Thomas Kramer

Miami Beach's most controversial resident is ready for his close up. Thomas Kramer, the billionaire German developer who reshaped the South Beach skyline with glitzy condos, has made a reality show television pilot. After watching it on Youtube, we want more.

In the episode, the 56-year-old playboy is preparing for one of his extravagant bon vivant soirees at his $65 million compound on Star Island as he juggles his most daunting challenge yet: fatherhood.

After decades of hardcore partying, Kramer is reunited with his only daughter Joya Burda, a cute 20-year-old blonde who finds her poppa's lifestyle repulsive. It's a recipe tailor made for Bravo or Vh1. Think The Apprentice meets The Real World.
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Wikimedia Commons

Ask your average American Joe about cricket, and he'll picture noblemen, dressed in white livery, sipping cups of tea while a sickly servant polishes their finely carved bats. But a new lawsuit claims the state of cricket in the U.S. is anything but aristocratic. A Silicon Valley millionaire is now suing the United States of America Cricket Association -- bizarrely based in Miami Beach -- over accusations it tried to rig elections and illegally hold onto power.

"We cannot tolerate this in America," plaintiff Ram Varadarajan says. "It might be OK in some banana republic, but this is a land of the rule of law."
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​For years the Bal Harbour Shops have not only reigned as the premier point for designer shopping in Florida, but as one of chicest in the world. But now a new challenger is about to emerge in Miami-Dade. Developer Craig Robins is quickly making his dreams of turning the Design District into a sort of high-end anti-mall a reality, and more than 30 luxury brands are expected to set up shop in the neighborhood.
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​When you're a bicyclist, especially in Florida, don't trust anyone else on the road with your safety. A female bicyclist in Gainesville found that out the hard way. After the cyclist was sideswiped by a car, another woman offered to help her. Instead, she punched her in the face and snatched her purse.
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The Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House

​For 15 years, Sanford and Dolores Ziff were perhaps Miami's top philanthropic power couple. Their name is prominently enshrined on the Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, but Dolores died at the age of 85 this past January. Now Sanford wants to change the name of the hall by removing her name and replacing it with the name of his newer, younger, blonder wife.
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The horror!

As America hurtles toward a second scoop of recession and you struggle to make ends meet, you should know this: Some of this nation's wealthiest citizens are squabbling over a minute stretch of asphalt.

On a recent weekday, Riptide traversed where few plebeians without landscaping licenses have gone before: Indian Creek Village. The millionaires' island just west of Surfside is closed to the public. But the village's attorney wanted us to see something firsthand.

"Doesn't this road look like shit?" Stephen Helfman asked us.

Yes, the island's thoroughfare sort of did. It was full of fissures, sinkholes, and puddles. We wanted to brave the road with a brimming cup of hot coffee to truly gauge its bumps, but the only way we were getting on the island was in Helfman's plush BMW SUV, which we figured would ride smoothly in Sarajevo. So instead, we counted the ratio of pavement cracks to workers manicuring hedges. The final count was three to one. This is very troubling indeed.

The crappy road has its roots in a decades-old rift.

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C. Stiles

Jerry Powers (right) with fashion designer Calvin Klein (center) and Jason Binn

​​Old habits die hard, it seems. Between 1977 and 1984, Ocean Drive founder and current Plum TV exec Jerry Powers was sued 13 times for money owed.

"I was dependent on drugs when I did those things," he told New Times two years ago. "I was stoned and broke. There is no question I wrote checks even though I didn't have money to cover them."

Now Powers is in hot water once again for writing bad checks. This time, however, the culprit isn't drugs but another vice: blackjack tables.

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The days of hidden offshore accounts are drawing to an end, it seems

​Not everyone in Miami is on the up & up. Sure, your neighbor could have bought that brand-new Mercedes-Benz with the Christmas bonus. Or it could have been that narco slush fund in the Cayman Islands. The truth is that the Magic City is awash in foreign funds -- much of it under the IRS radar.

Those days may now be numbered. Miamians with overseas accounts over $10,000 have roughly one month to reveal them under the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Initiative (OVDI). The Department of Justice is getting ready to punish those who don't.

"I find this initiative sinister," says tax attorney Nigel Grant from the law firm of Aramis Hernandez. "There are so many Indians circling the wagons but nobody is talking about it."
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​Convicted Ponzi-schemer Bernie Madoff wasn't a cheap man. Even though he was far from a booze enthusiast, apparently having a well-stocked and extensive stash of wine and fine liquor is just a byproduct of having way too much money (other people's, in this case) than one knows what to do with. Though, he wasn't above guzzling down the cheap stuff either. Like most of his assets the liquor stash was seized by the feds in 2009, and his booze collection is going up for auction in Miami on June 4.
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​Hot on the hells of an alleged $189,000 receipt racked up during a Cinco de Mayo party at the Tryst nightclub in the Wynn resort in Las Vegas comes rumors that LeBron James once racked up an even bigger bill at XS, one of the Wynn's other nightclub. $171,973 to be exact, and that's before a tip, so the final bill would have been much larger. Obviously, this could be a complete fake or be a tab that belongs to someone else, but we can't help but gawk.
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