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Authorities say he was found at the bottom of his Palm Beach home's pool Sunday afternoon by his wife and could not be revived...

They flashed wads of money and brazenly showed off military-style assault weapons on MySpace.com. They started fights in clubs, distributed drugs throughout Palm Beach County and left a trail of more than a dozen bodies. They called themselves Top 6. And they were the most violent gang in Palm Beach County history. They influenced most of the drug trade in Lake Worth and parts of the trade in Boynton Beach, Delray Beach and Boca Raton during their latter years.

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh and girlfriend Kathryn Rogers have promised the town $100,000 toward the cost of new holiday decorations. The gift is part of $350,000 in private donations pledged by a few town residents, Town Council President David Rosow said at Tuesday's council meeting. Limbaugh wanted to help bring "brightness and cheer" to a town he dearly loves, said Rosow, who is a friend of Limbaugh's. Rosow solicited the donations to cover the entire cost of the new lights and garlands, and installation of wiring to support them. "No one I called said 'no,' " Rosow said....

Saying its finances are weakened, State Farm's Florida unit wants to get out of the business of property insurance in the state. The company, Florida's largest private insurer of homes and condos with 1.2 million policies, wants to keep only auto insurance, it said in a statement. Other State Farm units would still sell life, health and other financial services, it said in a statement. Under State Farm's proposal, it would phase out of the property insurance business over two years, giving existing customers time to find new coverage. If State Farm's plan is approved by state insurance regulators, that...

Given what's being called the biggest case of financial fraud ever committed by one person in American history, I figured that things would be different this year during our annual spring break trek to Palm Beach, ground zero of Bernie Madoff's alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme. As a footnote, Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant, advertised in 1920 that he could deliver a 50 percent return for investors in 45 days. Within several months, Ponzi had pocketed tens of millions of dollars from people who had turned over their life savings or mortgaged their homes to invest. "If there is an...

Palm Beach people are defined as much by the company they keep as by the companies they own. To really be somebody, it's not enough simply to have a fat wallet. You have to donate to the right charities, belong to the right club, and, then, to the exclusive club within the club. Just so, to be one of Madoff's marks, you first had to be one of his investors—which wasn't easy. Many of the fraudster's biggest investors—European industrialists, South American socialites, well-connected American businesspeople—believed that getting Madoff to manage their money was like gaining admittance to a hoity-toity club....

Beyond the financial fallouts in Palm Beach of the Bernie Madoff scandal, the very social fabric of The Island may find itself altered forever. Formerly rich families will be uprooted. Former friends are at each other’s throats. While Realtors are lining up to grab the expected sales of mansions whose owners lost the millions they invested with the disgraced Wall Street big, one scene at Mar-a-Lago Saturday night illustrates the tension. Several eyewitnesses at the 60th birthday party for carpet king John Stark tell me that two of the major players in this scandal came face-to-face. It wasn’t pleasant. On...

email page print page popular pages Police: Ex-lover stabbed Boynton Beach executive 200 times with screwdriver Click-2-Listen By MICHAEL LaFORGIA Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Wednesday, October 29, 2008 BOYNTON BEACH — A woman who lived with her ex-partner on the city's south side stabbed her former lover more than 200 times with a Phillips-head screwdriver and then tried to conceal the killing, police said. After committing the crime, Carol Anne Burger, 57, a writer who friends described as engaged and eager to move on with life, reported her old flame missing and then, a day later, shot herself to...

"Nonetheless an attorney in Philadelphia, Philip Berg, filed a lawsuit claiming Obama lost his U.S. citizenship when his mother married an Indonesian man. Berg says Obama failed to take an oath of allegiance when he turned 18. Obama has attempted to silence any critics by producing a birth certificate from Hawaii, proving he was born there in 1961. Berg however is demanding an original, and not a copy from the Obama camp. Obama's team filed a motion to dismiss Berg's lawsuit, but they also made a motion to block discovery. Brian Smith is a West Palm Beach attorney registered as...

Today is my first day as a GOP poll watcher. We are being dispatched to the early voting locations, which are starting today. I am going to a local library for a eight hour shift. I have five shifts before Nov 5. I have a folding chair, a pen, a stack of ready-to-go "incident reports", the state GOP hotline in my speed dial, my official poll watcher ID, sun glasses and it is raining... Cue "Bad to the Bone" I was thinking that I would update this thread with some fun facts (if there are any) as the election season...

In Palm Beach County it goes from missing ballots to too many ballotsBy Mark Hollis | South Florida Sun-Sentinel 6:13 PM EDT, September 12, 2008 It's no longer a missing ballots problem in Palm Beach County. Now there are too many ballots. After a cumbersome resorting and recounting of ballots from the Aug. 26 election, investigators produced two new troubling findings Friday. First, auditors have discovered electronic evidence that 110 ballots from voters at a Delray Beach precinct weren't included in election night results. Those votes also weren't included in totals from a recount. Second, auditors verified that there are...

Barack Obama's campaign went looking for unregistered black voters in barbershops and beauty salons across the state Saturday, including Broward and Palm Beach counties, in a new outreach effort to African-Americans.

For the next hour I sat behind the glass panel of the control booth and watched Limbaugh at work in front of the “golden E.I.B. microphone.” Unlike Howard Stern or Don Imus, he has no sidekicks with him in the room. He does, however, keep up a running conversation with an unheard voice. I always assumed that this was just imaginary radio shtick. Now I saw that the voice was attached to a human interlocutor, Snerdly, who banters with and occasionally badgers Limbaugh via an internal talk-back circuit. After the broadcast, Limbaugh waved me into the studio and offered me...

It wasn't exactly an obituary but it sure sounded like one when Palm Beach Post publisher Doug Franklin announced staff cutbacks at that newspaper today much larger than anyone had expected. The worst case scenario projected a cut of no more than 100 newsroom staff but, as posted in Bob Norman's The Daily Pulp, the final number was much larger: -- 300 jobs will be cut company-wide. -- 130 newsroom jobs will be cut. -- Buyouts are being offered to employees with at least five years vested in the pension plan. Here is the obituary-like memo from publisher Doug Franklin announcing the near death...

Palm Beach Newspapers Inc. said today it will cut 300 workers from its payroll of 1,350. "A prolonged slump in our advertising revenues, increased competition from the Internet and an overall difficult economic environment have combined to make this type of cost reduction necessary," Palm Beach Post Publisher Doug Franklin said. Palm Beach Newspapers Inc., which owns The Palm Beach Post, the Palm Beach Daily News, the Florida Pennysaver and La Palma, hopes to make the cuts through voluntary buyouts offered to all employees who have worked for the company for more than five years, Franklin said. PBNI is just...

YEKATERINBURG — Urals fertilizer billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev is the new owner of Florida's most expensive house after paying U.S. property tycoon Donald Trump $100 million for the waterfront property. Rybolovlev, whose fortune has soared by $10 billion in the last year on an unprecedented boom in demand for fertilizers, said through a spokesman that the purchase was an investment and that he had no plans to swap Moscow life for the Florida coast. Trump more than doubled his money on the sale of Maison de l'Amitie, a 3,000-square-meter mansion on Palm Beach bought for $41.4 million at a bankruptcy auction...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

PAHOKEE -- Dozens of law officers were combing through a fog-shrouded cane field near Lake Okeechobee Wednesday morning in search of suspects who led authorities on a wild chase that ended with two deputies being killed. A third deputy suffered serious, though not life-threatening, injuries. It happened near the town of Pahokee, on the southern rim of the lake. The chase, which began just after 1:30 a.m. ended tragically when a car -- possibly the suspects' -- mowed down the Palm Beach sheriff's deputies after they had placed tire-deflation devices on the road in hopes of stopping the suspects, who...

PALM BEACH -- Conservative columnist Ann Coulter is nationally notorious for vitriolic broadsides, but she has been unnerved by invective she received at her Palm Beach home. So much so that she got the county property appraiser to remove her name from public records identifying where she lives. In doing so, she won an exemption from public disclosure of her address, allowed by law for victims of stalkers or harassment. Coulter, 45, has called Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards a ''faggot'' and said she wished he would be killed by terrorists. She once said President Clinton ''could be a lunatic''...

Alvin Lamont Walker's rap sheet includes arrests for three homicides, a rape, batteries, burglaries and assaults. Walker was arrested again in October 2000, for allegedly killing Rev. Eulis Wright, an 89-year-old minister slain by a blow to the head. The state attorney's office dropped the case, saying there wasn't enough evidence. In 2002 Pahokee cops were thrilled when he was convicted of threatening a shop owner, with a screwdriver. He was back out in less than two years. Then there's 2004, when he was charged with sexual battery, burglary and false imprisonment, after a woman reported he broke into her...

Hindsight is powerful, which means that Allyson Kirk knows now what she didn't know then. If only she'd been herself that day, she might have realized that the car parked outside the clinic — the one with the bumper stickers, W '04 and Mother, Behold Your Son — was probably owned by someone who worked inside. And the man behind the reception desk? "It's odd to have a man in that kind of situation, unless it's the doctor," she says now. But Kirk was just 22, working a new job in a new city with a new boyfriend. And she...

Palm Beach, Fla. (AP) -- Donald Trump is suing this oceanside town for $10 million after being cited for flying an oversized American flag over his Mar-a-Lago Club. Attorneys for the club filed a complaint Thursday, saying that flying the flag is a constitutionally protected expression of free speech — and that the large flag is a proper match for the size of the real-estate mogul's patriotism. "A smaller flag and pole on Mar-A-Lago's property would be lost given its massive size, look silly instead of make a statement, and most importantly would fail to appropriately express the magnitude of...

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter has refused to cooperate in an investigation into whether she voted in the wrong precinct, so the case will probably be turned over to prosecutors, Palm Beach County's elections chief said Wednesday. Elections Supervisor Arthur Anderson said his office has been looking into the matter for nearly nine months, and he would turn over the case to the state attorney's office by Friday. Coulter's attorney did not immediately return a call Wednesday. Nor did her publicist at her publisher, Crown Publishing. Knowingly voting in the wrong precinct is a felony punishable by up to five years...

Standing strapped to a boogie board as his children surfed the waves of the Pacific Ocean, Cocoa Beach Mayor Skip Beeler kept looking down at the cool California summer sand sifting between his toes. Something wasn't right. "I started thinking this was so clean, I haven't seen any cigarette butts," Beeler said. "Then I thought if it works there, it can work here." Beeler's efforts to emulate California's example by banning smoking on the beach in his popular seaside town and a recent suggestion by Delray Beach Mayor Jeff Perlman to separate smokers and non-smokers on that city's beach have...

WINGED GARGOYLES guarded the gate at Jeffrey Epstein's Palm Beach mansion. Inside, hidden cameras trolled two rooms, while the girls came and went. For the police detectives who sifted through the garbage outside and kept records of visitors, it was the lair of a troubling target. Epstein, one of the most mysterious of the country's mega-rich, was known as much for his secrecy as for his love of fine things: magnificent homes, private jets, beautiful women, friendships with the world's elite. But at Palm Beach police headquarters, he was becoming known for something else: the regular arrival of teenage girls...

After long probe, Palm Beach billionaire faces solicitation charge By Larry Keller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 26, 2006 Palm Beach billionaire Jeffrey Epstein paid to have underage girls and young women brought to his home, where he received massages and sometimes sex, according to an investigation by the Palm Beach Police Department. Palm Beach police spent months sifting through Epstein's trash and watching his waterfront home and Palm Beach International Airport to keep tabs on his private jet. An indictment charging Epstein, 53, was unsealed Monday, charging him with one count of felony solicitation of prostitution. ******...

JULY 26--Prepare to take a shower after reading this remarkably sleazy probable cause affidavit filed in the case of Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire financier who was arrested Sunday for soliciting sex from a masseuse at his Florida mansion. Beginning in mid-March 2005, Epstein became the target of a sexual battery probe conducted by the Palm Beach Police Department, according to the affidavit, which alleges that Epstein, 53, paid a series of underage girls to engage in sexual activity with him. Frankly, there are too many dirty details in the affidavit to properly synopsize, but, if investigators are to be believed,...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh is canceling his international travel plans in the near future, saying he doesn't want to be "framed" by U.S. Customs officials after last week's incident when he was detained for more than three hours for possession of Viagra prescribed in his doctor's name. "It takes one time, and I've got red flags up, and I'm not going to put myself in the position of being framed," Limbaugh said today on his national radio broadcast. "With all this partisanship that's out there, I'm just not going to make it easy for people...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Fox News host Bill O'Reilly is coming to the defense of his radio competitor Rush Limbaugh, claiming authorities in Palm Beach County, Fla., are "out to get" the conservative talk-show host, and are maliciously targeting him for prosecution. "He is an American," O'Reilly said of Limbaugh last night on "The O'Reilly Factor," "and I believe powerful people in his home county are trying unjustly to harm him." On Monday, Limbaugh was held up for more than three hours at Palm Beach International Airport after authorities found a bottle of Viagra pills in his possession prescribed...

Universal Press Syndicate columnist Ann Coulter has hired a White House-connected law firm to defend herself against allegations that she voted illegally in a Palm Beach, Fla., election, reported Palm Beach Post columnist Jose Lambiet Friday. The attorney from Miami's Kenny Nachwalter firm representing Coulter is Marcos Jimenez, who was among the lawyers who fought for George W. Bush in Florida during the disputed 2000 presidential election. Lambiet, in recapping Coulter's February voting problem, wrote Friday: "A poll worker reported to his supervisors that he saw Coulter try to vote in the precinct closest to her Palm Beach home. But...

WEST PALM BEACH — An off-duty Palm Beach County sheriff's sergeant initially told police he shot a 21-year-old man for stealing his badge and nearly running him over. But an investigation into the 2 a.m. encounter concluded the two men were in a dispute over $40 because Ira Joe Stuckey did not complete the sex act he was paid to perform on the sergeant. On April 21, Stuckey, 6-foot-2, 230 pounds and wearing a wig, ended up with a bullet wound in his left arm. On Friday, Sgt. James Seigfreid, 48, ended up in jail. He was booked into Palm...

<p>Rush Limbaugh's attorney has issued a statement announcing a settlement of the Florida prosecutor's investigation into alleged doctor shopping by Rush Limbaugh.</p> <p>Details have been read by Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. Basically, the charge of doctor shopping is dismissed, with some conditions.</p>

When Jim Pyle says "Happy Easter," the greeting comes with a brighter smile and a certain resonance that only a few others — new Catholic converts like him — can claim today. Easter, the dawn of the Christian year, has an even more" Two days before they formally entered the church, Jim and Kim Pyle's faces bore the same untroubled expression as young children at their first communion.Jim Pyle, 46, born and raised a Lutheran, borrowed a quote from Martin Luther himself to explain his conversion: "Here I stand, I can do no other."Looking back a few years, it does...

Florida County Wants to Force Churches to Stay Small Commissioners seek to amend zoning laws to ensure new churches have limited pews.Pastors and concerned citizens in Palm Beach County , Fla. , are protesting as both unrealistic and unconstitutional a proposed amendment to zoning laws that would limit the size of future church-building projects.  County officials maintain residents in some communities have complained about the noise and traffic associated with church expansion. The only way to solve the problem, they maintain, is to keep churches small.Palm Beach County commissioners have requested that the Planning and Zoning Department draft an amendment...

Uh-oh! Ann Coulter has been caught voting at the wrong precinct, and all of Palm Beach--plus Blue State America--is abuzz. I can understand why Ann registered to vote at her real estate agent's Palm Beach home, instead of her own new $1.8 million dollar Palm Beach house ($1.8 mill gets you a mere shack in Palm Beach; just ask our friend, Rush). I have a ton of stalkers and harassers, of sundry backgrounds, so I can't even begin to imagine how many Ann has. And if you register to vote, that address becomes a public record accessible to any and...

WEST PALM BEACH (FBW)–Palm Beach County Commissioners voted unanimously Jan. 10 to create a county-wide registry of domestic partners. Unmarried couples, including homosexual partners, may sign up to receive “visitation rights and decision-making abilities,” according to the Palm Beach Post. Couples may pay a $50 enrollment fee to make them eligible to make decisions for each other on health care and funerals and burials, and also make “family” visits in jails and hospitals. Couples must prove partnership through documents showing common home ownership, address and credit card accounts. Palm Beach County is the second Florida county to create a domestic...

A sizable jump in new AIDS cases last year cemented South Florida as the nation's epicenter of the disease, higher than New York and all other metropolitan areas, federal figures showed Thursday. Broward County, which ranked fourth a year ago, led the nation with 58.4 new AIDS cases per 100,000 people, while Miami-Dade County remained second at 57.8 and Palm Beach County rose from sixth to fifth at 39.5 cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New York was third, with 56.7 per 100,000 and Washington, D.C., was fourth with 40.3 per 100,000. Diagnoses among men...

When Bill Gralnick arrived in Miami in the early '80s, he considered Palm Beach County a no-man's land for Jews."You couldn't even get a decent bagel in this county," Gralnick says.Today, Gralnick, the Southeast regional director of the American Jewish Committee, sees a vastly different landscape.He points to the "multiple synagogues" in such cities as Boynton Beach and Boca Raton, where he established his main office in 1990. To a range of Jewish organizations that provide "cradle-to-grave services." And to nearly a half-dozen Jewish schools in Boca and West Palm Beach.But the most startling evidence of Palm Beach County's transformation...

Landlord sues town, citing discriminationJILL BARTONAssociated Press WEST PALM BEACH - A landlord whose hurricane-damaged apartments were condemned sued the town of Jupiter for more than $2.6 million in damages on Monday, alleging discrimination against his Hispanic immigrant tenants.John F. White, who bought the 30-unit Young Apartments complex in March 2000, said he was immediately subjected to harassment and "excessive and selective inspections" because he rented to "a politically unpopular group," according to the suit. One code violation cited an "inoperable car," which was a $50,000 vehicle that had a flat tire for less than 24 hours, the suit said.Tony...

Greene defiant as officers call for her to quit By Deana Poole Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August 23, 2005 WEST PALM BEACH — About 60 members of the county's police union called for Commissioner Addie Greene's resignation Monday, angered by remarks she made after a grand jury cleared a Delray Beach officer in the shooting death of 16-year-old Jerrod Miller. At a news conference, Greene was met by members of the Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association who said she was "preaching hate," was a racist and was disrespectful to members of law enforcement. They wore T-shirts that...

Paternity issue stalls Delray shooting death claim talks By Rani Gupta Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Wednesday, May 25, 2005 DELRAY BEACH — A Royal Palm Beach man's last-minute paternity claim must be resolved before any civil settlement can be considered in the police shooting death of Jerrod Miller, a city-hired attorney said Tuesday. Attorney Fred Gelston said he doesn't want to negotiate a settlement with Willie Gary, the Stuart attorney representing Jerrod's father, Kenneth Miller, until the court determines who represents the 16-year-old's estate. Gary proposed Friday that the city settle for $7.5 million to avoid a lawsuit, but...

When the Palm Beach County Commission meets under pressure Tuesday to reconsider a critical decision on construction of a permanent home for The Scripps Research Institute, the future of the ballyhooed $800 million biomedical project in Florida is not all that's at stake. Also on the line are several reputations. If Scripps does carry through on a threat to go elsewhere, Palm Beach County could be labeled business-unfriendly. The state's plans to jump-start a biotech industry could evaporate like so much hot air. And the legacies of Gov. Jeb Bush and Scripps president Dr. Richard Lerner could be diminished by...

ABC News correspondent John Stossel of "20/20" fame will speak at 7 p.m., March 29, at the University Theatre of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. In his talk, "Freedom and its Enemies," the libertarian journalist Stossel will share what he has learned in his 30-year journey from his job as a Portland, Oregon, consumer reporter to his current position as ABC's in-house contrarian. Stossel has received 19 Emmy awards and has been honored five times for excellence in consumer reporting by the National Press Club. He is currently co-anchor of ABC News' weekly news magazine "20/20." This free event...

Meet Douglas Dycus. The 40-year-old Florida man was charged yesterday with felony child abuse and domestic battery for allegedly using a stun gun to discipline his 14-year-old son. Dycus, an engineer with a Palm Beach firm, admitted to cops that he used the electrical device on the boy when the child was wrestling with a brother and holding up the family's departure from their home last month.

A decade after the Kennedys sold off their Palm Beach estate in the wake of the William Kennedy Smith rape trial, the celebrated clan has made a return to the posh beachfront community. Reports the Boston Herald's Inside Track: "Snowbird Ethel Kennedy, who has put the family nest Hickory Hill in Virginia up for sale for $25 million, has settled into a $2.2 million three-bedroom rental on a private beach on North Ocean Boulevard." The Kennedy widow is reportedly planning to stay for six months, or until it's time to head north to the family compound in Hyannis Port. The...

Voters double-dip in Ohio, Fla. More than 27,000 are registered in both states, could cast ballots in either place Sunday, October 31, 2004 Scott Hiaasen, Dave Davis and Julie Carr Smyth Plain Dealer Reporters Hundreds of voters could easily cast ballots Tuesday in both Ohio and Florida because they are eligible to vote in both states and have received absentee ballots from election officials in Ohio, The Plain Dealer has found. And if they do, they almost certainly will go undetected. These people are among more than 27,000 listed as active voters in both Ohio and Florida who could cast...

Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2004 11:25 a.m. EDT Chronicle Network to Air 'Stolen Honor' Chronicle DTV Television Network, a digital television network operated by OlympuSat, Inc. of West Palm Beach, will present the documentary "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal" in its entirety throughout the week of October 25, 2004. Chronicle DTV can be seen on digital networks around the country. "Stolen Honor" features former POWs telling their experiences as prisoners of war in North Vietnam and how John Kerry's accusations of American soldier's atrocities affected their treatment and length of their confinement at the hands of their captures. "Stolen Honor:...

Residents of Palm Beach County line up in front of the Palm Beach Board of Election in West Palm Beach Florida, October 18, 2004 waiting to cast their early votes. The majority of the voters in line attended an early morning rally in West Palm Beach, Florida with Presidential candidate Senator John Kerry, where the message was to get out early and vote. REUTERS/Gary I Rothstein US ELECTION

  Theresa LePore vowed to close the Palm Beach County elections office at 5 p.m. Monday, the final day to register to vote in the Nov. 2 election, but a young man who arrived about 15 minutes after the deadline managed to drop off 550 applications on behalf of a group of Muslims determined to oust President Bush.LePore, no stranger to confrontations, said the man demanded she accept the bundles of voter registration applications attached to slips of paper identifying them as having been collected by Voting Is Power, which goes by the acronym VIP and is an offshoot of...

When I'm down here in Palm Beach County on Sunday morning, I usually pick up a copy of a local newspaper called the Hometown News. They have a section called Rants & Raves. The following was in yesterdays edition: Medicare prescription drug benefit is a big asset. "I see lots of TV ads about the Medicare prescription drug benefits and how bad it it, but it works for me. My monthly drug bill has dropped from over $450 to less that $20 a month. I am so grateful for this benefit. Of course, I had to apply for it. That's...