An alleged drug “queenpin” accuses Miami prosecutors of misconduct before her trial

Sandra Avila Beltrán, once known as the “Queen of the Pacific” in the Latin American drug trade, is accusing Miami prosecutors of lying about her role in cocaine shipments to the United States to persuade Mexican authorities to extradite her last year.

For Avila, a dark-haired beauty who stood out in a narco-trafficking world dominated by macho men, the misconduct accusation is a final bid to save her neck as she faces trial — or a possible plea deal — later this month.

Her defense lawyers are seeking to have a 2004 indictment dismissed, but it’s a likely long shot. If convicted of two conspiracy charges alleging drug importation and distribution, the 52-year-old Avila could spend the rest of her life in prison.

Her attorneys claim in a court filing that a federal prosecutor and drug agent were aware that signed declarations by codefendants — including Avila’s ex-boyfriend — were “riddled with falsehoods and misstatements.” Yet Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Morales submitted the evidence to Mexican authorities in 2010 to persuade them to extradite Avila, according to the defense lawyers, Stephen Ralls and Howard Schumacher.

Morales’ successor in the case, prosecutor Cynthia Wood, said in court papers the allegations against him were “false” and “without foundation.”

Avila’s reputation as the Queen of the Pacific was gained by her dominant role in the powerful Sinaloa cartel, her romantic relationship with a Colombian drug-trafficker and her influence over ocean supply routes.

Mexicans, along with the news media, have long been fascinated with Avila, who was arrested in her country in 2007. They constantly followed details of her taste for high fashion, gourmet food and beauty secrets. One rumor that made the rounds: A doctor visited her while she was jailed in Mexico to administer her Botox injections.

Last summer, a Mexican court and foreign secretary granted her extradition on the U.S. narco-trafficking indictment, which has alleged links to a cocaine deal in Chicago and a cocaine seizure in Manzanillo more than a decade ago.

Avila’s attorneys claim that Morales, the prosecutor, pressured her ex-boyfriend, Juan Diego Espinosa Ramirez, who was convicted in the same case, to sign a March 2010 declaration implicating her in the Chicago deal — without his defense attorney present. They said his declaration was instrumental in her extradition to the United States.

But according to Espinosa, “his declaration was not freely and voluntarily provided and he was denied the advice of counsel prior to signing the document,” Avila’s attorneys said in court papers.

Espinosa said in the declaration that Avila participated in a 100-kilo cocaine shipment with a trafficker named Juan Carlos Lopez Correa in 2001. And that after the cocaine was delivered to Chicago, Lopez Correa became responsible for the debt on the drug deal, he said.

On Sept. 14, 2001, federal agents intercepted a telephone call in which Espinosa, Avila and Lopez Correa allegedly discussed his outstanding payment. During the call, Espinosa asked Lopez Correa to pay for the shipment.

The current prosecutor in the case, Wood, pointed out that Espinosa’s declaration was similar to the factual statement he and his defense attorney signed in June 2009, when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine.

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Modern Family Stars Get Stuck in Crowded Elevator

No good deed goes unpunished.

PICS: Candid Celeb Sightings

While on their way to a fundraiser for the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Kansas City on Friday night, three stars of ABC's hit sitcom Modern Family were trapped in a crowded elevator for almost an hour, ABC News reports.

Julie Bowen, Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson took pictures together during the ordeal, which Ferguson posted to his Twitter account.

"This is us right now. 45 minutes stuck in this elevator," Ferguson wrote, captioning the snapshot from the Sheraton Kansas City Hotel's third floor.

The actors were an hour late to the event after the Kansas City Fire Department rescued them, but they maintained a good sense of humor about their plight, reportedly joking about the ordeal on stage.

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Smile! Polar bear cub debuts at Buffalo Zoo

AP

Behind bars, a 3-month-old polar bear cub 'mugs' for the cameras at the Buffalo Zoo.

BUFFALO — A smiling, playful 3-month-old polar bear cub has made its public debut at the Buffalo Zoo in western New York.

The fluffy white cub was introduced Friday as the zoo announced the next phase of fundraising for a new $18 million polar bear exhibit. About $4 million is still needed.

The Buffalo Zoo says it's one of only two zoos in North America to have polar bear births in 2012.

The cub is still too small to exhibit but she's visible via closed-circuit television at the zoo on weekday afternoons.

AP

The cub plays around with her keeper as she is introduced.

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When the latest layoff story is about you

It’s an odd feeling reading in the newspaper about losing your job. I didn’t learn about being fired in the newspaper but the story of losing my position was there. Why I lost my job (along with more than a dozen of my colleagues) was the lead story in the business section of The Miami Herald on Feb. 22. It even had a picture of me right next to the paragraph describing how we lost our jobs with the public television program Nightly Business Report.

What’s nice about sharing your employment woes with the entire community is the outpouring of support you get. I received dozens of emails from friends, fans and colleagues across the country, expressing sympathy and pledging to help any way they could. It is humbling to hear how you have impacted people’s lives, especially those you don’t know directly. The range of emotions you feel when you face a job loss can be overwhelming, but a short email or voicemail from an associate can lift your spirits, giving you the strength to press on. The medium of the messages does not matter. A tweet of support, LinkedIn endorsement or text message of sympathy fuels the encouragement to face the anxiety of joblessness.

After news of my job elimination was in the newspaper and blogosphere, there were compassionate glances from fellow parents on the sidelines of the kids’ weekend soccer games. I didn’t have to break the news — most had already read about it. A pedestrian on the sidewalk stopped me in mid-stride to express his disappointment. The inevitable questions came: What are you going to do? Will you stay? Do you have anything you’re working on?

I am lucky my employment status was on the business front page. Thousands of other people are treated as statistics. As a business journalist, I have been guilty of that. Company layoffs numbering in the dozens as ours did rarely demand attention. The cuts have to be in the thousands to have any hope of getting much media attention. Even then, it’s only a number. The names of those losing their jobs are known only to their HR departments, in order to fill out the paperwork. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the nature of job loss. Each job cut is a story that begins en masse in boardrooms and offices but plays out individually in kitchens and living rooms across America.

In January, there were more than 1,300 mass layoffs of U.S. workers. A mass layoff impacts at least 50 people from a single company. More than 134,000 individuals were involved in such action, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. My job loss and that of my colleagues won’t show up in February’s report. There were too few of us. Some of us will appear in other employment data, but we will be just statistics. Each of those statistics has groceries to buy, bills to pay and hope for a new opportunity.

In a $16 trillion economy, it’s understandable that we become statistics. The stakes are just too big to pick up the noise from any of our individual unemployment stories. The weekly and government reports I have spent my career reporting on don’t ask why. They don’t ask who. They only ask how many. It’s our friends and family and colleagues who ask, “How can I help?”

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UM, county clash with owner of mall over pedestrian overpass above U.S.-1

After several University of Miami students have been killed or seriously injured trying to cross busy U. S. 1 to get to popular retail spots on the other side, Miami-Dade County has finally approved building a Mediterranean-styled pedestrian bridge across the highway.

But the project has come to a standstill after the owner of the mall, University Centre, has refused to cooperate.

The county has offered the owner $1.85 million to compensate for the loss of five parking spaces needed to anchor the bridge across the street from the Metrorail station and the nearby UM. In addition, the county has offered the strip center owner 10 parking spaces at the Metrorail station across South Dixie Highway.

The mall owner has not budged.

Toby Brigham, an attorney representing the owner, said the placement of the overpass at that corner would block the mall’s visibility and its signage, hurting business.

“That’s a critical point where the driveways curve,” Brigham said. “Things like that in today’s economy, in competition with other shopping centers who are not similarly blighted, can make a huge difference.”

The mall’s stance has angered UM President Donna Shalala, who has taken her fight to the Coral Gables city commission and to the public.

“The county has made a fair offer in our judgment, the owner has basically rejected it and, as you can imagine, has hired a lawyer,’’ she said. “We have had students killed, seriously injured. Ponce de Leon [Middle School] uses that Metro stop and needs that bridge.… I’m now at the point this is unconscionable, we’ve got to get this done.”

Since 1989, eight UM students have been struck by vehicles while attempting to cross U.S. 1 around Mariposa Court, the intersection of the shopping center.

Three of the students died. They were: Eric Adams in 1990, Aaron Baber in 1998 and Ashley Kelly in April 2005. Kelly was hit by an SUV while walking to T.G.I. Friday’s with a friend to meet potential roommates.

The most recent incident involving a UM student was in April 2012 when Eliza Gresh was struck by a hit-and-run driver in South Miami and injured while attempting to cross U.S. 1 at Southwest 57th Avenue.

After nearly eight years, the county has approved the project. About $6 million in funding at the state and federal level has been allocated and a Mediterranean-style overpass has been designed.

“This has been a long-term project and it’s absolutely imperative, not because it adds an aesthetic value, but because it adds a component of safety to the residents of Coral Gables, a large number of whom are UM students,” said Nawara Alawa, student government president. “This is not just a project benefiting the university.”

But Miami-Dade County can’t begin construction because it hasn’t acquired the five parking spaces in the northeast corner of the University Centre parking lot needed to place the eastern pedestal of the bridge. The center is on the eastern side of the highway.

Shalala expressed her frustration over the hold-up to the Coral Gables Commission at the December State of the City/University of Miami meeting.

“We, of course, believe that the University Centre would not be there without our students and staff using all of those shops heavily,’’ Shalala said.

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Ellen DeGeneres Pens Open Letter to Supreme Court to Pass Prop 8 for Gay Marriage

With a touch of her trademark humor, Ellen DeGeneres tackles a very serious topic close to the talk show host's heart: gay marriage.

In an open letter posted to her website, Ellen reaches out to members of the Supreme Court, who will soon decide the fate of same-sex couples who wish to wed.

Pics: 'Amazing Race' Stars Cheer Up Bullied Gay Fan

"Portia and I have been married for 4 years and they have been the happiest of my life," she blogs of her longtime partner Portia De Rossi. "And in those 4 years, I don't think we hurt anyone else's marriage. I asked all of my neighbors and they say they're fine."

Ellen, who tied the knot in 2008 during a brief period when gay marriage was legal in California, now urges the powers that be to open their heart and extend the privilege to every gay couple.

"I hope the Supreme Court will do the right thing, and let everyone enjoy the same rights," Ellen writes. "It's going to help keep families together. It's going to make kids feel better about who they are. And it is time."

Related: Neil Patrick Harris: I Knew I was Gay at 6

In closing the comedian writes, "In the words of Benjamin Franklin, 'We're here, we're queer, get over it.'"

Read Ellen's entire plea to the supreme court here.

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Internet bubble millionaire goes from dot.com to drug con: Jennifer Sultan gets 4 years in scheme

This dot.com millionaire has now gone from penthouse to poorhouse to Big House.

A Manhattan judge wrote the latest chapter in the riches-to-rags story of pretty Jennifer Sultan today -- promising her a four-year prison sentence as she pleaded guilty to gun conspiracy and drug sales.

"Yes," Sultan, a 38-year-old recovering pain killer addict, answered sadly, when asked by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Edward McLaughlin if she'd sold felony weight oxycodone to an undercover cop last spring.

Asked if she'd joined in a conspiracy that sold loaded, operable firearms, Sultan gave a slight smile as she sat at the defense table, her waist-length brown hair hanging forward over one shoulder.

Steven Hirsch

Jennifer Sultan at court today. The dot.com millionaire got four years in gun and drug scheme.

"Yes. Reluctantly," she said.

Sultan has been held since her arrest last summer for the same Queens-based drug-and-gun-gang conspiracy that ensnared convicted NYPD gun thief Nicholas Mina.

She was caught sending text messages to the ring's leader last June saying she had a .357 Magnum "toy" -- meaning a gun -- for sale for $850, according to the indictment against her.

She was also caught on wiretaps asking about firearm prices, and talking about a prior occasion when a gun she gave the ring to sell turned out to be inoperable.

"She's come 180 degrees from when I met her," after her arrest, her lawyer, Frank Rothman, said after court.

"She was unfocused, distracted, drug addicted," he said. "And she is now alert, oriented, and ready to get back to what she does best -- holistic healing," he said of Sultan, a trained acupuncturist.

With good behavior and factoring time she's already served, Sultan could be released in under two years, he said.

When Sultan was just 25, she and a boyfriend built one of the first Internet companies to offer live event streaming on the Web, selling it for $70 million.

By two years ago, she filed for personal bankruptcy. The 6,000-foot East 17th Street loft she shared with her ex-boyfriend is for sale for $6 million; Sultan's share of any sale would not cover her debts, her lawyer has argued.

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AFFORDABLE CARE ACT DOESN’T COVER LONG-TERM CARE POLICIES

Starting next year, the Affordable Care Act will largely prohibit insurers who sell individual and small-group health policies from charging women higher premiums than men for the same coverage.

Long-term-care insurance, however, isn’t bound by that law, and the country’s largest provider of such coverage has announced it will begin setting its prices based on sex this spring.

“Gender pricing is good for insurance companies,” said Bonnie Burns, a policy specialist at California Health Advocates, a Medicare advocacy and education organization, “but it’s bad public policy and it’s bad for women.”

Genworth Financial says the new pricing reflects the fact that women receive two of every three claims dollars. The change will affect only women who buy new individual policies, or about 10 percent of all purchasers, according to the company. The new rates won’t be applied to existing policyholders or those who apply as a couple with their husbands.

“This change is being made now to reflect our actual claims experience and help stabilize pricing,” Genworth Financial spokesman Thomas Topinka said in an email.

Women’s premiums may increase by 20 to 40 percent under the new pricing policy, said Jesse Slome, executive director of the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance. The average annual premium for a 55-year-old who qualified for preferred health discounts and bought between $165,000 and $200,000 of coverage was $1,720 last year, according to the association.

Experts say they expect other long-term-care insurers will soon follow suit.

Long-term-care insurance provides protection for people who need help with basic daily tasks such as bathing and dressing. It typically pays a set amount for a certain number of years — say, $150 daily for three years — for care provided in a nursing home, assisted living facility or at home. Never a very popular product with consumers, many of whom found it unaffordable, in recent years the industry has struggled and many carriers have raised premiums by double digits or left the market.

Consumer health advocates say they aren’t surprised that women’s claims for long-term-care insurance are higher than men’s.

Because women typically live longer than men, they frequently act as caregivers when their husbands need long-term care, advocates say, thus reducing the need for nursing help that insurance might otherwise pay for. Once a woman needs care, however, there may be no one left to provide it.

“Women live longer alone than men,” Burns said. “If you don’t have a live-in caregiver when you start needing this kind of care, you’re in big trouble.”

LuMarie Polivka-West knows the potential problems all too well. Polivka-West, 64, is the senior director of policy and program development for the Florida Health Care Association, a trade organization for nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

About 15 years ago, she bought a long-term-care policy. The company went out of business after five years, and she let her policy lapse rather than switch to another plan with higher premiums and less comprehensive coverage. But she’s reconsidering that decision. Polivka-West’s husband is four years older than she is. Her mother died of Alzheimer’s disease at age 89 after struggling with it for eight years. What if a similar fate awaits her?

Polivka-West thinks insurers shouldn’t be allowed to charge her more just because she’s a woman.

“The Affordable Care Act recognized the gender bias in health insurance,” she said. “The same (rules) should apply to long-term-care insurance.”

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Miami mayor: City will fight to keep fed funding for housing, anti-poverty programs

Miami city administrators said Thursday they will do “everything possible” to avoid losing out on $5.8 million in federal community development funds.

The promise came days after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development threatened to penalize Miami for failing to spend $13.3 million in Community Development Block Grants over the past three years. Cities that do not adhere to a strict spending schedule can see their funding reduced.

Commissioners slammed the city administration for not spending the money fast enough. CDBG dollars can go toward affordable housing, economic development and anti-poverty programs. In Miami, they fund daycares like the Centro Mater in Little Havana and community centers such as the Allapattah Community Action Center.

“This is a very serious issue,” Commissioner Francis Suarez said.

Assistant City Manager Alice Bravo promised a quick solution.

“We are going to do everything possible not only to spend down the funds that are in place, but to work with officials in Washington to explain our situation,” she said. “We are going to do everything in our power to make sure our funding is not removed.”

Commissioner Frank Carollo said he was “baffled” by the situation, in part because he attended a meeting with HUD consultants earlier this month at which Miami administrators were told the city was in full compliance.

Miami Community Development Director George Mensah said the HUD consultants must have received bad information from the federal government.

Under HUD guidelines, grant recipients can keep up to 1.5 times the amount of their annual allocation on reserve, in a HUD line of credit. Miami received about $5 million in 2012, meaning its fund balance could be as high as $7.5 million. But as of last month, the CDBG balance topped $13.2 million.

Mensah said the city was having problems, in part, because the feds have reduced the amount Miami could keep on reserve.

“In some ways, this is a mathematical issue,” he said.

But neither he nor City Manager Johnny Martinez nor Mayor Tomás Regalado answered questions from commissioners and a reporter about why the allocated money had not been spent over three years.

Earlier in the day, Regalado told The Miami Herald that city administrators were working to schedule a meeting with HUD officials in Washington, D.C.

“We’re not going to lose that money,” Regalado pledged.

The mayor noted that some CDBG-funded projects were moving forward, including a new community center in Little Havana and road repairs in District 4.

Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones implored city leaders to do a better job of moving projects along.

“We need to make sure that if we have projects sitting there, that we move the money,” she said. “At the end of the day, whatever we’re not doing affects the whole entire city.”

In other business, Carollo sponsored a resolution directing the building department to deny 40-year building re-certifications when properties have outstanding code violations or are deemed unsafe.

The proposal came in response to a series of stories in El Nuevo Herald about Little Havana condominium owners who saw their floors collapse and who had little recourse.

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Read the heartbreaking impact statement read by the Figoski girls

Pool Photo

Below is the impact statement read in Brooklyn Supreme Court today by the four daughters of NYPD Det. Peter Figoski at the sentencing of his killer, Lamont Pride. The one joint statement was read in court, with each daughter taking a portion.

CHRISTINE FIGOSKI, 21:

On the evening of Sunday, December 11, my sisters and I went to bed with the worries of your average teenage girl. We were worried about studying for upcoming college final exams, and high school tests, and looking forward to going home for the Christmas holiday and having the family together.

We all got our normal “Night, I love you” text from Daddy, and only a few hours after, my sisters and I were faced with the tragedy that would impact the rest of our lives. The next events that happened that morning are events that will haunt us for the rest of our lives.

We were awoken by my Mom in a panic after hearing that Daddy had been in an accident. We were startled and from that moment on everything seemed to get worse.

We all came to the hospital to “Hope” and “Pray” that our Dad would pull through. Our Father was shot in the face, and still breathing at that moment, and even though as bad as his condition was, we still thought just somehow he would survive. Nothing at that moment felt real and till this day, it still doesn’t.

Two of us arrived at the hospital to see the grim faces of family members and the sad faces of hundreds of police officers that were lined up throughout the hospital.

The next several hours were some of the hardest of our lives as we were told that our Father died as a result of a gunshot to the face. We spiraled into the confusion of having to deal with the hard reality of having to prepare with life without our Dad.

CORINNE FIGOSKI, 15:

Our dad was our world, our everything. He was our hero, protector, role model and our best friend. He always made everything better. And not at one moment would any of us realize what it would be like without a father, it’s more than anyone could ever imagine. Everything our Dad did was for us. He was always trying his hardest to make us the best people we could be.

Now a day's “Promise” is just a word. When people say, “I promise everything will get better, and it’s going to be OK,” it’s just a lie to us.Nothing will ever be the same again and we will never feel the way we used to.

We lay in bed for hours in the dark at night, thinking about every possible thing that has changed in our lives since December 12, 2011. Sometimes we want to believe that this world is hell and there is another peaceful world where our dad is now. I’m not sure if we are depressed, but we are constantly angry and sad, but we continue to put smiles on our faces and laugh and joke with one another like our Father would want. But inside we are numb, and broken. We find it so hard to be happy, sometimes we forget how to feel. The past is better than it is now, and the future is less resolved. When our father died, a part of us died inside. We realize that once you’re broken in certain ways, they couldn’t ever be fixed now, no matter how hard you try.

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Don’t get too personal on LinkedIn

Have you ever received a request to connect on LinkedIn from someone you didn’t know or couldn’t remember?

A few weeks ago, Josh Turner encountered this situation. The online request to connect came from a businessman on the opposite coast of the United States. It came with a short introduction that ended with “Let’s go Blues!” a reference to Turner’s favorite hockey team in St. Louis that he had mentioned in his profile. “It was a personal connection … that’s building rapport.”

LinkedIn is known for being the professional social network where members expect you to keep buttoned-down behavior and network online like you would at a business event. With more than 200 million registered users, the site facilitates interaction as a way to boost your stature, gain a potential customer or rub elbows with a future boss.

But unlike most other social networking sites, LinkedIn is all about business — and you need to take special care that you act accordingly. As in any workplace, the right amount of personal information sharing could be the foot in the door, say experts. The wrong amount could slam it closed.

“Anyone in business needs a professional online presence,’’ says Vanessa McGovern, the VP of Business Development for the Global Institute for Travel Entrepreneurs and a consultant to business owners on how to use LinkedIn. But they should also heed LinkedIn etiquette or risk sending the wrong messages.

One of the biggest mistakes, McGovern says is getting too personal — or not personal enough.

Sending a request to connect blindly equates to cold calling and likely will lead nowhere. Instead, it should come with a personal note, an explanation of who you are, where you met, or how the connection can benefit both parties, McGovern explains.

Your profile should get a little personal, too, she says. “Talk about yourself in the first person and add a personal flair — your goals, your passion … make yourself seem human.”

Beyond that, keep your LinkedIn posts, invitations, comments and photos professional, McGovern says.

If you had a hard day at the office or your child just won an award, you may want to share it with your personal network elsewhere — but not on LinkedIn.

“This is not Facebook. Only share what you would share at a professional networking event,” she says.

Another etiquette pitfall on LinkedIn is the hit and run — making a connection and not following up.

At least once a week, Ari Rollnick, a principal in kabookaboo, an integrated marketing agency in Coral Gables, gets a request to connect with someone on LinkedIn that he has never met or heard of before. The person will have no connections in common and share no information about why they want to build a rapport.

“I won’t accept. That’s a lost opportunity for them,” Rollnick says.

He approaches it differently. When Rollnick graduated from Emory with an MBA in 2001, he had a good idea that his classmates would excel in the business world. Now, Rollnick wanted to find out just where they went and reestablish a connection.

With a few clicks, he tracked down dozens of them on LinkedIn, requested a connection, and was back on their radar. Then came the follow-up — letting them know through emails, phone calls and posts that he was creating a two-way street for business exchange. “Rather than make that connection and disappearing , I let them know I wanted to open the door to conversation.”

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Florida advocates say 2012 proved need for Voting Rights Act

As a skeptical U.S. Supreme Court raised doubts about a central provision of the federal Voting Rights Act on Wednesday, the law’s defenders said the 2012 election provided a vivid example for why it was needed to protect Florida from voter suppression.

“Look at the performance of our governor and Legislature in the last election,’’ says Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida whose parent organization has joined in the lawsuit to retain the law. “They are walking advertisements for why we need the Voting Rights Act.”

After the Legislature passed a sweeping elections bill in 2011, the act’s provisions required the state to get federal approval from either a federal trial court or the Justice Department before the law could take effect in Monroe, Hillsborough, Hardee, Hendry and Collier counties.

In addition to seeking the review, Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi challenged the act’s constitutionality. Former Secretary of State Kurt Browning called the provisions of the act an “arbitrary and irrational coverage formula based on data from 40 years ago that takes no account of current conditions.”

The five Florida counties have been subject to the pre-clearance requirement of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act protections since 1975 because of a history of discrimination against language minorities. Monroe County, for example, failed to print ballots in Spanish even though the Spanish-speaking population was large enough to warrant its own ballot.

The law’s most controversial provision, passed by the Republican-led 2011 Legislature, was a plan to reduce the number of early voting days. The ACLU and other citizens groups used the pre-clearance requirements to challenge the law, arguing that the changes disproportionately affected minority voters, who rely on early voting more than white voters.

A three-judge federal court concluded the law could have the effect of cutting voting hours in half. It suggested the law could stand if the five counties would expand early voting hours each day to maintain the total number of hours they offered in the past — a remedy initially rejected by Scott and lawmakers.

All but Monroe County agreed to the change. Monroe argued that reducing early voting days was more important to maintain voter access than extending hours on fewer days.

When the federal court agreed to accept the four-county compromise, Monroe was forced to go along with the compressed schedule and the state dropped the challenge.

The result: long early voting lines in the state’s most urban counties, putting Florida’s elections laws under the national spotlight again.

“I think now the state will agree that fewer days didn’t work out,’’ said Joyce Griffin, a Democrat who has worked in the Monroe County Supervisor of Elections office for 28 years before she was elected supervisor in November. She believes the act’s pre-clearance provisions should be retained.

“I have always viewed it as an extra safeguard,’’ she said. “It gives us another layer of protection — and I was very happy to have it last year.”

If the U.S. Supreme Court throws out the pre-clearance requirement, Florida would be allowed to enact its voting laws first, while opponents would have to challenge it later, said Julie Ebenstein, staff attorney for the ACLU of Florida.

“Without the Voting Rights Act ..., the confusion and chaos regarding elections in 2012 here would have been far worse,” she said.

In the last 20 years, the Section 5 rule also has forced the state to rewrite its reapportionment maps, creating a majority-minority state Senate district in the Tampa Bay area in 1992 and requiring lawmakers to restore a Hispanic majority seat in Collier County they had planned to eliminate in 2002.

Bondi did not file a brief in the Shelby County v. Holder case, but she and other Republican state officials echoed arguments of the Alabama Attorney General in 2011 when the state challenged the law.

“I strongly support the many provisions of the Voting Rights Act that appropriately enforce the right of citizens to register and vote free from discrimination,’’ Browning said at the time. “But there is no constitutional basis to arbitrarily single out five Florida counties and a few other covered jurisdictions, based solely on information from decades ago, and subject them to procedures that don’t apply to the rest of the country.”

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Hoarding: Buried Alive Daughter Goes Ballistic After Mom's Death

In the aptly titled This House Killed Her, tonight's Hoarding: Buried Alive tells the story of a deceased hoarder whose daughters are forced to clear  jaw-dropping amounts of clutter left in their mother's wake.

Pics: Star Sightings!

Sifting through endless piles of rubbish crawling with roaches and rats, sisters Aimee and Cheryl are desperate to locate the deed to their mom's home before the bank forecloses on the mortgage. During a moment of particular distress, Aimee loses her cool and begins to toss and break furniture in anger over the situation.

Watch an exclusive sneak peek in the player above!

Related: Hoarder's Son Feels 'Like a Dog in a Cage' 

Hoarding: Buried Alive airs Wednesdays on TLC.

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Ex-con who shot parole officer was having 'a terrible month': lawyer

The Brooklyn ex-con who blasted his parole officer only attacked because he was “in the grips of extreme emotional distress,” his defense attorney said during the trial’s opening yesterday.

Robert Morales, 52, shot his parole officer Sam Salters in the shoulder in 2010 because he said his new parole officer’s demands were ruining his life.

“It was a terrible, terrible month,” defense attorney John Stella said in Brooklyn Supreme Court, referring to the time Morales reported to Salters.

“It was the worst month in the life of a guy who has been in more correctional facilities than you can count on two hands.”

Gregory P. Mango

Robert Morales is being re-tried for shooting Samuel Salters, his parole officer.

This is Morales’ retrial after his first trial ended in a mistrial last year.

Stella even laid some blame on Salters, who spent months in the hospital after the attack.

“Sam Salters treated him in a manner that he had never been treated by anyone in the correctional system.”

Stella argued that Morales is guilty only of aggravated assault of an officer, while prosecutors made the case for attempted aggravated murder.

“He shot him at point-blank range with full intent to kill him,” said Brooklyn assistant district attorney Lew Lieberman. “There is no extreme emotional distress defense here.”

In 1979 Morales was sentenced to 25 years to life for setting a fire that killed an 8-year-old boy.

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Economic development chief faces bruising fight

An organization charged with reviving Miami-Dade’s battered economy finds itself with some bruises, too.

The Beacon Council, a non-profit that relies on tax dollars, is contending with a threat to its public funding, lukewarm support from County Hall and a rift within its own leadership. CEO Frank Nero faces a revolt from some board members, and the full board this month opted not to pass a motion expressing confidence in the Beacon Council’s management, according to several participants.

“Not everybody loves Frank,’’ said Joseph Pallot, the group’s volunteer chairman and general counsel at Heico Corp. But Pallot said Nero has performed well as the head of an organization that receives about $4 million a year in Miami-Dade taxes. “Frank’s economic-development skills are second to none.”

Nero, a former New Jersey municipal leader who earns about $400,000 a year, declined to comment. He has tussled with board members and elected officials in the past. But he now faces pressure on multiple fronts, with Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez wanting to revamp the county’s economic-development strategy, commissioners wanting to take away $1 million in tax funding and give it to local businesses, and some Beacon board members pushing for a change at the top.

“We have issues with the Beacon Council,” Gimenez said this week in an interview. “The commission also apparently has issues with the Beacon Council. We’re trying to work with them as best that we can.”

In his comments, Gimenez also said his concern was with the county’s “disjointed” approach to economic development, saying, “I’d like to kind of bring that all together.”

The Beacon Council’s primary mission is to recruit companies to Miami-Dade, serving as a go-between among corporate relocation firms and local agencies and helping line-up incentives and subsidies from county and state pools of money. It also pursues various economic efforts and promotions, including a year-long “One Community One Goal” study of how to grow the economy, and next month’s awards fundraising lunch aboard a cruise ship at Port Miami.

In the budget year that ended in September 2011, the Beacon Council received about $1.6 million from businesses paying dues, events and other private-sector sources, according to the most recent fianancial statement available.

Last year, the Beacon Council said it helped 27 businesses either expand in or move to Miami-Dade, accounting for about 2,000 new jobs. Among the big companies it helped land incentives for was the new cable network Univision is forming with the ABC national network in Doral.

But the Beacon Council’s public dollars have proved a ripe target, with commissioners complaining the money goes to recruit large companies to town that then compete with constituents’ smaller businesses.

Combined, the Beacon Council’s top eight executives make about $1.5 million a year, and during the recession the group spent about $1.5 million on a 2009 renovation of its rented Brickell Avenue office, according to tax filings and financial statement.

“When you’re trying to bring a CEO to Miami, you have to play the part that you’re a cosmopolitan, global city,’’ said Ana Acle-Menendez, head of communications for the Beacon Council. “That was the idea behind the renovation.”

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Somerset parents, neighbors unhappy with school’s plans to move campus to Kendall

Somerset Academy is drawing the ire of both parents and neighbors in Coral Gables and Kendall as it expands its charter school empire.

Angry parents crowded into a cafeteria recently to hear that their kindergartners likely will be bused to a new school in Kendall after Somerset lost its Coral Gables lease at Granada Presbyterian Church.

Meanwhile, about 40 neighbors of the proposed school met Sunday, outraged by Somerset’s plans to replace a small neighborhood school that has been run by the same family for six decades and attended by fewer than 300 students.

Somerset wants to build a new campus on the site of the old Pinewood Acres, 9500 SW 97th Ave. in Kendall, to serve 2,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

“We’re not against education, but what we are against is the numbers they’re trying to introduce into the area and the huge buildings,” said Jose J. Suarez, who chose the secluded neighborhood 14 years ago for his modern glass and concrete house.

The outrage among both groups highlights the tricky waters Somerset has tried to navigate in opening its charter schools in residential neighborhoods. Since it was founded 15 years ago, Somerset, a nonprofit managed by its for-profit partner, Academica, has grown into one of the state’s largest charter school companies, with 42 schools around Florida, in Texas, Nevada and online.

This fall, Somerset took over kindergarten classes at Granada, telling parents that their students would be eligible to attend first grade at its campus at Christ Journey Church.

After a hard-fought battle with neighbors, Somerset opened a school at the church, but the enrollment was capped at 260 – down from the 700 Somerset had proposed. To minimize traffic, Somerset also agreed to give preference to students who live within a mile of the church, and only admit outside students if space allowed.

The fight shaping up over Kendall’s historic Pinewood Acres School nearly mirrors that of Coral Gables: an affluent community with A-rated schools where neighbors cherish their quiet streets and the area’s towering live oaks.

Over the last six decades, the Pinewood Acres School changed little. Two University of Miami education grads fashioned it out of a 20-acre pig farm. The founders lived in the building where they taught, and as the school grew, they built homes for teachers and their families.

But a tough economy in recent years has been hard on the school, said Judy Lones, daughter-in-law of its founders.

“The enrollment had dropped and it was going to take a lot of money to invest in it to wait out the storm.”

So last year, the family negotiated a five-year lease with Somerset with an option to buy. And in December, the family and Somerset submitted plans to the county that would replace the ranch-style buildings scattered around the eight-acre campus, making it look more like a camp than a school, with new two-story buildings that echo the style of other Somerset campuses.

Neighbors say the campus is too big for the area, where one-acre estate homes with tennis courts in their backyards abut smaller single-family and zero-lot-line homes serviced by just one two-lane thoroughfare, 97th Avenue.

Somerset intends to initially open the new school, Somerset Bay at Pinewood Acres, as a K-8, with only 290 students — not the 2,000 that it eventually hopes to enroll, said Andreina Figueroa, the school’s board chair.

“It is our goal to be good neighbors,’’ she wrote in an email.

Somerset already is advertising the new school on a website and soliciting applications. However, the Miami-Dade School District said it has not yet received an official request from Somerset to open a school at the site.

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Does Miranda Kerr Want Another Baby

Model Miranda Kerr quickly got back into runway shape after giving birth to her first son Flynn in 2011, but could she and husband Orlando Bloom be planning to expand their family further? ET Canada caught up with the Victoria's Secret Angel to find out.

PICS: Who Wore What?

"Someday," Miranda answered when asked if she planned on giving her son Flynn a sibling to play with. "Not right now."

Miranda and a few of her fellow Angels flew to New York City to help launch the Fabulous Bra by Victoria's Secret as well as a new fragrance.

"It gives you a little lift, but not too much," Miranda said of the new bra. "It's very soft and lightweight. I'm wearing one right now, but I'm wearing the strapless version, because this also comes in a multi-way conversion bra."

Watch the video to see Miranda strut some of Victoria's Secret's top items down the catwalk.

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Not in my backyard: Matthew Broderick slams NYU expansion

Ferris Bueller was busy on his day off.

Matthew Broderick made a matinee appearance in Manhattan Supreme Court today to show his opposition to the planned, 20-year, $6 billion expansion of New York University in Greenwich Village.

“I live in the Village, I have children, I like parks. The issue is personal,” the actor, currently starring in “Nice Work if You Can Get It” on Broadway, told reporters before heading off to prepare for an evening performance.

NYU was given the go-ahead by the City Council last summer to take four plots of parkland on Mercer Street between West 3rd and Houston streets for the almost 2 million-square-foot addition to its Greenwich Village campus.

Steven Hirsch

Matthew Broderick leaving the NYU expansion hearings.

Activists sued to block the move in September. And they packed Judge Donna Mills’ courtroom yesterday to hear attorneys argue over whether there will be a separate proceeding on the pocket parks, which is a facet of the larger case.

Judge Mills ordered the parties to state their positions in papers due by mid-March.

Broderick, who played the lead in the 1980s high school comedy “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” lives on Charles Street with his “Sex & the City” actress wife Sarah Jessica Parker and their three kids.

He joined about 100 of his fellow West Village residents who oppose the plan and turned out for the proceeding yesterday.

“I’m very interested in this whole change that’s potentially going to happen to the Village,” Broderick explained. “I grew up on Washington Square. NYU has just taken more and more of what I think of as a unique and important part of the Village where a huge amount of creativity has come from.”

Playwright and fellow Village resident Kenneth Lonergan, who wrote the screenplays for “Gangs of New York” and “Analyze This,” joined high school classmate Broderick at the hearing.

Outside the courtroom, he bemoaned changes in the neighborhood, saying it was “completely different” 20 years ago and “now there’s frankly huge ugly buildings. It’s appalling. NYU doesn’t own Greenwich Village.”

Last Friday former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern submitted an affidavit largely in support of the community groups.

The city Law Dept. said: “Our opponents’ motion is baseless, and we plan to oppose it. This project underwent thorough and proper review before it was overwhelmingly approved.”

jmarsh@nypost.com

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Don’t get too personal on LinkedIn

Have you ever received a request to connect on LinkedIn from someone you didn’t know or couldn’t remember?

A few weeks ago, Josh Turner encountered this situation. The online request to connect came from a businessman on the opposite coast of the United States. It came with a short introduction that ended with “Let’s go Blues!” a reference to Turner’s favorite hockey team in St. Louis that he had mentioned in his profile. “It was a personal connection … that’s building rapport.”

LinkedIn is known for being the professional social network where members expect you to keep buttoned-down behavior and network online like you would at a business event. With more than 200 million registered users, the site facilitates interaction as a way to boost your stature, gain a potential customer or rub elbows with a future boss.

But unlike most other social networking sites, LinkedIn is all about business — and you need to take special care that you act accordingly. As in any workplace, the right amount of personal information sharing could be the foot in the door, say experts. The wrong amount could slam it closed.

“Anyone in business needs a professional online presence,’’ says Vanessa McGovern, the VP of Business Development for the Global Institute for Travel Entrepreneurs and a consultant to business owners on how to use LinkedIn. But they should also heed LinkedIn etiquette or risk sending the wrong messages.

One of the biggest mistakes, McGovern says is getting too personal — or not personal enough.

Sending a request to connect blindly equates to cold calling and likely will lead nowhere. Instead, it should come with a personal note, an explanation of who you are, where you met, or how the connection can benefit both parties, McGovern explains.

Your profile should get a little personal, too, she says. “Talk about yourself in the first person and add a personal flair — your goals, your passion … make yourself seem human.”

Beyond that, keep your LinkedIn posts, invitations, comments and photos professional, McGovern says.

If you had a hard day at the office or your child just won an award, you may want to share it with your personal network elsewhere — but not on LinkedIn.

“This is not Facebook. Only share what you would share at a professional networking event,” she says.

Another etiquette pitfall on LinkedIn is the hit and run — making a connection and not following up.

At least once a week, Ari Rollnick, a principal in kabookaboo, an integrated marketing agency in Coral Gables, gets a request to connect with someone on LinkedIn that he has never met or heard of before. The person will have no connections in common and share no information about why they want to build a rapport.

“I won’t accept. That’s a lost opportunity for them,” Rollnick says.

He approaches it differently. When Rollnick graduated from Emory with an MBA in 2001, he had a good idea that his classmates would excel in the business world. Now, Rollnick wanted to find out just where they went and reestablish a connection.

With a few clicks, he tracked down dozens of them on LinkedIn, requested a connection, and was back on their radar. Then came the follow-up — letting them know through emails, phone calls and posts that he was creating a two-way street for business exchange. “Rather than make that connection and disappearing , I let them know I wanted to open the door to conversation.”

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Wanna play for the Miami Marlins — the organ, that is

For the first time since the team's inception in 1993, the Miami Marlins held open auditions for an organist Monday night at their new stadium.

Several local musicians showed up to vie for the special gig.

The chosen organist will be responsible for performing songs such as Take Me Out to the Ballgame, Let's Go Fish and Clap and Stomp at all 81 home games next season.

Among the requirements for the job were a good knowledge of all genres of music, knowledge of the Miami Marlins and creativity for all types of situations and spontaneous moments during a Major League Game.

Organs have been a standard feature at most baseball parks ever since the Chicago Cubs introduced them at Wrigley Field in 1941. The Marlins have had only two organists — Lowery Ballew and Dick Jans — but had never held an open tryout for the position.

It’s unknown how much the job pays.

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What's Next for Quvenzhane Wallis

As awards season comes to a close, ET caught up with Oscar's youngest nominee Quvenzhane Wallis at the Independent Spirit Awards to get the scoop on what's next for the 9-year-old actress.

Exclusive Pics: Inside the 'Vanity Fair' Oscar Party!

Shortly after we met with the spunky star, toting her now-signature puppy purse, it was announced Wallis was cast as the lead in an Annie remake that Will Smith is producing. Apparently she didn't get the memo.

When asked about what acting gigs she has lined up in the wake of Beasts of the Southern Wild's critical success, the spunky star replied "nothing" with a smile and a shrug.

Related: Oscar's Youngest Nominee Reacts to Honor

And were there any stars Wallis wanted to meet or work with?

"Nope," said the pint-sized actress, adding that what she was really looking forward to was returning to school on Monday.

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Cops 'n' robbers gunfight and car chase was a real life action movie

Testimony in a Queens trial sounded like it came from an action movie script today as witnesses described a wild police chase complete with guns blazing.

Cops described the terrifying moments when they heard gunfire ring out during a high-speed chase along Sutphin Boulevard.

“We were in a shooting together we could have died together,” said Officer Shawn Phillips who was the passenger in a patrol car chasing alleged robbery suspects, Urban Fermin and Darius Lowery on Feb 2, 2010.

The mayhem began at 7:40 a.m. when the men stole a car near 150th Avenue after a driver left it running while he went into a store, cops said.

About 40 minutes later, they pushed their way into a home on 133rd Avenue and stole a TV set, police sources said.

They then allegedly robbed a woman at gunpoint near a bus stop before cops gave chase.

Phillips’ partner Steven Betts said the cops were on their routine shift when they received a call for a robbery in progress on 150th Avenue where a white Ford Focus was stolen.

The cops were on their way to the location when they saw a vehicle that matched the description of the stolen car.

The officers turned on their lights and siren and gave chase.

“I saw a black handgun waving out the passenger’s window,” Betts said . The chase ended on a residential block on 153rd Street, where the officers were face to face with the alleged suspects and opened fire -- after Lowery allegedly “reached for his waistband,” they said.

Both suspects ran away in the hail of bullets from the officers who continued the hunt within a four block radius.

Lowery was apprehended at the scene by other officers moments later and Fermin was arrested within the same day.

ccarega@nypost.com

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Miami medicine goes digital

About 10 years ago, Dr. Fleur Sack quit her practice as a family physician to become a hospital department head. Spurring her decision was the need to switch from paper records to electronic ones to keep her private practice profitable. “At that time, it would have cost about $50,000,” Dr. Sack recalled. “It was too expensive and it was too overwhelming.”

But times and technologies changed, and last year, Dr. Sack left her hospital job to restart her medical practice with an affordable system for managing electronic patient records. She agreed to a $5,000 setup fee and a subscription fee of $500 per month for the system. Her investment also qualified her for subsidy money, which the federal government pays in installments, and to date, her subsidy income has paid for the setup fee and about two years of monthly fees. “So far, I’ve got my check for $18,000,” she said. “There’s a total of $44,000 that I can get.”

That kind of cash flow is one reason why so-called EHR software systems for electronic health records have been among the hottest-selling commercial products in the world of information technology. EHR system development is a growth industry in South Florida, too. Life sciences and biotechnology are among the high growth-potential sectors identified by the Beacon Council-led One Community One Goal economic development initiative unveiled in 2012; already, the University of Miami has opened a Health Science Technology Park while Florida International University has launched a healthcare informatics and management systems program in its graduate school of business.

For many young businesses in the area’s IT industry, government incentives are paving the way. The federal government is pushing doctors and hospitals to use electronic health records to cut wasteful spending and improve patient care while protecting patient privacy — sending digital information via encrypted systems, for example, rather than regular email.

Under a 2009 federal law known as the HITECH Act, maximum incentive payments for buying such systems range up to $44,000 for doctors with Medicare patients and up to $63,750 for doctors with Medicaid patients. Hospitals are eligible for larger incentive payments for becoming more paperless. The subsidy program isn’t permanent; eligible professionals must begin receiving payments by 2016. But by then, the federal government will be penalizing doctors and hospitals that take Medicare or Medicaid money without making meaningful use of electronic health records.

“What the government did is, they incentivized, and now they’re going to penalize,” said Andrew Carricarte, president and CEO of IOS Health Systems in Miami, one of the largest South Florida-based vendors of online software service for physician practices. He said insurance companies also may start penalizing physicians for failing to adopt electronic health records because “the commercial payers always follow Medicare and Medicaid.”

It’s all part of the growth story at IOS Health Systems, which has more than 2,000 physicians across the nation using its online EHR system. Carricarte said many of the company’s customers buy their second EHR system from IOS after their first one flopped. “Almost 40 percent of our sales come from customers who had systems and are now switching over to something else,” he said.

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Execution of murderer raises new questions about the death penalty in Florida

TALLAHASSEE --
The execution of Paul Augustus Howell scheduled for Tuesday has put Florida’s death penalty process under the microscope again.

Howell, 42, was convicted in 1992 of the pipe-bomb killing of Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Jimmy Fulford in Jefferson County, east of Tallahassee. If he dies by lethal injection as scheduled, his attorneys say, he will be the first Florida inmate to die without his case having been reviewed in federal court under a habeas corpus appeal. They argue Howell deserves that review — and a chance to seek another trial.

They say the court never heard about the conflict of interest involving his trial attorney, the failure to tell the court of Howell’s brain damage, his paranoia, child abuse or his lost court files. And the court never heard about Howell’s inadequate representation from the appellate lawyer who missed a crucial deadline for his federal review.

“Lawyers who never met the client in the 13 years they represented him lost his records in a flood and haven’t asked for new ones,” said Sonya Rudenstine of Gainesville, a new attorney hired by the inmate’s family. “If it weren’t so tragic, it would be a comedy of errors.”

The Florida Supreme Court rejected an appeal last week by Howell’s new attorneys. The court said it could not address claims he may raise in federal court. His attorneys have filed a new request in federal court in Tallahassee.

The habeas corpus review is routine in death-penalty cases in which the federal government provides inmates with an experienced, federally funded lawyer to have his case presented before a federal court as a final layer of protection before execution.

Howell’s last-minute appeal for more time comes as the Florida Legislature is moving in the other direction — toward limiting the time inmates should have to get their cases reviewed.

A bill being pushed through the Florida House by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Shalimar, would accelerate the time it takes to execute death row inmates in Florida by an estimated five years.

According to Gaetz, inmates spend an average of 14 years on death row before they are executed. His bill would not only limit the time state courts have to review the cases, it would ban any lawyer deemed ineffective by the court from taking a capital case for five years.

Without that, Gaetz argues, death penalty opponents will continue to have a compelling argument “that the punishment costs too much and doesn’t effectively deter crime.”

Howell, a member of a Jamaican drug posse, was convicted after building a pipe bomb to kill a Jackson County woman who had information that could link him to a drug-related murder in South Florida. He hid the bomb in a gift-wrapped microwave oven and had a driver deliver it.

As the car was traveling through Jefferson County, Trooper Fulford stopped it for speeding. He then inspected the vehicle, unwrapped the microwave oven and the bomb exploded, killing him.

Howell’s attorneys now want the court to recognize that he never should have been represented in the first case by his attorney, Frank Sheffield, who is now a state court judge in Jefferson County.

When Howell faced state murder charges, he was already under indictment in a federal trial for drug trafficking. Sheffield represented him in the case, but withdrew after his secretary, who was also his wife, told prosecutors she had received a telephone call from an anonymous caller who told her that “If Paul Howell goes down, Mr. Sheffield is going down also.”

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COUPLES ALERT! Date Night Pics at the Oscars

COUPLES ALERT: Date Night Pics at the Oscars

From expecting parents Channing Tatum & Jenna Dewan to Hollywood power couple Nicole Kidman & Keith Urban, Sunday's Oscars red carpet was full of well-suited celebrities! Click the pics to check out the hottest pairs on the red carpet!

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Death of ex-Post employee 'suspicious'

The death of a former New York Post employee whose body was found in her Cobble Hill apartment Friday is being investigated as suspicious, sources said.

Elizabeth Borst, 55, was found on her kitchen floor after her husband, Gaetano Lisco, called neighbors and asked them to check on the victim because he couldn't reach her.

Although Borst's death has not been ruled a homicide, the autopsy on her was inconclusive, and the victim had several unexplained injuries, sources said.

Borst suffered broken ribs, a broken wrist, a ruptured spleen and a gash to her head, sources said. Toxicology reports have not been completed.

The victim called cops on her husband for a domestic dispute March 4, 2010 but no one was injured, records show. He was grilled by detectives after she was found dead but released.

kconley@nypost.com

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South Beach Wine & Food Festival changes Miami's culinary scene, impacts economy

For Miami restaurateurs, this is Showtime.

With dozens of top chefs — Bobby Flay, Todd English, Daniel Boloud and Masaharu Morimoto among the list — in town for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, the pressure is on everywhere, from Michy’s to the new Catch Miami. The goal: Show everyone from around the country that Miami’s food scene has arrived on the national stage.

Chef Michelle Bernstein’s staff whipped up dishes designed to impress guests at Michy’s — like foie gras, oxtail and apple tarte tatin — while she juggled menus for multiple events. Bernstein kept her cellphone handy to make sure any chef friends could get a table, even though her namesake restaurant was sold out.

As always, Joe’s Stone Crab was a must-do stop for many, including Paula Deen and New York restaurateur Danny Meyer. Aussie Chef Curtis Stone attracted a string of admirers as he ate his way around town, with stops at Prime 112, Pubbelly Sushi and Puerto Sagua. Khong River House and Yardbird Southern Table & Bar hosted Meyer, The Food Network’s Anne Burrell and Chef Anita Lo.

Michael’s Genuine was another hot spot.

“This is kind of our coming out party for Khong and it’s our chance to knock it out of the park and wow people,” said John Kunkel, owner of Khong and Yardbird.

Prime 112 owner Myles Chefetz admits he’s a fanatic about checking plates when they come back from a chef’s table. And he’s always on the lookout for the table ordering 20 different items, because that’s usually a restaurateur doing research.

“If you have Jean-Gorges or Bobby Flay eating at your restaurant, you want to make sure he has a great experience,” Chefetz said. “You want to put your best foot forward because you know you’re going to get scrutinized.”

The Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival is not just a forum for impressing the culinary elite. It’s among the top three tourist draws for Miami restaurants and hotels. In its 12th year, the festival draws more than 60,000 people to Miami Beach for a weekend of decadence, featuring more than 50 events spread over four days.

It is neck and neck with two of the area’s other most prominent weekends: Art Basel and Presidents’ Day (which coincides with the Miami International Boat Show).

There’s the immediate economic impact, of course, but the festival has made its mark in other ways: helping transform Miami’s food scene from a cultural wasteland to one of the country’s hot spots, one where top chefs all want to set up shop.

“Twelve years ago I don’t know if you could even name five really good restaurants. Now, you can’t think of where you want to eat because there are so many good restaurants,” said Lee Brian Schrager, festival founder and vice president of communications for Southern Wine & Spirits, its host. “What the festival can take credit for is introducing the culinary world to the great talent down here, and really highlighting South Florida as a great dining destination.”

There has been plenty of indulgence to go around. Flay finally broke his losing streak and took home top honors at the Burger Bash with his award-winning crunchified green chili burger. At the Q, barbecue lovers had their choice of Al Roker’s lamb ribs with baked beans or Geoffrey Zakarian’s smoked tagarashi crusted tuna, among other offerings.

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