chief financial officer Tom Kruszewski and chief operating officer Vicky Garcia did not want to risk Cruise Planners being taken over by another investment group that might try to make changes.

“We wanted to make sure that whatever we keep doing is in the best interest of the company,” said Kruszewski, 60.

Before, Fee said, agents often asked whether the investment company would try to sell or change Cruise Planners. She said the purchase sends a good message.

“It shows them that we’re in this with you,” said Fee, 50, who co-founded the company with two partners 19 years ago. Those partners retired in 2007.

The company has invested about $2 million in technology upgrades and equipment in the last few years, including a mobile reservations system for agents that was introduced about a year and a half ago, and a consumer mobile app for iPhones and Androids that should launch later this month.

“We just have to be cutting edge,” Fee said. “Travel is technology; we have to be there with the big guys. Not only are we matching them, but we want to be better.”

Janet Fernandez, who started her Crise Planners franchise, Cruise Impressions, last July after working in different parts of the cruise industry since 1998, said she is already taking advantage of the latest tech innovations.

Read More..

Stacy Keibler's Valentine's Day Plans with Clooney

Stacy Keibler kept a tight lid on what she and beau George Clooney will be up to on Valentine's Day, but she may have left some hints as she gave ET a sneak peek of her new reality competition show, Supermarket Superstar.

PICS: Surprising Celebrity Hookups

Supermarket Superstar, premiering later this year on Lifetime, gives contestants a chance to get their food creation onto supermarket shelves.

"This is the American dream -- if you have a recipe, look what you can become," said Keibler, showing off some grocery store shelves from the set.

As for Keibler and Clooney's recipe for stirring up romance on Valentine's Day, don't be surprised if it's a low-key celebration involving lots of food.

"I love to cook and I love to eat," said Keibler. "[Clooney and I] cook well together."

Watch the video for more.

Read More..

Bloomberg plans pilot program to collect and compost food waste

In an ambitious and dramatic move to boost a dismal recycling rate, the Bloomberg Administration intends for the first time to collect and compost food waste starting with a pilot program on Staten Island.

Officials said Mayor Bloomberg will announce the initiative tomorrow in his 12th and final State of the City address at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

If the program for single-family homes in the smallest borough works, it'll be expanded citywide -- diverting about 20 percent of the garbage from the waste stream of the nation's largest metropolis. Other cities, such as San Francisco and Seattle, already turn leftovers into fertilizer.

"The administration seems to recognize it needs to polish up its record on recycling to keep up an overall impressive record on environmental and sustainable issues," said Eric Goldstein, senior attorney of the National Resources Defense Council.

"Recycling has been the soft spot....This can mark a real turning point in returning New York to a leadership role."

The city's recycling rate hovers around 15 percent, less than half the national average. When Bloomberg took office in 2002, it was 19 percent.

The mayor has pledged to double the recycling rate by 2017, which Goldstein said would not only save the environment but also save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. The city spends more than $300 million to ship 10,800 tons of trash each day to landfills. The cost goes up almost every year.

Officials on Staten Island -- many of whom took part in the fight to shut the enormous Fresh Kills landfill during the Giuliani Administration -- reacted warily.

"I think most people are not going to like it," predicted Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro. "I doubt if it's going to be successful."

As someone with experience in the recycling business, Molinari said he's worried that bins for food scraps will quickly vanish after the first collection.

"The DS (Department of Sanitation) truck comes, takes off the cover and dumps the garbage. That's the end of the pail and the end of the cover," he said.

City officials said the administration would supply rigid containers with locked tops that would be collected separately, probably starting in the spring.

"It'll be foolproof," vowed one official.

City Councilman James Oddo (R-S.I.) said he was concerned that his constituents would start getting fined if they mistakenly mix organic and regular garbage.

But officials offered reassurances on that front as well, saying there would be no fines during the pilot period.

To round out his recycling package, the mayor confirmed the worst fear of take-out joints -- he's going to ask the City Council to make New York the first major East Coast city to ban Styrofoam.

An estimated 20,000 tons of the nearly-indestructible stuff enters the waste stream each year.

Finally, the mayor wants to amend the Building Code so that 20 percent of the spaces in all new parking garages are wired for electric vehicles, creating an estimated 10,00 such spots in seven years. The city also plans to set up two sites for 30-minute electric car charge-ups, one in Seward Park for the public and another at Con Ed headquarters on Irving Place for taxi fleets.

Bloomberg's announcement will come on a propitious day, both Valentine's Day and his 71st birthday.

Read More..

Disabled Carnival ship limping toward land

Carnival Cruise Lines President and CEO Gerry Cahill on Tuesday apologized to passengers stranded after an engine room fire left 4,229 people adrift on one of the cruise giant’s ships in the Gulf of Mexico.

“No one here from Carnival is happy about the conditions on board the ship and we obviously are very, very sorry about what’s taken place,” Cahill said at a press conference at the company’s headquarters in Doral. “There’s no question that conditions on board the ship are very challenging. I can assure you that everyone on board in the Carnival team and everyone shoreside is doing everything they can to make our guests as comfortable as possible.”

Passengers aboard the fire-stricken Carnival Triumph have one more day at sea without air conditioning or widespread use of toilets before they reach land in Mobile, Ala. under the power of two tugboats. A U.S. Coast Guard vessel is escorting the ship in case of emergencies.

“If something does happen, we’re out there to help,” said Petty Officer Richard Brahm.

Cahill said the company has lined up more than 1,500 hotel rooms in New Orleans and Mobile for Thursday night and 20 charter flights to fly people to Houston on Friday. The company has canceled the ship’s Feb. 11 and 16 sailings. For those who just want to get home, Carnival is arranging for motorcoach service to Houston and Galveston.

By the time they arrive, it will have been a longer trip than they bargained for, and much less of a vacation.

The 14-year-old ship left Galveston for a four-night Western Caribbean cruise on Thursday with 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew on board; it was scheduled to return Monday morning.

But Sunday morning, fire broke out in an engine room for unknown reasons as the ship sailed off Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The blaze was put out by automatic extinguishing systems, but the ship lost propulsion and was forced to operate on emergency generator power.

Since then, passengers have complained of stench, human waste in public areas, heat and long lines for food.

Texas resident Brent Nutt, whose wife is on the cruise ship, said Monday that she told him the "whole boat stinks extremely bad" and some passengers were getting sick and throwing up, the Associated Press reported. Nutt said his wife reported "water and feces all over the floor."

Jimmy Mowlam, 63, told the Associated Press his 37-year-old son, Rob Mowlam, told him by phone Monday night that the lack of ventilation onboard Carnival Cruise Lines’ Carnival Triumph had made it too hot to sleep inside. He said Rob and his new bride are among the many passengers who have set up camp on the ocean liner’s decks and in its common areas.

"He said up on deck it looks like a shanty town, with sheets, almost like tents, mattresses, anything else they can pull to sleep on," said Mowlam, 63, who is from southeast Texas.

Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor-in chief of the popular website CruiseCritic.com, said many frequent cruisers take such incidents in stride – but, she said, the fact that there have been several fires on ships in recent years could be cause for concern.

In a strikingly similar case, the Carnival Splendor was set adrift in the Gulf in November 2010 after a major fire. It was out of service for about three months; the company estimated the cost was $56 million.

Read More..

State to crackdown on tutoring contractors

Florida will crack down on tutoring contractors that defraud school districts and — for the first time — require criminal background checks for people who head tutoring firms under changes announced Tuesday by the state’s top education official.

Education Commissioner Tony Bennett issued a statement outlining a series of steps his department will take to rein in fraud and ensure that tens of millions of dollars in education funding steered to private tutoring firms is better spent.

“We must hold the businesses and their leaders responsible for proving that the dollars directed to tutoring ... produce the results intended,” Bennett said. “Our students deserve nothing less.”

The statement comes in response to a three-month investigation by the Tampa Bay Times, which found that lax state oversight has made subsidized tutoring a source of easy cash for criminals, cheaters and opportunists.

Besides screening owners of companies that offer the mandated instruction, the state also will work with lawmakers to cut the high costs of the program — the Times found that the average company charges more than $60 an hour per student — and create better ways to measure whether tutors are helping kids learn.

“We should know that our investment in our students is producing a return,” Bennett said.

The commissioner also said the education department will go after fraud and seek to recoup “misused state resources.”

The statement offered few details about how the Department of Education will accomplish these goals, and more specifics weren’t immediately available Tuesday afternoon.

The department office in charge of overseeing the tutoring program, known as supplemental educational services, has been affected in recent years by reorganizations and turnover.

Some companies have capitalized on weak oversight, the Times reported Sunday.

The newspaper found that a convicted rapist, a woman who served probation for child neglect and a fugitive were among the listed officers and directors of state-approved tutoring companies for poor kids in failing schools.

In at least 40 cases in the past few years, companies have faked enrollment forms or billed for tutoring that didn’t happen. And the program is rife with conflicts of interest, the Times found.

Federal education law originally required school districts to hire private tutoring companies for poor students in schools that failed to improve test scores, but Florida got a waiver from that law last February.

A month later, state lawmakers acted to require tutoring as part of a state law, quietly voting to keep the money for tutoring companies flowing. This school year, Florida set aside at least $50 million for private tutors. The money comes from federal Title I funds that districts otherwise would be free to spend in high-poverty schools.

The state requirement was included at the urging of tutoring industry lobbyists and Bennett’s predecessor, Gerard Robinson, who declined to discuss his support for the program.

H. Marlene O’Toole, chairwoman of the state House education committee, said she was ready to work with the education department to tighten oversight.

“It’s very discouraging when we have good programs to help young people, and we find someone, usually an adult, who will take advantage of this,” said O’Toole, R-Lady Lake.

District administrators across the state, including Hillsborough County schools Superintendent MaryEllen Elia, have decried the program, saying public schools could better spend the tax dollars by hiring more teachers or creating their own programs.

“I am encouraged by the Commissioner’s bold and immediate response to a very serious issue,” Elia said in a statement Tuesday. “Everyone who receives public dollars needs to be held accountable. The state needs to put safeguards in place and put the focus back on meeting the needs of children.”

Pinellas County schools Superintendent Mike Grego put it bluntly Monday in an interview with the Times editorial board.

“Right now we’re forced to do it,” Grego said of hiring private tutoring firms. “I want out.”

Tampa Bay Times staff writer Cara Fitzpatrick contributed to this report.

Read More..