Scott Rothstein Asks Judge for Mercy

Lawyer Scott Rothstein sought the mercy of a judge in a letter released Friday, saying he “begged God to help” him as he contemplated committing suicide before returning from Morocco last fall to accept blame for orchestrating South Florida’s biggest financial fraud.

Rothstein — who has pleaded guilty to operating a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme and could face a life term at his sentencing on Wednesday — implored U.S. District Judge James Cohn to consider “giving me an opportunity to live at least part of the remainder of my life as a free man, with an opportunity to do some good in this world.”

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Scott Rothstein Asks Judge for Mercy

Woman, 85, Ousted From Her Home

Barring a miracle, an 85-year-old woman will be evicted Monday from the villa she has lived in at On Top of the World for the past 20 years.

Eleonore Berg’s failure to pay homeowner’s association fees led to foreclosure of the property, which has been sold. She is under court order to evacuate and is receiving assistance with relocation.

When Berg moved into the villa in 1989, the monthly homeowner’s association fee was $115. Since then, the cost has gone up to $397 a month.

Andrea Wolfkill, with the Fifth Circuit Guardian Corp., told the Star-Banner that Berg had paid the HOA fees up to two years ago.

With fees and other court costs included, Berg wound up owing about $8,000.

Gerald R. Colen of Largo, an attorney who represents On Top of The World, told the Star-Banner in a telephone interview Friday that the OTOW Owners Association tried to work with Berg, but was unsuccessful. He said the association’s job is not to put people out, but to try to persuade them to pay. If they don’t pay the fees, he said, everyone suffers because others would have to pay more and maintenance could deteriorate.

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Woman, 85, Ousted From Her Home

Congressman Joe Sestak’s Letter Supporting NASGA Member Holly Peffer

May 9, 2010

Mr. William E. Moschella
Assistant Attorney General for Office of Legislative Affairs
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennyslvania Ave., Nw, Room 1145
Washington, DC 20530

Dear Mr. Moschella,

Enclosed please find a consent form from Ms. Holly Peffer. I enclose the several documents that substantiate Ms. Peffer’s present concerns. I also enclose my letter to, and the response that I have received, from the Department of Health and Human Service, Administration on Aging. I reiterate here that my legislation on this critical matter of elder abuse is diretly on point to rememdy the plight of questionable guardianships, where an act of apparent compassion may mask greed.

Ms. Peffer’s claim of miscarriage of justice resulted from the seemingly irregular use of guardianship procedures to seperate Ms. Peffer’s mother from her family. In this case, the procedures within the state of Florida are at issue. For that reason, I am copying the Attorney General of Florida with this present letter and its enclosures and asking that the authority respond to my inquiry as well.

I ask that this matter be carefully reviewed within your department and that I receive a response as to what measures might be taken to address this issue in general and Ms. Peffer’s concern specifically. I may be reached at my district office, located at 600 North Jackson St., Media, PA 19063. If you have any questions or concerns relating to this issue, please call my District Representative, Anne Vaughan, at 610-892-8623. Thank you kindly for your attention to this concern. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Joe Sestak
Member of Congress

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Aint No Sunshine for Rita Denmark

Ex-Lawyer Jessica Miller Gets Jail for Theft

Last month, Pasco-Pinellas County Judge Michael Andrews told former lawyer Jessica Miller that it might behoove her to bring money to her sentencing to get ahead on resitution payments.

Miller, who had pleaded guilty to stealing from ehr fromer clients owes them about $70,000.

Miller, 32, obliged the judge, showing up at sentencing with $250 she made at a garage sale. The token offer did not persuade Anderews to grant Miller’s pleas for a probation-only sentence.

Instead, the judge sentenced her to 54 months in prison, followed by 10 years of probation.

“It’s fair to say I always thought you were a pretty good lawyer,” Andrews said. “I’m sad to see you in this position, but you broke the public’s trust. Your actions were reckless. You acted with impunity and without regard for your clients, and they are entitled to justice.”

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Former Laywer Gets Jail for Theft

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Ex-Lawyer Pleads Guilty to Stealing from Clients

Atty Accused of Plotting to Bilk Elderly Widows Out of Tens of Millions

An attorney who is trying to persuade city and county leaders to back his plans for a $1.5 billion development that would transform the downtown area masterminded a plot to bilk two elderly widows out of tens of millions of dollars, according to a lawsuit filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.

In a lawsuit that now takes up 64 overstuffed file folders in the county courthouse, attorney Michael Masanoff is accused of working both sides of a real estate deal to help steal a problem-plagued cemetery in Boca Raton from the widows. Further, the widows’ attorney claims, Masanoff lied under oath about his misdeeds.

If he can persuade a judge to let him use a confidential memo, attorney Edward Ricci said he will seek criminal charges against Masanoff for perjury. He also will ask the Florida Bar to take action against Masanoff.

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Leader of Palm Beach County Building Effort Accused of Bilking Widows

Michael Schiavo Threatens to Sue the Terri Schindler Schiavo Fondation

Michael Schiavo has threatened to sue Terri Schiavo’s family because they named their non profit after her–the “Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation.” (MS claims he owns the name. ) And, true to form, an ever compliant media fronted his cause with an unfair attack on the family.

What Michael Schiavo “believes” is irrelevant and beside the point. Had the reporters wanted to find out the kind of help the foundation offers others, producers could have called me or a myriad of others active in this field, who are quite aware of the selfless giving and effort each surviving member of Terri’s family offers to others. Indeed, I have personal knowledge of case after case in which the Schindlers worked selflessly–and without financial compensation of any kind–to assist family members save their cognitively disabled loved ones from suffering the same dehydration fate as Terri. The Lauren Richardson food and fluids dispute and the Andrea Clarke futile care case are just two that come to mind.

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I Stand in Solidarity With the Schindlers Against Sleasy Media Attack

Miami Artist Purvis Young Dies at 67

He was one of South Florida’s most storied artists, a man who transformed a troubled life with brush strokes, painting the joys and sorrows of his people on objects discarded in his Overtown neighborhood — a copious body of work that brought Purvis Young international recognition.

Yet Young, who died at Jackson Memorial Hospital after a long battle with diabetes, was penniless and friends were raising money to bury him.

He was 67.

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Miami Artist Purvis Young Dies at 67

Kim Rothstein Vacates ‘Palace’

Kim Rothstein has left the building.

Well, almost.

​Rothstein attorney Scott Saidel told me that the bride of the Ponzi schemer has moved everything out of their palatial estate off Las Olas Boulevard. He said she is living with family and friends now, though she might spend one night a week in what she described a few months ago as a “tomb.”

“It’s empty, it’s a shell, and it’s depressing,” Saidel said of the former Casa de Rothstein. “She’s almost completely out of the house.”

Kim’s life has been further complicated, Saidel said, by the bankruptcy court’s dogging of her for all of the marvelous things she bought on Broward’s big swindler’s dime since 2006.

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Kim Rothstein Packed Out of Palace, Hounded For Shoes

Protective Custody Hinders Rothstein Case

Scott Rothstein’s attorney says it isn’t easy seeing his client. The South Florida Ponzi king is in protective custody at an undisclosed location after helping prosecutors nab an alleged Sicilian Mafioso.

Marc Nurik, Rothstein’s defense attorney and former partner, said he has to make special appointments with the U.S. Marshals Service to see Rothstein and can’t get legal documents to him easily.

U.S. District Judge James Cohn noted inactivity in the case with sentencing set for May 6 and prompted attorneys on both sides Wednesday by setting an April 30 deadline to file sentencing memoranda. Nurik quickly responded with a request to delay sentencing, and the Fort Lauderdale judge reset it for June 9.

Others in the South Florida legal community warn against treating the date as a certainty for determining whether Rothstein will spend the rest of his life in prison for masterminding a $1.2 billion scam, the largest in Florida history.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office has a lot riding on keeping Rothstein under wraps, attorneys say.

He knows where all the bodies are buried, whom he duped and who may have cooperated with him in bilking investors in his lawsuit settlement financing scheme.

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Rothstein Lawyer Says Protective Custody Hinders Case, Requests Sentencing Delay

Florida Lawmakes Move to Enhance APS

A little-noticed bill would enable the Florida Department of Children and Families for the first time to ask a court to decide whether a mentally or physically impaired adult needs a guardian.

Supporters say the legislation will remove a roadblock that stalls or blocks state services designed to protect vulnerable adults from abuse and neglect. The House passed the bill unanimously Wednesday; a Senate vote is expected this week.

The bill was filed in September, five months before the death of a Fernandina Beach woman with a long history of mental-health problems and department investigations.

Hunter’s death has gained statewide attention as a symbol of what several experts say are gaps in the mental-health care system. Hunter had been admitted to hospital emergency rooms more than 60 times, undergoing several psychiatric evaluations along the way, during the last two years of her life without getting the help she needed, they say.

Reaction to the bill has been mixed.

A former insider at the agency’s Northeast Florida office calls the bill a “classic example of Legislature appearing to do something without dealing with fundamental core issues.” The bill makes it easier for the state to place a vulnerable adult into guardianship, but it doesn’t address the shortage of guardians, said Gene Costlow, who retired from his human services program director position in March after 37 years with the agency.

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Florida Lawmakers Move to Enhance Adult Protection in the Wake of Sarah Hunter’s Death