Tawdry allegations may emerge in criminal trial of former Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer

TALLAHASSEE --
They headed for Marsh Harbour Airport in the Bahamas, most of them on private planes owned by billionaire Harry Sargeant III, then the finance chairman of the Florida Republican Party.

The weekend trip began on Friday Jan. 11, 2008, for a select group of Floridians —maybe 20 or so — who helped raise money for a constitutional amendment that would increase homestead exemptions.

Those who attended have differing memories of how many were there or what occurred, and no one is very anxious to talk to a reporter about the gathering.

Perhaps it’s the accusation of a golf cart filled with prostitutes that scares them away.

The five-year-old gathering has gained a life of its own in the criminal case against former Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer, who has been charged with money laundering and grand theft for allegedly diverting about $200,000 in party funds to a corporation he created. The trip itself isn’t tied to Greer’s legal problems, but details of the weekend could surface in testimony at his trial, which begins with jury selection Monday in Orlando, or remain secret, depending on which lawyers win out.

The Bahamas trip included an impressive outdoor seafood dinner with then-Gov. Charlie Crist, Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas Ned Siegel, Florida GOP Chairman Jim Greer and a handful of Tallahassee lobbyists and big campaign donors.

It was organized by Greer and Sargeant for supporters of “Yes on 1-Save Our Homes Now,” a constitutional amendment campaign Crist was pushing to expand the state’s homestead exemption. Delmar Johnson, former executive director of the state Republican party and a key witness against Greer, describes it as a thank you trip for those who contributed some of the $4.4 million raised in support of the measure. Others, including Crist, say the gathering was a fundraiser. The amendment was approved by Florida voters on Jan. 29, 2008, a few weeks after the trip.

The trip was for men only. Even women who worked for the party and helped with fundraising were excluded.

Johnson told prosecutors last summer that he saw women who appeared to be prostitutes in a golf cart driven by one of Sargeant’s employees. The information surfaced late last year when a video of Johnson’s testimony was made public.

More specifics have been hard to come by.

Johnson’s testimony is included in a sealed Florida Department of Law Enforcement report prepared last summer by investigators looking at possible witness tampering in the Greer case. Prosecutors say the report — and details about the Bahamas trip — may be used as rebuttal evidence against some of those scheduled to testify on Greer’s behalf.

Lawyers for two unidentified witnesses have asked that the report remain sealed, saying it contains information that would embarrass them. Greer Circuit Judge Marc Lubet says the records must be made public if they are used in an attempt to impeach the testimony of witnesses who might be embarrassed by details of the Bahamas trip.

After reviewing the report in chambers last year, Lubet read the names of four men: Lobbyist Brian Ballard, Sargeant, Johnson and new state Rep. Dane Eagle, R-Cape Coral, asking if they would be witnesses at the trial. At the time of the trip Eagle was a travel aide for Crist. Prosecutors said all but Eagle, now a state legislator, are expected to be witnesses at the trial.

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Ben Affleck & George Clooney Celebrate BAFTA Win

Ben Affleck's Argo continued its accolades winning streak Sunday in London, with the true-life Iran hostage drama picking up the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Best Film and Best Director and Ben and fellow producers George Clooney and Grant Heslov, who were on hand to celebrate their victory.

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Ben dedicated his directing prize to "anyone out there who's trying to get their second act," and then George quipped: "I don't know what you’re going to do for a third act."

Top acting kudos went to Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln and Emmanuelle Riva for Amour, and supporting prizes went to Christolph Waltz for Django Unchained and Anne Hathaway for Les Misérables.

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Other notable nods went to the lates 007 adventure Skyfall as Best British Film; Django Unchained for Best Original Screenplay; Silver Linings Playbook for Best Adapted Screenplay; Amour for Best Film Not in the English Language; Brave for Best Animated Film and Searching for Sugar Man for Best Documentary.

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Houseboat man found dead under dock in Brooklyn

The body of an elderly man who lived on a houseboat was found floating under a dock today in Brooklyn, authorities said.

The 74-year-old man’s boat was docked in the Plumb Beach Channel off of Ebony Court in Gerritsen Beach when he he was spotted in the water around 12:35 p.m., cops said.

He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police do not suspect any criminality at this time, cops said.

The city’s medical examiner will determine the cause of death.

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Green cards for sale at a South Beach hotel: Competition is on for EB5 investment visas

If David Hart gets his way, South Beach’s 42-room Astor Hotel will be on a hiring spree this year as it adds concierge service, a roof-top pool, an all-night diner, spa and private-car service available 24 hours a day.

New hires will be crucial to Hart’s business plan, since foreign investors have agreed to pay about $50,000 for each job created by the Art Deco boutique.

The Miami immigration lawyer specializes in arranging visas for wealthy foreign citizens under a special program that trades green cards for investment dollars. Businesses get the money and must use it to boost payroll. The minimum investment is $500,000 to add at least 10 jobs to the economy. That puts the pressure on Hart and his partners at the Astor to beef up payroll dramatically, with plans to take a hotel with roughly 20 employees to one with as many as 100 workers.

“My primary responsibility is to make something happen here over the next two years that will create the jobs we need,’’ Hart said a few steps away from a nearly empty restaurant on a recent weekday morning. “It’s all going to be transformed.”

Though established in the 1990s, the “EB5” visas soared in popularity during the recession as developers sought foreign cash to replace dried-up credit markets in the United States.

Chinese investors dominate the transactions, accounting for about 65 percent of the nearly 9,000 EB5 visas granted since 2006. South Korea finishes a distant second at 12 percent and the United Kingdom holds the third-place slot at 3 percent. If Latin America and the Caribbean were one country, they would rank No. 4 on the list, with 231 EB5 visas granted, or about 3 percent of the total.

Competition has gotten stiffer for the deep-pocketed foreign investors willing to pay for green cards. The University of Miami’s bio-science research park near the Jackson hospital system raised $20 million from 40 foreign investors under the EB5 program, most of them from Asia. The money went into the park’s first building; visa brokers are waiting to see if the second building will proceed so they can offer a new pool of potential green-card sales.

In Hollywood, the stalled $131 million Margaritaville resort had hoped to raise about $75 million from EB5 investors before ditching that plan last year to pursue more traditional financing. A retail complex by developer Jeff Berkowitz in Coral Gables also launched a program to raise $50 million in EB5 money for the project, Gables Station. Hart worked with other EB5 investors to back pizza restaurants in Miami and South Beach. A limestone mine in Martin County also was backed by EB5 dollars.

This year, the city of Miami itself is expected to get into the business by setting up an EB5 program to raise foreign cash for a range of city businesses and developments. The first would be the tallest building in the city — developer Tibor Hollo’s planned 85-story apartment tower, the Panorama, in downtown Miami.

With a construction cost of about $700 million, Miami’s debut EB5 venture hopes to raise about $100 million from foreign investors, said Laura Reiff, the Greenberg Traurig lawyer in Virginia working with Miami on the EB5 effort. “This is a marquis project,’’ she said.

The arrangement is a novel one for Miami, with the city planning to help a private developer raise funds overseas for a new high-rise. And it would allow Hollo and future participants to tout the city of Miami’s endorsement when competing with other Miami-area projects for EB5 dollars. “We will have the benefit of the brand of the city of Miami,’’ said Mikki Canton, the $6,000-a-month city consultant heading Miami’s EB5 effort. “A lot of these others are privately owned and they won’t have that brand.”

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Cashing in on state contracts becomes growth industry

TALLAHASSEE --
Even for Tallahassee standards, the scene was notable: lobbyist Brian Ballard dining with a nursing home executive, Gov. Rick Scott and a top aide at a pricey restaurant just blocks from the Capitol.

That Ballard’s clout could command a private dinner with the governor for a client speaks to the influential lobbyist’s fundraising finesse. But equally important, and less celebrated, is Ballard’s talent for helping his clients land lucrative state contracts: $938 million this year alone, according to a Herald/Times analysis of contracts in the $70 billion state budget.

“Is that all?’’ joked Ballard, who said he had never added it up. “A big part of my business is protecting contracts, and outsourcing. Outsourcing saves [the state] money.”

Ballard is not alone. The lobbying offices that line the moss-covered streets of Tallahassee have grown exponentially larger in the last two decades as governors and legislators have steered a greater share of the state’s budget to outside vendors.

No one is keeping track of the total, but Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater last year estimated the total contract spend for Florida’s 2011-12 budget cycle at $50.4 billon — 72 percent of the budget. The bulk of it, nearly $42 billion, was for health care contracts and service sector grants that often are never competitively bid.

“We probably privatize, or outsource, more than some of the Northeastern states — and we have a lot more volume,’’ said David Wilkins, a retired business executive who was tapped by the governor to review the state’s byzantine contracting process. He also is secretary of the Department of Children and Families.

Vendors — from giant computer firms and health care HMOs, to purveyors of office supplies, parking spaces and even prison services — each compete for a piece of one of the biggest spending pies in the Southeast: the state of Florida. The infusion of state cash into private and non-profit industries has spawned a cottage industry of lobbyists who help vendors manage the labyrinth of rules and build relationships with executive agency officers and staff so they can steer contracts to their clients.

There are now more people registered to lobby the governor, the Cabinet and their agencies — 4,925 — than there are registered to lobby the 160-member Legislature — 3,235.

Dozens of former legislators and their staff populate that industry, as well as former utility regulators, agency secretaries, division heads and other employees.

The most high-profile newcomer to the executive branch lobbying corps is Dean Cannon, the former speaker of the House from Orlando. Even before he retired from office in November, he had set up a lobbying shop just a block from the Capitol and started signing up clients to lobby the executive branch.

Cannon’s swift lawmaker-to-lobbyist turnaround has spawned a backlash from former colleagues. Senators are proposing that lawmakers leaving office wait two years before they can lobby the executive branch — similar to the aw that applies to former lawmakers who lobby the legislature.

“One minute you can be overseeing a budget and the next you’re lobbying a state agency,’’ said Sen. Jack Latvala, R-St. Petersburg, who is shepherding the Senate ethics bill. “That’s a revolving door and that’s wrong.”

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Double Take Celebrity Lookalikes

Stacy Keibler and Heidi Klum

ETonline has found the lookalikes to the stars and, it turns out, it's
their Hollywood peers. Click the pics and let us know if you think these
celebs bear a resemblance to one another. 

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Child, 8, reportedly killed in LI apartment fire, more than 200 left homeless

HEMPSTEAD — Police say an apartment fire that spread to several buildings has forced 250 people from their homes, killed one and sent 11 to hospitals on Long Island.

Nassau County police say one victim is in critical condition after fire Saturday morning in Hempstead. The rest have injuries that aren't seen as life-threatening.

Police haven't released the identity of the person who died. Newsday says that victim is an 8-year-old boy, and another is a pregnant woman who suffered a heart attack.

Detectives are trying to determine what caused the fire. They don't believe it was set deliberately. It started in a third-floor apartment on Paul Road North around 6:20 a.m.

Some 300 firefighters were called in from 13 departments. It took several hours to extinguish the fire.

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Mega mansion frenzy: Buyer snaps up Pat Riley’s $16M home to level it, rebuild

Miami Heat President Pat Riley sold his spectacular bayfront mansion in gated Gables Estates for $16.8 million last March.

The 12,856-square-foot Mediterranean-style dream house at 180 Arvida Parkway has a theater, wine cellar, library, and a sprawling pool with waterfalls and an aqua bar.

But that’s all coming down.

Turns out the lure was the lot: a rare fingertip of prime land, nearly two acres, jutting into the turquoise waters of Biscayne Bay.

In December, the buyer — listed as 180 Arvida LLC represented by Miami attorney Mark Hasner — presented the City of Coral Gables with plans to tear down the home, built in 1991, and erect an even grander estate along the 900 linear feet of bayfront.

“Most people would move in and be perfectly happy, but clients are looking for perfection — really good stuff,” said Jorge Uribe, a senior vice president at One Sotheby’s International Realty, who wasn’t involved but sold an even bigger trophy property last year: a $39.4 million estate at 14 Indian Creek Dr., on Indian Creek Island in Miami Beach, dubbed “Miami’s Billionaire Bunker” by Forbes magazine.

“The trend in the last several years is a demand for very high-quality product. People are looking for really good locations, really good materials, and they’re willing to pay for it,” Uribe said.

Miami’s ultra-luxury market is on fire. Prices for the fanciest single-family homes and condominiums have soared to levels never before seen in the area, fueled by strong foreign demand and renewed interest from New Yorkers and others in the Northeast.

With Miami’s global image burnished by Art Basel Miami Beach and the debut of other cultural and entertainment venues, the city is emerging as an even greater magnet for the world’s super-rich.

In January, a penthouse at the Setai Resort & Residences on Miami Beach fetched $27 million, a new high for a Miami-Dade condominium. “Every building we do business in is at its highest price of all time,” said Mark Zilbert, president of Zilbert International Realty, which represented the buyer in the Setai deal.

Last August, a sleek, new home, built on spec at 3 Indian Creek Dr., sold for $47 million, a record high for a Miami-Dade residence. The buyer, whose identity has not been revealed, is Russian.

“People are realizing how valuable the bay waterfront is,” said Oren Alexander, co-founder of the Alexander Group at Douglas Elliman Real Estate, who co-listed the 3 Indian Creek property with The Jills team at Coldwell Banker and represented the buyer for the home. His father, Shlomy Alexander, developed the property with partner Felix Cohen.

Shlomy Alexander is working on two more extravagant spec homes — one at 30 Indian Creek Dr. and a second that is set to break ground shortly at 252 Bal Bay Dr. in Bal Harbour, his son said. Plans envision a tropical modern-style project that fuses the indoors and outdoors — a concept popular in Brazil.

Th elder Alexander recently traveled to Italy to shop for exclusive stone for the projects, said the son.

“It’s really trending to the ultra-luxury. All sorts of exotic materials — exotic woods, exotic marbles, exotic stones,” said Sean Murphy, an executive vice president at Coastal Construction, a major builder of luxury hotels and condominiums that also has erected some of the most extravagant mansions in the region. “Everything is so exotic.”

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Feds indict 11 South Floridians for stealing IDs, filing taxes for 2,700 dead people

A South Florida ring accused of plotting to fleece $34 million from the U.S. government by filing phony tax returns in the names of thousands of dead people was indicted this week.

The indictment charged 11 defendants with conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service by stealing the identities of nearly 7,000 people, including more than 2,700 who were dead, to file fraudulent tax returns, according to federal prosecutors.

The case marks the latest federal crackdown on the escalating crime, which costs the U.S. government billions of dollars every year. Earlier this week, the U.S. attorney’s office announced the recent prosecutions of 14 defendants in similar fraud cases.

U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said the double-barreled crime of ID theft coupled with tax refund scams is the “new Medicare fraud” in South Florida.

According to the latest indictment, the defendants recruited “knowing participants and unknowing victims” to put businesses, bank accounts and electronic filing ID numbers in the perpetrators’ names to carry out their schemes, prosecutors said.

“To avoid having the fraud discovered, the defendants negotiated the fraudulently obtained income tax refund checks at each other’s businesses,” they said in a statement.

Prosecutors are seeking to seize $443,449 from bank accounts, a 2011 Cadillac Escalade EXT Premium Sport, a 2010 Nissan Maxima, a 2011 Infiniti M37, and a 2010 Porsche.

Charged in the indictment were: Henry Dorvil, 35, of Hollywood; Herve Wilmore Jr., 29, of Aventura; Dukens Eleazard, 33, of Pembroke Pines; Marie Eleazard, 32, of Miami; Jesse Lamar Harrell, 26, of Miramar, and Luckner St. Fleur, 32, of Miami.

Also: Ruth “Princess” Cartwright, 30, formerly of Plantation; Miguel Patterson, 35, of Miami; Brandon Johnson, 29, of Miami Gardens; John Similien, 24, of Plantation; and Marc Leroy Saint Juste, 26, of Tamarac.

On Friday, Dorvil, Harrell, Patterson, Johnson and Saint Juste made their initial appearances in federal court in Fort Lauderdale. Cartwright was arrested in Georgia and will make her initial appearance there. Wilmore, both Eleazards, St. Fleur and Similien remain at large.

On Thursday, in a separate case, three defendants were sentenced for filing false income-tax claims with the IRS using the stolen identities of foreign nationals.

Christian Andres Perin, 40, of Miami, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison. Venancio Oscar Pio, 52, of Doral, and Olga Rosana Garcia, 46, of Miami, were sentenced to about six years.

The defendants were also ordered to pay restitution of $1.15 million.

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Jerry Lewis Max Rose Set Visit

Hollywood legend Jerry Lewis explores the dignity of aging, the value of family, and the power of marriage in his new movie Max Rose. The octogenarian star exclusively shares a day on the set of the upcoming film with ET, and also gives our young interviewer Tatiana Toomer a hard time – just for the fun of it.

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Asked to explain his character in the film, he replies, "You want to hear about that? Buy at ticket." Tatiana then tries another approach and asks him to describe the scene they're shooting that day. He jokes, "Today is the day I operate on my own appendix."

The man with a self-proclaimed reputation "that says I'm not easy" was, however, quick to praise his Max Rose director Daniel Noah along with the hard-working crew. He was also happy to talk about his upcoming birthday.

"Eight-seven, baby! I'm going to have a bottle of Dom Perignon and I'm going to pour champagne for my daughter and my wife and me and my puppies," says Jerry about his upcoming March celebration. "Like New Year's, every year we go to bed about 20 minutes to 10. We look at one another and say, 'Well, after 35 years I'm still crazy nuts over you.' And we give one another a kiss and we go to bed."

Max Rose follows the story of an 82-year old jazz pianist and recent widower who revisits key moments in his life when a discovery, made days before his wife's death, causes him to believe his marriage was a lie. Claire Bloom, Kevin Pollak, Kerry Bishé, Mort Sahl, Lee Weaver, Rance Howard, Fred Willard and Dean Stockwell also star.

"It's got action, animation, truth, sensitivity, honesty, a wonderful cast of wonderful actors and a crew that's the best you ever saw in your life," says Jerry. "They are so nice and so good that I work my heart out so that I don't come up empty, because they deserve more."

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Prompted to reflect on his legacy, Jerry quipped, "My legacy? I don't believe in legacies. I believe that if you want to say something good about me, do it while I can I can hear it."

He then added, "I don't like to have to go back and remember what's gone. I'd rather go forward anticipating what's coming, and I know that this film, if I know anything about the work, we're going to shake up some people, because it has an emotional nub to it."

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