Miami News Blog

Looks like Phil Davis is finally heading to the pen.

​The ex-Miami judge, who wriggled out of jail time in a federal sting operation in the early '90s by admitting a raging cocaine habit, was found guilty of fraud today.

Prosecutors built a case against Davis involving a non-profit he founded in 1997, called the Miami-Dade Resident College. They convinced a jury that Davis used a sham employment corporation to funnel grant money into his pockets to the tune of more than $80,000.

Davis, 55, faces sentencing in January.

On the stand earlier this week, Davis raised questions about a meeting in 2003 with the state attorney's office in which he testified that Katharine Fernandez Rundle personally endorsed his program. If his program was fraudulent, he asked, why did the state attorney herself give it her blessing?

Click through to read SAO spokesman Ed Griffith's responses to those questions.

If ever the Miami State Attorney's Office has prosecuted a lose-lose case, the ongoing trial of former judge Phil Davis is it. Getting a conviction might just make the prosecutor's office look negligent in its past dealings with the alleged fraud organizer.

​If Davis' sname sounds familiar, it's because he was one of four judges caught up in a juicy FBI sting in the mid-'90s called "Operation Court Broom." The feds snared the judges accepting bribes in brown paper bags and under car seats from informants, and took them all to court.

Davis, memorably, wriggled out of more serious trouble than his three colleagues by admitting his raging cocaine and alcohol abuse. The stentorian-toned Harvard graduate told a shocked jury he always carried a dose of the white stuff in his pocket and often snorted up in his chambers.

The jury acquitted Davis, even though the FBI had recorded him arranging a $20,000 bribe to fix a case. Davis was disbarred for a decade for his sins.

Now he's back in Miami court, again defending himself against charges of corruption. On the stand last Friday and yesterday, Davis used a PowerPoint presentation to calmly explain why charges that he stole more than $80,000 from a nonprofit he founded in 1997 were untrue.

The case itself is complex -- hinging on whether Davis funneled grant money through a sham corporation or whether he simply had an unusual accounting method. But the most striking moment in his testimony this week came when he pointed a finger back at the prosecutors trying to take him down.

Robert Kelly certainly has the tricks of the spy trade down pat.

​He talks in mysterious acronyms, like "NOC" -- which stands for "no official cover." He refuses to have his photo taken. He talks about elaborate take-downs and ruses straight out of a Burn Notice plot.

Getting the full truth is much harder. But as tough as it is to verify, Kelly's story is fascinating.

Kelly first approached me over the summer, with a great hook: A white American without a lick of Spanish, Kelly says he infiltrated Castro's spy service, known as the Intelligence Directorate or DI, and spied on a range of Miami's exile community -- including Rep. Illeana Ros-Lehtinen -- for the dictator.

And Kelly says that, in reality, he was working as a double agent for the FBI the whole time.

Verifying Kelly's tale is much, much trickier, which is why I never ended up writing a story about his claims. But now Kelly is appearing on MegaTV, the Spanish language Channel 22, to tell his tale. (His first segment, an interview with Maria Elvira Salazar, aired last night at 8 p.m.).

In light of Kelly's local TV interviews, I think it's worth revisiting what he told me. Click through for the whole story.

Listen up, City of Miami big shots: You might want to start punching the clock on time and putting in an honest day's work.

​Because union chief Charlie Cox has his cameras rolling after busting an assistant director in the building department named Christine Morales, who had fired a couple of union employees for being late to work.

Morales -- who pulled in a $112,000 salary -- quit after being videotaped waltzing in late to work and cutting out early after a leisurely lunch. (She still receives a sweet $36,000 annual pension.)

The experiment was so successful Cox decided to expand his target to other lazy assistant directors. Shock of shocks: Morales wasn't the only boss living on a six-figure taxpayer dime who didn't like earning her cash.

Cox provided Riptide with tapes shot by a private investigator showing an assistant director in Risk Management -- Elliot Fixler, who made $160,000 a year in pay and benefits -- regularly ripping you off. 

Click through to read some highlights from Fixler's average so-called workweek. And check back to Riptide tomorrow for a video compilation of Fixler's laziest moments on your payroll.

Memo to Miami politicos with dirt under your fingernails: It's time for that midnight flight to Bolivia. Just do it now.

​The FBI fired the first warning shots earlier this month, busting three Broward politicians for corruption. Now, Gov. Charlie Crist wants a wide-ranging grand jury probe into the rest of South Florida's sordid political scene.

Crist held a conference at 12:30 this afternoon, demanding that the Supreme Court convene a grand jury to look into political kickbacks in Miami and Broward.

"Public officials have abused their powers gained by virtue of their positions," Crist writes in his petition, which you can read here. "There is a need to investigate this criminal activity."

Frankly, Riptide is of two minds about Crist's call for a grand jury.

On one hand, he's late as hell to the party. The FBI's been moving for years on the sting that brought down the three Broward politicos (councilman Josephus Eggelletion, school board member Beverly Gallagher, and former Miramar councilman Fitzroy Salesman).

Now that the federal probe is pulling in state lobbyists with wide-ranging ties to the governor's mansion (at least in past administrations), it looks disingenuous at best for Crist to put on his anti-corruption crusader hat.

Just before 2 a.m. inside a tony Key Biscayne waterfront condo, a woman clad only in panties chased a dark-haired 22-year-old into the hallway, screaming and smacking his face.

​The year was 1993. The half-naked lady was Dorothy Naomi Black, just divorced from South Florida's most powerful criminal defense attorney, Roy Black.

The young man was Metro-Dade cop Frank Carollo, little brother of former Miami Mayor "Loco" Joe Carollo. 

Today Frank is the leading candidate to replace mayoral hopeful Joe Sanchez on the Miami City Commission. Though the 39-year-old Brickell accountant has failed in three campaigns for the Florida House, this time he has raised more than $170,000 -- a lead of $70,000 on anyone else in the seven-way race. And players such as County Mayor Carlos Alvarez and über-lobbyist Ron Book have given him cash.

But the police report from that escapade -- which has never been written about -- shows Carollo not only broke into Black's apartment and found her with another lover, but also later lied to Key Biscayne cops about his identity to try to wiggle out of trouble.

It's just the kind of sordid scene that could rain on Carollo's hopes of pulling off a big win in the November 3 general election.

Now this is the kind of politics we know and love in Miami.

​A huge corruption probe came to a head today as the FBI announced federal charges against a Broward County commissioner, Broward school board member, and former Miramar commissioner. The sting also netted a North Miami businessman.

These could be just the first dominoes to fall in a much larger sting.

Josephus Eggelletion, a veteran Broward County commissioner, starred in the largest of the three separate probes, which also netted Joel Williams, a North Miami businessman.

According to Eggelletion's indictment, undercover agents made nice with him in March 2006 by donating $5,000 to a sketchy-sounding charity run by the commissioner. He told the agents: "If you want to do some deals in the Bahamas, let me know. Yes, sir. In fact, I'm gonna be raising some money for the prime minister of the Bahamas."

The agents were all too happy to oblige. Eggelletion soon set them up with Williams and another businessman named Ronald Owens, who flew to the Bahamas with the undercover agents.

They eventually laundered $900,000 through a Bahamanian bank account in exchange for a cut of the profits, the feds say. Eggelletion raked in more than $23,000 from the scheme, often in cash payments hidden inside leather day planners.

​No matter how cynical you've grown about the American justice system -- let's say, from watching a few too many episodes of The Wire -- there are still stories coming out of Miami's prison system that will make your jaw drop.

Today, through a federal indictment, comes a tale of casual civil rights abuses that sounds right out of a David Simon script.

Three guards at Florida City's Dade Correctional Institute allegedly planned beat-downs inside the jail courtesy their personal inmate enforcer, a 28-year-old prisoner named Larry T. Williams but appropriately nicknamed "Monster."

Dammit, Marlon T. Moore. You are no longer living up to your nickname.

​The 38-year-old Miami resident, known far and wide as "X-Large Moore," earned his moniker the hard way in June when the feds accused him of trying to swindle the IRS out of a cool $14 trillion. Yeah, trillion, with a t.

Back in December 2007, Moore walked out of the pen in Coleman, Florida, after a six-year sentence for money laundering as part of a Liberty City cocaine ring, and decided to up the ante. 

Moore filed separate tax returns asking for $5 trillion, $6 trillion, and $2.97 trillion. Why? Because he's X-Large. That's why.

Alas, Uncle Sam's sharp eye caught on to Moore's brilliant plan, and federal agents charged him this past June with four counts of submitting false claims.

This morning, Moore pleaded guilty to one of those counts, for a meager $9 million. That's a large amount of money -- but X-Large? Afraid not.

Moore faces up to five years in prison. He'll be sentenced November 18.

If you've ever hit up White Room, the Vagabond, or other sundry hip clubs around Overtown, you know the parking situation is usually less than ideal. 

​You either pony up to pay for lot parking or slip a few bucks to the homeless-looking dudes hanging around the street spots for "protection." And you don't exactly feel great about your security either way.

The worst-case scenario happened to a 19-year-old clubgoer and her friend last night outside White Room, where a fight over a parking spot led to gunfire.

The fight began when the 19-year-old tried to back her Saturn into a space around 1:30 a.m. in the 1400 block of North Miami Avenue. This apparently enraged two men in a white SUV who wanted the same spot, according to Napier Velazquez, a Miami Police spokesman.

The SUV bumped the Saturn and then swung around to block it into the space. One man ran out of the SUV, trying to pull on a ski mask but eventually giving up.

He fired several shots into the Saturn, Velazquez says, hitting the driver at least once. Then the SUV sped away.

The driver remains in serious but stable condition this morning, Velazquez says. Police haven't yet identified her or her passenger.

Anyone with info about the shooting should call 305-471-TIPS.

In early June, a biker was pedaling along the 79th Street Causeway when he noticed a suspicious-looking plastic bag bobbing in the murky water.

​The cyclist called the cops, who found human body parts inside the bag. So began a three-day saga, as several more bags stuffed with human remains washed ashore along Biscayne Bay.

Police eventually identified the victim as Osben Laparra, a 21-year-old Guatemalan construction worker who was last seen leaving a club on Calle Ocho on May 30. Laparra was seen getting into a small beige car with a Latin man in his mid-30s.

The investigation has since stalled. So later this morning, police will stage a re-enactment of Laparra's last known encounter for the media, Officer Jeffrey Giordano, a Miami PD spokesman, tells Riptide. The faux-kidnapping will happen around 10:45 a.m. in front of the club at 521 SW Eighth St.

If you catch this scene on the evening news and have a sudden flash of memory about that night on Calle Ocho, call the cops at 305-471-TIPS.

(Just make sure you get that reward money before any police officers do...)

Federal authorities charged a veteran City of Miami detective today with scamming the Crime Stoppers tip program for thousands of dollars.

​Wayne Fortella, an 11-year vet, faces wire fraud charges for the scam, which netted him $5,000, says Annette Castillo, a spokeswoman for the U.S. District Attorney's Office.

Fortella worked in the Crime Stoppers program, a hotline for people to call in anonymous tips about unsolved crimes. His job was to answer calls and investigate the clues.

Instead, the detective teamed up with two buddies, Kurt Burgess and Ainsworth Stanley, to steal reward money from the program. Fortella would take note when a tip was authorized for a payout, learn the details of the information, and then pass the reward code and the tip info to his cohorts. They'd collect the cash and cut Fortella in on the proceeds.

Prosecutors say the trio stole $9,000 from Crime Stoppers -- with $5,000 going back to Fortella.

"Crime Stoppers is a valuable and essential program that has assisted law enforcement in catching countless criminals," Michael J. Folmer, acting chief of Miami's FBI office says in a release. "It's unfortunate that one police officer chose to take advantage of the anonymity that this program offers for personal gain."

Fortella has no criminal record, according to Riptide's records search. There are a number of civil complaints attributed to a "Wayne Fortella" in the database, including a domestic violence complaint ten years ago and a mortgage foreclosure in the mid-90s.

All three men face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

UPDATE: Miami Police Chief John Timoney just weighed in on Fortella's arrest, saying he was "disappointed and disheartened." Click through for his full statement.

​

Just before 9:30 p.m. July 13, Officer Eric Guzman flashed his lights and pulled over next to a litter-strewn grass field on NW Fifth Avenue, a few blocks north of the Miami River.

Guzman, a five-year veteran of the Miami Police Department, had spotted a man who matched the description of a robbery suspect. As the officer tried to arrest him, a scuffle broke out. Guzman fired three shots. A semi-homeless 27-year-old man named Kiana Sean Lamb died on the sidewalk.

Lamb's death faded quickly from the public eye. He had a long arrest record, including a conviction for selling coke, and police have had trouble stirring up any witnesses to the shooting. An internal investigation still drags on.

Regardless of whether Lamb's death was justified, Guzman's personal records -- which New Times recently obtained -- show the officer has a history of using force on suspects.

In his five years as a cop, Guzman injured people during arrests 20 times -- and 11 of those cases have happened in just the past two and a half years.

Since 2007, Guzman also was the subject of three citizen complaints, shot himself in the foot during a SWAT raid, and earned a formal reprimand and counseling session.

Residents at Opa-locka's Gardens Apartments -- perhaps the city's sketchiest property -- endured 5 murders, 656 assaults, 34 robberies, 25 shootings, and 80 stolen cars during one four-year stretch, according to police records. 

And the apartments remain the hottest spot in the city for cops, says Capt. Rex Galindo, a spokesman for Opa-locka Police. "It generates constant calls, for domestic disturbances, loud music, burglaries, drug activities, everything," he says.

​Now the lawyers representing one of the men killed there claim in a lawsuit that owner Dilip Barot fed the violence by pocketing $150,000 every year in taxpayer money earmarked for security. 

The evidence was strong enough to convince a circuit court judge last week to allow the lawyers to ask a jury for punitive damages.

"Envision the worst slumlord you've ever seen or heard about, take away any redeeming factors they may have, and you've got Dilip Barot," says Christopher Marlowe, one of the lawyers suing Barot and his company, Creative Choice Homes II.

In the early morning hours of Jan. 8, 2008, in a dark alley off South Glades Drive, a gang member named Andrew James Rolle walked up to a white Ford Taurus and blasted the man inside to death.

​The driver was an off-duty Miami detective named James Walker, and his murder helped fuel a joint local and federal sting to bust up gang activity in the North Miami Beach neighborhood around the scene of the crime.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami announced this afternoon that the force netted 36 suspected gang members under indictment on charges ranging from robbery to burglary to pot possession to cocaine sales to illegal weapons.

Thirteen suspects are under federal indictment for the more serious charges. The rest will be tried in Miami-Dade courts.

"Gang violence is not self-contained," acting U.S. Attorney Jeffrey H. Sloman said in a release. "Too frequently we hear about innocent victims who are killed in the cross-fire of rival gangs."

As for Walker's murderer, Rolle was arrested last January, a week after the crime, when an acquaintance tricked him into driving right to Miami PD headquarters downtown. His case goes to trial in September.

Last summer, South Florida sank under a spectacularly burst housing bubble that had been inflated well beyond reason by speculators, absent investors, and more than a few outright criminals.

​In June '08, the U.S. Attorney's Office created a task force to track down the last -- the fraudsters who helped dig us into the financial mess most of Miami-Dade is still struggling desperately to climb out of.

This afternoon, the team announced its biggest bust yet: 41 South Florida residents charged in $40 million worth of mortgage fraud.

Those 41 people engaged in a staggering variety of crimes, detailed in six federal indictments obtained by Riptide.

But they all shared the basic schemes: faking mortgages to drive up the price of homes, stealing identities, and selling the same properties multiple times to straw companies.

In dozens of cases, they stole homeowners' personal information and then sold and resold their houses until they eventually were foreclosed. Only when the bank came knocking did the scammed residents realize anything was wrong.

Miami's housing market this week has finally showed signs of recovery. Let's hope the next bubble isn't built on quite so much blatant mischief.

Sometime early last night, Juan Tojeiro got in a bit of a spat with his girlfriend.

Apparently still furious after the argument, the 38-year-old Miami resident took the only logical revenge: He plowed his motorcycle through the front door of her jewelry shop, barricaded himself inside, and then tried to set himself and his bike on fire.

Police responded to a silent alarm at the store, named El Sol de Miami Joyeria, at 3419 SW Eighth St., a little before 8:30 p.m.

When they arrived, Tojeiro blocked the front door and threatened to set himself and the store on fire, says Det. William Moreno, a Miami PD spokesman. Tojeiro stuffed a cloth inside the gas tank of his motorcycle and set it aflame.

Fortunately, police talked Tojeiro down before the fire reached the fuel. He put out the flames, surrendered, and now faces one count of attempted arson.

Last week, we reported on "Secure Communities," a new national program that links local detention centers into a national database of illegal aliens.

In our story, critics of the plan said it might cause racial profiling. If cops know that anyone they book into custody gets run through an immigration database, it could encourage police to arrest vans full of Hispanics on minor traffic offenses just to see what pops up, according to immigrant rights groups.

That's pretty much what happened in Phoenix last year when the sheriff's office adopted a similar new program -- and now they have a federal lawsuit on their hands. 

But Nicole Navas, a Miami-based spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, says our story got it wrong. Secure Communities is all about giving law enforcement more information about criminals -- and in Miami, it has already paid off.

In a response to New Times, Navas cites one case when an illegal immigrant from the Bahamas was booked on a minor traffic violation -- until the Secure Communities database revealed he had 31 previous arrests and 11 convictions for violent crimes. Read Navas's defense of Secure Communities after the jump.

What happens when a wayward cop goes unpunished for a blatant crime? Ask Sgt. Juan E. Mendez. Last month a citizen oversight group considered the 92nd complaint filed against the officer in his 25-year career.

Those complaints include: 22 for excessive use of force, 22 for discourtesy, 20 for abusive treatment and 7 for missing property, according to city records. He's received seven official reprimands including punishments for crashing his cruiser and accidentally firing his gun. He's also killed four suspects on the job and cost Miami taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements. "Unusual and disturbing," comments Janet McAliley, a member of the Citizen Investigative Panel, which hears complaints against cops.

Worst of all, Mendez' career could have ended more than two decades ago, when he was involved in a controversial brutality case. Back in May 1987, he was on patrol in Overtown when he spotted Alfred Lee in a parked car. It appeared he was rolling a joint. When Mendez approached,  Lee protested that he was a cop. Mendez didn't believe him.

Miami has earned its rep as a world-class mecca of crime.

Just this weekend, Miami Police gunned down a man stalking the streets with a machete. In recent weeks, a Metrorail guard was murdered on the job, a young man's body -- chopped into tiny pieces and stuffed into bags -- floated ashore out of Biscayne Bay, and AK-47-wielding thugs continued months of shootouts in Liberty City.

Today, Miami Police announced a bold new plan to keep the Magic City safe: going after petty criminals who make life mildly unpleasant for the über-rich.

The new sting, called "Operation Difference Coral Way," will target quality-of-life crimes in the Brickell and Coral Way neighborhoods. Panhandlers are no longer welcome outside the Viceroy, in other words.

"Due to the increased presence of the rich and famous, the common criminal tries to find easy ways to sink their teeth into the luxury and glamour," Officer Jeffrey Giordano, a Miami Police spokesman, said in a release. "[This is] a continuing effort to combat crime and maintain the overall quality of life in an area that's become known as the forefront of international business and luxury."

Sure, we here at Riptide poke fun. But a guy named Rudy Giuliani did have a pretty good run with this exact idea up in NYC...

Back in the bad old days of 2002,  the City of Miami Police Department had some nasty habits: shooting dozens of people, beating suspects, ripping through the city on dangerous chases.

City police averaged 80 shootings every year and killed 15 suspects -- most black and poor. Things got so bad that Mayor Manny Diaz asked the Justice Department to come in and tell the cops how to shape up.

And voters overwhelmingly approved a new review board called the Civilian Investigative Panel. They created a CIP to police the police, because the cops obviously couldn't do it right.

Six years later, the city's cops and politicians have apparently decided that the voters were wrong, because they're doing everything in their power to destroy the CIP. If you're a taxpayer and you don't fancy the idea of a police force gone wild, you should be outraged.

The latest evidence came last night, when a CBS4 investigation revealed that City Manager Pete Hernandez completely ignored the CIP's vote to fire its executive director, Shirley Richardson, for incompetence. Hernandez gave Richardson a fake job in his office and kept drawing her $168,000-a-year salary out of the panel's budget.

Let's go ahead and just christen it the cocaine trade of the Double-Aughts: Medicare fraud may be a lot less sexy, but it sure is keeping federal prosecutors in Miami busy.

One month after busting up a $21 million, three-state ring, the feds expanded that investigation and charged eight Miami residents -- including the two ringleaders named in the earlier case -- with building a five-state, $100 million scheme.

Here's how it worked, according to prosecutors: The defendants set up six fake medical clinics in Miami-Dade and eight storefront clinics elsewhere in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina, with charming names like Tender Loving Care Medical Center and Eulogia's Diagnostic Medical Center, Inc.

The clinics then filed more than $100 million in false Medicare claims, mostly for "infusion therapy" and outdated HIV treatment.

The indictment also charges two owners of a local check cashing store with laundering the fake clinics' money, delivering bags of up to $80,000 cash to the clinic owners several times a week.

"This case is remarkable, not only in terms of the amounts stolen from Medicare, but also in terms of its sophistication and geographic breadth," acting U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman said in a statement. "These defendants attempted to steal approximately $100 million from the elderly, blind, and disabled."

A few months ago, Riptide reported on Miami-Dade Corrections Chief Tim Ryan's habit of pissing off his black employees.

Now the union representing all 2,700 of his workers is calling for Ryan's resignation.

In a letter sent to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez this month and obtained by Riptide, the union writes that it "no longer has any confidence in Director Ryan's ability to lead the officers and appropriately guide the Department."

John Rivera, head of the Dade County Police Benevolent Association, tells Riptide that Ryan routinely vetoes negotiations between the union and his top assistants and punishes legitimately sick workers who take too much leave.

"We've just reached a point with him where his word is meaningless to us," Rivera says. "We're done negotiating. We're just going to take legal action on any dispute."

Ryan has for three years led one of the nation's largest prison systems, with a $315 million budget and 7,000 inmates. He did not return a phone call seeking comment on Rivera's letter. Read an excerpt from the letter after the jump.

Our feature earlier this month about the never-ending disaster we call Everglades restoration left little doubt that the Army Corps of Engineers deserves a lot of blame.

After all, these are the guys who gutted the Glades in the first place with miles of canals and drainage systems. And these are the guys who have failed to complete even one of the 68 projects at the heart of the Everglades-saving plan passed by Congress a decade ago.

Still, the Corps' failures are rarely as public -- or as seedy -- as the scheme pulled off by Gregory C. Wagner.

The 59-year-old Miami resident was in charge of buying up farmland for the Corps on the edges of the Everglades and converting the fields back into wetlands.

Instead, Wagner took $11,000 worth of bribes from landowners in 2005 to turn a blind eye as they continued farming protected swampland on the borders of Miami-Dade. Wagner had arranged a $200-per-acre scheme for 149 acres and was also promised a cut of the profits after harvest.

Yesterday, a federal judge sentenced Wagner to one year of house arrest and five years of probation, Alicia Valle, a Department of Justice spokeswoman, tells Riptide.

They don't call Marlon T. Moore "X-Large" for nothing.

Back in December 2007, Moore, a 38-year-old Miami resident, walked out of the federal pen in Coleman, Florida after serving a six year sentence on felony money laundering charges as part of a cocaine smuggling ring.

Soon after his release, Moore embarked upon a truly brilliant criminal enterprise: He did his taxes. It may not sound like much of a crime. But "X-Large" Moore -- one of several aliases he used, including Dammon Green and Tyrone Moore -- wasn't exactly noting a few dependents and asking for a refund.

In separate filings, Moore asked for $5,959,000,000,000 and $2,975,000,000,000. A third form rounded up and asked for another $6,000,000,000,000. (That's $5 trillion, $2.97 trillion and $6 trillion, for the math averse). Just for good measure, Moore allegedly filled out a final U.S. Individual Income Tax Return Form 1040 asking for $10 million.

If the IRS had accepted Moore's claims, the payout would have exceeded the U.S. national debt. They did not. Moore was indicted today on four counts of submitting false claims and impeding due administration of tax laws.

Just before 9 a.m. this morning, someone was walking near Pelican Harbor -- the water next to the 79th Street Causeway -- when they noticed a bag bobbing in the murk.

Something didn't look right, so they called 911. Miami Police pulled out the bag around 11 a.m. Inside, they found human remains, Officer Kenia Alfonso, an MPD spokesman says.

Police aren't saying just what was in the bag, or whether the victim's age or gender are apparent. Divers are out in the harbor right now, combing the bottom for clues, Alfonso says.

Investigators are treating the case as a homicide and asking for anyone with missing friends, relatives or neighbors to call the cops at 305-471-TIPS.

What's worse than having to go to the hospital? How about spending days in the hospital recovering from surgery or serious illness, finally going home, and then realizing that some jackass in the ER stole your identity?

That's exactly what happened to close to 50 patients at Palmetto General in Hialeah, according to federal prosecutors.

Two Palmetto General employees -- Jacquettia L. Brown, 29, and (the awesomely named) Tear Renee Barbary, 25 -- were charged this week with stealing patient records to further a credit card scheme.

Brown worked in Palmetto's medical records department. She stole files with patients' names, social security numbers, addresses and family contacts, then passed the information to Barbary, who opened false credit cards in the patients' names. Cops caught Brown with 41 records and Barbary with six more.

Neither Brown nor Barbary has entered a plea yet.

Before their boat sank off Palm Beach last week -- drowning at least nine people, including a pregnant woman -- a group of 30 Haitian immigrants endured days drifting at sea without fuel and a harrowing journey from Nassau to a smuggler's cove in Bimini.

So says the complaint filed this morning in federal court against the boat's captain, a 33-year-old Haitian named Jimmy Metellus. He faces federal charges of alien smuggling that results in the death of another person.

Last Wednesday, a boat 16-miles off Palm Beach called the Coast Guard to report people floating in the ocean. Rescuers spent two days combing the waters, eventually rescuing 16 and recovering the nine bodies.

One survivor told ICE investigators that his journey started when his brother gave $4,000 to a man with a gold tooth in Nassau. The man promised safe passage to Bimini and then an illicit stop in Miami.

Inside a stuffy, overcrowded Miami-Dade misdemeanor court, a 13-year-old boy clad in an orange jumpsuit watches in awe as his lawyer artfully demands that the judge toss evidence the prosecution has against the teenager.

On most days, Ben Reiss of the prestigious Greenberg Traurig firm defends commercial companies in cases with such high stakes they almost always settle out of court.

Today, he's fighting tooth and nail for an impoverished city kid, filing a motion to toss the improperly gathered evidence that's led to a piddling marijuana possession charge.

"The look on his face, when he realized that someone was fighting for him and when he saw the judge agree and toss the charge ... it was like he believed in justice again," Reiss said later in an interview. "It was beautiful."

So how exactly did a high-priced corporate lawyer end up defending an indigent minor on a drug charge?

It's the latest idea from Miami-Dade's massively over-worked and under-funded Public Defenders Office.