Shootings hit close to home for some Miami-Dade teens

Juan Videa was supposed to be in class Monday at Booker T Washington Senior High, but he never made it to school.

Juan, 17, was walking to his bus stop in Bay Vista Park when someone fired more than 20 bullets, police said. Wounded, Juan was rushed to Ryder Trauma Center.

His shooting — following a weekend in which two other teens were shot and killed — feeds a growing movement to curb youth violence and gunplay that started nationally in December after the Newtown, Conn., massacre and locally after the apparently random shooting of Booker T freshman Aaron Willis.

“How do we get away from this culture of violence?” asked Booker T. Principal William Aristide, who says he learns “once or twice” a year that one of his students has been shot.

In Miami-Dade County, the threat of being gunned down is very real to those 18 and younger. Between the beginning of 2009 and the end of 2012, 99 kids were homicide victims in Miami-Dade, according to records compiled by the county’s Medical Examiner. That’s exactly triple the number reported by the Broward Medical Examiner.

Of the 99 Miami-Dade cases, 81 were the result of shootings. And close to half were students of Miami-Dade County public schools, according to Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who began campaigning against youth violence after Aaron was shot Dec. 19 while riding his bike from a friend’s house in Wynwood at 9 p.m.

“I made a promise when I became superintendent that I would attend the funeral, a viewing, a burial for every single child who would die a violent death in Miami. I am tired,” Carvalho, superintendent since late 2008, said during a news conference on the first day back from winter break. “We’ve covered this one time too many. I’ve attended over 40 such events, and it’s time to stop.”

Carvalho, who days earlier had canvassed Allapattah with the family of Bryan Herrera, a Miami Jackson sophomore shot dead on his bicycle Dec. 22, worried that the issue would “die out as a result of time simply passing.”

That hasn’t happened, in part because kids keep getting shot.

Ten days later, Landon Kinsey, a sophomore at Miami Carol City, was shot dead in Miami Gardens. Then on Feb. 13, Orlando Gonzalez, 13, was shot in his home in Kendall and transported to Miami Children’s Hospital in critical condition.

Last weekend, Marquise Brunson, identified by WFOR-CBS4 as an Ace Academy student, and Dante Vilet, both 16, were shot and killed just days after Carlos Zuniga shot his son and daughter, ages 11 and 14.

And then Juan was shot at his bus stop, bringing attention back to Booker T High, one of several schools to mourn the murder of multiple students in the past few years. In that time, Booker T has lost at least two students: senior Alex Tillman, whose charred body was found near the FEC railroad tracks, and Anthony Smith, a Tornadoes linebacker fatally wounded during a 2009 mass shooting at an Overtown birthday bash.

As shootings have continued — more than 500 last year in Miami-Dade, according to WFOR — media attention has increased, as has uproar from communities damaged by gun violence. Pastors around Miami-Dade held news conferences, offered rewards for information and met with Miami Police, who announced in what they said was an unrelated move that they would enforce a rarely heeded county curfew for kids under 17.

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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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Chad says its troops killed Algeria attack mastermind Belmoktar in Mali, but doubt is cast on claim

REUTERS

Chadian soldiers hold up their weapons as they cheer next to tanks and army vehicles ahead of their deployment in Mali. The African country said its troops killed Moktar Belmoktar, the terrorist behind the deadly attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria.

N'DJAMENA, Chad — Chad's military chief announced late Saturday that his troops deployed in northern Mali had killed Moktar Belmoktar, the terrorist who orchestrated the attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria that left 36 foreigners dead.

The French military, which is leading the offensive against al-Qaida-linked rebels in Mali, said they could not immediately confirm the information.

AP

This is believed to be terror big Moktar Belmoktar, who Chadian army officials say was killed by troops in Mali.

Local officials in Kidal, the northern town that is being used as the base for the military operation, cast doubt on the assertion, saying Chadian officials are attempting to score a PR victory to make up for the significant losses they have suffered in recent days.

Known as the "one-eyed," Belmoktar's profile soared after the mid-January attack and mass hostage-taking on a huge Algerian gas plant. His purported death comes a day after Chad's president said his troops had killed Abou Zeid, the other main al-Qaida commander operating in northern Mali.

If both deaths are confirmed, it would mean that the international intervention in Mali had succeeded in decapitating two of the pillars of al-Qaida in the Sahara.

"Chad's armed forces in Mali have completely destroyed a base used by jihadists and narcotraffickers in the Adrar and Ifoghas mountains" of northern Mali, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Zakaria Ngobongue said in a televised statement on state-owned National Chadian Television. "The provisional toll is as follows: Several terrorists killed, including Moktar Belmoktar."

The French military moved into Mali on Jan. 11 to push back militants linked to Belmoktar and Abou Zeid and other extremist groups who had imposed harsh Islamic rule in the north of the vast country and who were seen as an international terrorist threat.

France is trying to rally other African troops to help in the military campaign, since Mali's military is weak and poor. Chadian troops have offered the most robust reinforcement.

In Paris, French military spokesman Col. Thierry Burkhard said that he had "no information" on the possibility that Belmoktar was dead. The Foreign Ministry refused to confirm or deny the report.

A spokesman for Chad's presidential palace did not immediately return a request for comment.

In Kidal in northern Mali, an elected official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said that he did not believe that Belmoktar was dead and waved off the claim as an attempt by Chad to explain the loss of dozens of their troops to a grieving nation.

"These last few weeks, the Chadians have lost a significant number of soldiers in combat. (Claiming that they killed Belmoktar) is a way to give some importance to their intervention in Mali," said the official, who keeps in close contact with both French and Malian commanders in the field.

Belmoktar, an Algerian, is believed to be in his 40s, and like his sometimes partner and sometimes rival, Abou Zeid, he began on the path to terrorism after Algeria's secular government voided the 1991 election won by an Islamic party.

Both men joined the Armed Islamic Group, or GIA, and later its offshoot, the GSPC, a group that carried out suicide bombings on Algerian government targets.

Around 2003, both men crossed into Mali, where they began a lucrative kidnapping business, snatching European tourists, aid workers, government employees and even diplomats and holding them for multimillion-dollar ransoms.

The Algerian terror cell amassed a significant war chest, and joined the al-Qaida fold in 2006, renaming itself al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Belmoktar claims he trained in Afghanistan in the 1990s, including in one of Osama Bin Laden's camps. It was there that he reportedly lost an eye, earning him the nickname "Laaouar," Arabic for "one-eyed."

Until last December, Belmoktar and Abou Zeid headed separate brigades under the flag of al-Qaida's chapter in the Sahara. But after months of reports of infighting between the two, Belmoktar peeled off, announcing the creation of his own terror unit, still loyal to the al-Qaida ideology but separate from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

It was this group that launched the fatal attack on a BP-operated natural gas plant in southeastern Algeria in retaliation for the French-led military intervention in Mali.

In the attack and in the subsequent rescue attempt, 37 people, all but one of them foreigners, were killed inside the complex. Belmoktar claimed responsibility for the attack within hours, immediately catapulting him into the ranks of international terrorists.

In addition to the alleged killing of Belmoktar, Ngobongue said that Chad's military had also nabbed 60 of the jihadists' cars, electronic equipment and weapons. "The raid is still ongoing," he said.

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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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Possible grenade empties Broward sheriff’s building

A Broward sheriff’s office building in Pembroke Park was evacuated at 2 p.m. Friday after a woman walked in with what appeared to be a grenade.

Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Dani Moschella said the woman told officers she brought the grenade to the sheriff’s office at 3201 W. Hallandale Beach Blvd. to get rid of it safely.

“We don’t know yet if it’s real,” Moschella said. “The evacuation was as a precaution.”

The woman said the grenade had belonged to a relative who died.

A bomb squad sealed off the building to determine whether the grenade is real and contains explosive material, Moschella said.

No charges have been filed against the woman.

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Tour the Dolby Theatre – Home of the Oscars

California played host to one of the most notable events of the year earlier this week – the Oscars!

Now, we’re taking you inside the hallowed hall where Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway became first time Oscar winners only days ago!

Watch the video to walk in the stars’ shoes!

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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 mothers fight cause of mental impairment

Almost from the beginning, Michele Kaplan knew something was amiss.

Her son Matthew’s childhood milestones – walking, talking – were delayed.

“We knew we had a developmental problem and after going to pediatricians and geneticists, he was finally diagnosed,’’ says Kaplan, 37, of Miami. “I don’t know what is scarier: not knowing what was wrong, or getting the diagnosis of such a rare syndrome.’’

Matthew, now 7, has Fragile X, a genetic syndrome that causes intellectual disability and is most commonly found in boys. The diagnosis sent Kaplan scrambling to seek treatment options and find other families in a similar position. She had little success. That scarcity of support and help in navigating the still-developing Fragile X world inspired Kaplan, along with another mother, to establish a foundation.

The Families for Fragile X foundation, now celebrating its fifth anniversary, has offered support for dozens of families with children diagnosed with the condition. To mark the anniversary, the non-profit foundation is hosting a fundraiser 5K trail run/walk Saturday at Virginia Key along with other activities for children.

“For parents dealing with Fragile X, it is difficult and a very long road. Often, they have already had concerns when the child is, say, 14 or 15 months, when they are already experiencing delays, but in so many cases, they are not diagnosed until they are 3 years old,’’ said Dr. Deborah Barbouth, director of the South Florida Fragile X Clinic, which currently serves about 60 families. “We know through research that early intervention can really help which is why education is so important.’’

Fragile X is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability and the leading genetic cause of autism. An estimated 1 in 4,000 males and 1 in 8,000 females have the condition. Behaviors and characteristics include developmental delays, anxiety and hyperactivity, elongated faces and protruding ears.

So far, the foundation has raised more than $500,000 to aid in medical research and education, some of which benefits the South Florida Fragile X clinic, part of the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. The foundation has provided 12 grants to needy families for evaluations at the clinic – each ranging from $500 to $2,500 -- one of first critical steps to addressing the condition. It has also sponsored educational conferences and pushed for early Fragile X screening.

“Fragile X is overwhelming in the sense that your world changes as you try to deal with the behavioral issues. That’s why it’s so important to have a strong support system,’’ said Kaplan, a wife and mother of three children. “We want to make it as easy as possible for families facing Fragile X.’’

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New Trailer: Aaron Eckhart in 'Erased'

Looks like Aaron Eckhart has taken a cue from Taken with his new action-thriller Erased, playing a former CIA agent who must protect his alienated teen from killers looking to have him and his family, well, erased. Watch the edge-of-your-seat trailer…

Pics: Stars Who Have Played the President

In theaters May 10 (and On Demand April 5), Erased finds Eckhart as ex-CIA operative Ben Logan who moves to Belgium with his teen daughter (played by Liana Liberato) to make a fresh start. When his workplace literally disappears and forces conspire to erase his involvement as head of security for the company, he embarks on a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in an effort to uncover the truth behind the corporate conspiracy. Olga Kurylenko also stars as a CIA agent assigned to track Logan down, no matter what the costs.

Video: Eckhart is the Prez Under Fire in 'Olympus'

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Tavern on the Green re-opening in jeopardy

Tavern on the Green is running out of green before it even re-opens, The Post has learned.

The cash crunch threatens the expected fall re-launch of the Central Park restaurant, sources said.

Philadelphia-based restaurateurs Jim Caiola and David Salama need more dough to cover operating costs at the landmark eatery when it re-opens later this year after their financial backer tightened the purse strings.

“Their backer is not coming up with as much [cash] as they expected, so they are looking for extra funds,” confirmed Steven Hall, a rep for Caiola’s and Salama’s Emerald Green Group.

A hospitality industry insider with access to big bucks confirmed he was approached by Emerald Green to help find an alternative cash supply.

Emerald Green’s backer is Capital Spring, several sources said, which provides debt, equity and “creative capital” for restaurants and franchises, according to its Web site.

Emerald Green aims to open Tavern’s doors to the public in November or December. The city is spending $10 million to restore the buildings to their original 19th century state with new landscaping and an outdoor terrace, while Emerald Green is paying for up to $10 million of interior work.

Under a 20-year license agreement with the Parks Department, Emerald Green will pay the city the greater of $1 million or 6 percent of revenue the first year, rising to $1 million or 15 percent annually in later years.

The city still plans to turn the keys over to Emerald Green in July, and sources emphasized the cash shortfall has not interfered with the company’s ongoing construction and cooperation with city agencies.

But the problem could hit home when the Philly boys have to start paying for food, labor and utilities, which can be tens of millions of dollars annually.

Although smaller than the old Tavern, the new eatery will still have 600 seats indoors and out.

The new Tavern is expected to have about 120 employees compared with 400 in the past. Although Emerald Green has a peace pact with Local 6 of the New York Hotel Trades Council, which previously represented Tavern employees, a new contract still must be nailed down.

Representatives for Capital Spring at 950 Third Ave. didn’t return calls.

Reached at her Brooklyn home, Katy Sparks, the 3-star chef who will run Tavern on the Green’s kitchen, said she “knew nothing” about any financing issue, adding that she had been at the Tavern site just last week.

Through their rep, Caiola and Salama declined to comment.

Asked to comment on the financing glitch, Parks Dept. spokesman Arthur Pincus said only, “The city’s work on Tavern on the Green is continuing as is the concessionaire’s.”

The looming cash crunch is only the latest embarrassment for the Bloomberg administration at the site.

Tavern, once the nation’s highest-grossing restaurant, has been dark for three years since the city refused to renew Jennifer LeRoy’s license. An attempt by Boathouse Café owner Dean Poll to re-open it crashed and burned over union issues.

Last summer, the city surprised the restaurant world by choosing little-known Emerald Green, which runs a small Philadelphia creperie, to bring Tavern on the Green back to life.

In addition to questions raised about Emerald Green’s limited track record, Post City Hall Bureau Chief David Seifman revealed that Salama is the brother-in-law of former Deputy Mayor Kevin Sheekey, a close pal of Mayor Bloomberg and a top executive at Bloomberg LP.

The city denied favoritism played any role in choosing Emerald Green. Comptroller John Liu, after saying his office would “investigate” the selection, signed off the license agreement last fall.

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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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More misconduct allegations arise at Citizens

TALLAHASSEE --
In an attempt to clear its name after a series of scandals involving corporate misconduct and improper spending, Citizens Property Insurance Corp. released a laundry list of 474 internal complaints Wednesday.

While Citizens released the documents to prove that it has properly handled allegations of misconduct in recent years, the move also shined an embarrassing light on much of the company’s internal dirty laundry. The list of complaints reads like a trove of office sex affairs, corporate corruption, fraud, workplace pornography, discrimination, theft and other allegations. In at least one case, a Citizens employee swiped his corporate credit card at a strip club. Names of employees were not disclosed. But law enforcement authorities were alerted in cases of possible alleged criminal activity.

“This review is an important piece of Citizens’ ongoing efforts to strengthen internal policies to ensure that our employees are held to the highest standards of corporate integrity,” said company president Barry Gilway, in a statement. The company stated that “all complaints were addressed and corrective action taken in accordance with Citizens’ policies in place at the time.”

The release of the complaint information is the latest dustup for Citizens, which is still reeling from revelations about lavish corporate spending, large raises for executives and various allegations of impropriety.

Gilway has said that he was immediately hit with news of various corporate scandals when he joined the company last June. After taking what he called “a bashing in the press,” Gilway asked Citizens’ Internal Auditor, Joe Martins, to look over the company’s handling of misconduct allegations. Martins — who disbanded the company’s Corporate Integrity Office and gutted one of its most scathing reports — found that Citizens had handled internal complaints well over the last five years.

“Where we found weaknesses, we are making necessary improvements to strengthen our complaints and disciplinary procedures,” Martins said in a statement. Many of the complaints involved run-of-the-mill employee grievances, such as a supervisor “wearing too much cologne.”

But others involved more serious allegations, including fraud and improper gifts from vendors who do business with Citizens, a multibillion-dollar company backed by state taxpayers.

The release comes as Citizens is looking to reform itself after a series of scandals. Over the past year, the Herald/Times has documented evidence of luxurious business trips, drunken exploits on company retreats, large raises for executives and the abrupt firing of four internal investigators. Many of the misconduct allegations surfaced as Citizens was raising rates on homeowners and reducing coverage.

Before it was disbanded, the Office of Corporate Integrity was responsible for investigating many of the complaints listed in Wednesday’s document release.

The abrupt firing of the OCI investigators — who had recently discovered evidence of misconduct by Citizens’ highest executives — led to allegations that the company was seeking to cover up the group’s findings. In addition to huge severance packages for disgraced executives, the investigators found that Citizens had mishandled several internal complaints and shown favoritism to some employees, including top execs.

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My Strange Addiction: Audrey's Stuffed Lamb

27-year-old Audrey shares a "spiritual connection" with her stuffed lamb.

The young woman, who carries a pint-sized powder blue plush everywhere she goes, is profiled in Wednesday's My Strange Addiction.

Pics: Star Sightings

"The lamb is my best friend," she explains of the animal who's been her companion for five years. "He is really just carefree, adventurous and awesome."

Audrey's sister, however, is not a fan.

"[Her] relationship with the lamb is strange," says her concerned sibling Ansley. "She's in her '20s and she's got a stuffed animal that she wants to take around."

Related: 'Addicted To Fame'

Watch a sneak preview in the player above!

This episode of My Strange Addiction, also featuring a woman addicted to eating deodorant sticks, airs tonight at 10pm on TLC.

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Fortune teller pleads not guilty in $150K scheme

Manhattan prosecutors have thrown the book at a pretty Greenwich Village fortune teller, charging her in a 16-count indictment with scheming to steal $150,000 from two customers.

Brunette beauty Sylvia Mitchell, 38, turned heads in a trimly-tailored black cocktail dress as she pleaded not guilty in Manhattan Supreme Court to scheme to defraud and grand larceny.

"This defendant masquerades as a fortune teller, swindling people out of tens of thousands of dollars," prosecutor James Bergamo told the judge of Mitchell, who works out of the "Zena Clairvoyant" shop on Seventh Avenue.

Steven Hirsch

Sylvia Mitchell in court.

Mitchell is accused of stealing more than $120,000 from one customer, Singapore-native Lee Choong, 40, by taking her money in exchange for "cleansing" the woman of "bad spirits." The second victim allegedly lost some $28,000.

Even in Central Booking after her arrest this month, Mitchell couldn't help engaging in a little pro-bono clairvoyance, according to police statements released by officials following today's brief court appearance.

"Do you have kids?" she asked one cop. "I knew you had too boys," she added, knowingly.

Defense lawyer Joseph Murray told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro that he will seek to try the two cases separately.

"This indictment is not worth the paper it is printed on and I look forward to defending my client against this smear campaign being perpetrated against her by the NYPD, and the Manhattan DA's office," the lawyer told The Post after court.

Investigators took "desperate efforts to convince previously happy and satisfied clients of Ms. Mitchell that they are really not happy and are actually crime victims," he complained.

Mitchell remains free on no bail and is due back in court in May.

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Appeal court says dispute over island is Bahamian issue

The ownership of a private island in the Bahamas that was previously a retreat of the late, prominent South Florida designer James Wallace Tutt III — and which has been at the center of a five-year legal dispute — is now in the hands of the Bahamian court.

The Third District Court of Appeal in Miami on Wednesday affirmed three lower court judges’ decisions that the matter has to be decided in the Bahamas and not in Miami.

Tutt, an interior designer and developer whose elegant style attracted celebrity clients including Cher, Gianni Versace, Robert De Niro and Diane von Furstenberg, died in 2010 at age 53 on Harbour Island in the Bahamas. His death was apparently heart related, according to a statement from his family at the time.

Tutt moved to South Florida in the 1980s after working as a lawyer and builder in Washington, D.C.

Here, he gained notoriety for transforming the mansion of the late Italian designer Versace into Casa Casuarina, a South Beach icon.

Tutt and his life partner, Don Purdy, moved to Harbour Island in 2002, where they transformed a 1940s home into a luxury 10-room hotel, Rock House.

Tutt also bought Caribe Cay, a three-acre private island with a home, off Harbour Island, as a retreat.

In 2006, Tutt agreed to sell the island to Guy Mitchell, an investor with a home in Coral Gables, said Tutt’s longtime lawyer Stuart Sobel, a partner in Siegfried, Rivera, Lerner, De la Torre & Sobel in Coral Gables.

Over several months, Mitchell paid $2.9 million of the $2.925 million purchase price but never took title to the island for reasons that were never clear, Sobel said.

Mitchell, who had real estate investments in New York, ran into financial trouble, and two companies that had judgments totaling $57 million against him tried to seize his assets — including either the Caribe Cay property or the proceeds from its sale.

Lawsuits followed and have waged on for years, ultimately resulting in the appeal court’s decision.

“We’re looking forward to delivering the deed to whichever entity the Bahamian court decides is entitled,” said Sobel, who has represented Tutt’s estate in the litigation. “As the court wrote, while the facts were complex and convoluted, the issues were really simple and always have been.”

Calls to several attorneys representing the appellants were not returned.

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Woman dies during Key Biscayne scuba dive excursion

A “disturbing” accident Sunday left one scuba diver dead and others with many questions about how that could have happened.

Forty-year-old Hua Liu was part of an expedition off Key Biscayne, about three nautical miles off Bill Baggs Cape, on the vessel BigCom Ocean.

There were about 40 divers on board, and all were instructed to stay with their “diving buddy” during the length of the dive, and never to leave him or her alone.

Panic set in when the group realized it was one diver short during a “roll call” when it was time to head back ashore.

Immediately, they began to conduct a search and called the Coast Guard at about 3:30 p.m.

The Coast Guard “immediately took action,” said Commander Darren Caprara, who is the chief of response for Coast Guard sector Miami and was supervising the case. They put out a broadcast, diverted a 45-foot Coast Guard boat that was headed to another location, called air station Miami to get a helicopter, brought in an auxiliary special team that does routine patrols and a 110-foot Coast Guard cover.

Within about 30 minutes of searching, the team on the diving vessel found Liu’s buoyancy control device (BCD), which is used to help a diver float, and tank.

“That’s the point when we became very concerned and more serious,” said Jaclyn Hesse, an experienced diver who was aboard. “It’s difficult to stay afloat without that for a long time.”

In tandem with the Coast Guard, which Hesse estimated arrived about 20 minutes after being called, the divers continued to search for Liu. Two dive masters from the dive vessel were towed from the boat so they could search the ocean floor. (The Coast Guard in Miami does not have divers who perform underwater rescue missions, Caprara said).

When they had been searching for about 40 minutes, a dive master raised her hand to tell the boat to stop. She dived to the bottom and pulled up Liu, who was still wearing her weighted scuba diving belt. “She was blue when they pulled her up,” Hesse said.

The Coast Guard staff then verbally instructed the dive master to pull Liu’s body aboard the diving vessel. Caprara said that is because the diving vessel was lower to the water and closer.

“Whenever you have a person in the water, particularly one who might be injured or hurt, the priority is to get that person safely out of the water and onto a stable platform where you can give medical care,” he said. “The dive vessel had a spacious open back deck and a low-to-the-water platform.”

At that point, the dive masters aboard began to give Liu CPR.

But it was too late.

The whole experience was “terrible,” Hesse said. Besides Liu’s tragic death, “There were children on board the vessel, and they were fully aware of what was happening,” she said.

In the wake of the incident, few details have been released about the circumstances leading to Liu’s death.

The Miami-Dade police department, which handled the case, said it is awaiting autopsy results, and it is not “readily apparent” if there should be reason to suspect foul play.

“Dive rules state you need to go where your buddy goes,” Hesse said. “There was something really wrong happening.”

Caprara also said further investigation is necessary to determine more specifically what happened during Liu’s dive.

“I can’t speak to that,” he said. “Something unfortunate happened.”

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Stars Stay Peppy Through Wee Hours of Oscar Night

For those fortunate enough to be invited, Oscar Sunday is an all-day, non-stop event. ET caught up with the stars to get their tips on making it through the madness while maintaining their energy.

PICS: Awards Season Fashion

"This is just fun," said Academy Award winner Halle Berry. "I see all my friends and peers."

"You just gotta enjoy it and then have a good dinner at the Governor's Ball, because you probably haven't eaten today," said Oscar nominee Queen Latifah. "And then we hit the after parties."

John Leguizamo named caffeine as a primary source for his energy.

"It's a long night," the actor admitted. "But you get jacked up meeting all your heroes."

From the People's Choice Awards to the 85th Academy Awards, this awards season, ET's red carpet runs on Dunkin'.

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Fashionista admits to 'stupidly' stealing Dali painting, will be deported

His dalliance with art-thievery is over.

A European fashion publicist will serve the next two weeks in jail -- and then be deported back to Greece -- after admitting today that he "stupidly" stole a $150,000 Salvatore Dali watercolor off the wall of an Upper East Side gallery.

"It was a really stupid thing to do," Phivos Istavrioglou, 29, admitted in pleading guilty to yanking "Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio" off the wall of the Venus Over Manhattan gallery on Madison Avenue in June.

Istavrioglou brazenly shoved the 1949 painting in a bag and slipped out of the gallery -- but once back in Greece a few days later he got cold feet. He rolled the painting into a tube and mailed it back, undamaged.

Steven Hirsch

Phivos Istavrioglou in Manhattan Criminal Court today.

Detectives lured Istavrioglou into returning to New York with a bogus job offer from another art gallery -- and busted him Saturday as he walked off of an American Airlines flight from Milan.

Prosecutor Jordan Arnold had asked that the thief get four months jail. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon ordered instead that he remain in custody only until his March 12 sentencing -- after which he'll be transferred to the custody of immigration officials.

As part of today's deal, Istavrioglou agreed to have his family pay $9,100 restitution prior to the sentencing date. The money will to be split among the Manhattan DA's office, the NYPD, and the Chubbs insurance company to cover the cost of their investigations -- including the cost of art experts who assessed the value and authenticity of the returned painting.

"It was a moment of insanity in an otherwise sane life," his lawyer, David Cohen, explained after court.

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EEOC files discrimination suit against transportation firm

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Tuesday that it filed a lawsuit against Prestige Transportation Service for hiring discrimination.

According to the suit, Prestige refused to hire black applicants for employment, discriminated against a black employee and retaliated against three employees for opposing race discrimination and/or filing a discrimination charge with the EEOC.

The lawsuit also says that Prestige unlawfully destroyed or failed to keep records and documents related to employment applications, personnel records, and documents regarding rates of pay and other terms of compensation.

Prestige, based in Miami, primarily transports crew members of airlines between airports and their hotels. Executives could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.

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Crist to speak at Hollywood Chamber luncheon

Former Gov. Charlie Crist will be the keynote speaker at the Greater Hollywood Chamber of Commerce’s Business Leaders Awards Luncheon Friday.

The event recognizes business leaders and companies who raise the bar their support of the Hollywood Business Community.

The awards luncheon will also include the swearing of the 2013 board of directors.

Registration begins at 11:30 a.m. and the award program will start at noon at the Westin Diplomat Resort and Spa, ADDRESS.

Ticket prices are $75 for chamber members; $100 for others. For more information, call 954-923-4000 or visit www.hollywoodchamber.org.

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Check Out Vanity Fair Oscar Party

ET's Rocsi Diaz had her trusty Nokia Lumia 920 ready to capture all of the candid moments while the stars arrived for the elite Vanity Fair Oscar party.

PICS: Inside Vanity Fair's Oscar Party

Rocsi gained prime access to the event, as the celebs' first stop upon arrival and their last stop before they leave. Even in low light Rocsi was able to take snapshots with the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Richard Gere and Amy Poehler, who Rocsi saved from a potential wardrobe mishap.

"I just helped Amy Poehler get a mysterious mark off of her dress," Rosci said, explaining that "girls have to help each other out."

Watch the video for more.

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Swindler cops to stealing more than $300K from elderly dementia victim

A dapper but cruel swindler admitted today that he stole more than $300,000 as the "personal banker" of a dementia-plagued, 94-year-old Manhattan woman.

Edward Lewando, 52, of Holbrook, LI, spent his victim's money on himself at Bergdorf Goodman and Louis Vuitton, prosecutors with the Manhattan DA's Elder Abuse Unit said.

Lewando will serve a three to nine prison sentence and hasn't paid back a cent. The victim, Helen Korne, died ten months after his arrest -- fully aware, despite her other mental frailties, that her trusted banker had stolen her life savings.

"Financial abuse of senior citizens is the most common form of elder abuse," DA Cyrus Vance said after Lewando's plea and sentencing. Often, as in Korne's case, victims are preyed on by trusted caregivers, the DA said.

Lewando is the former employee of no fewer than six banks, met Korne when he worked at City National Bank. He talked the then-91-year-old's family into letting him consolidate her multiple bank accounts into one, and to letting him pay her bills.

Weeks later he lost his bank job -- but still made regular visits to Korne's home, setting check after check in front of her, often made out to cash, and telling her to sign them.

"He took advantage of his role as a private banker, and a trusted fiduciary -- to enrich himself and feed his lavish lifestyle," Elizabeth Loewy, who heads the DA's Elder Abuse Unit, told Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Cassandra Mullen.

"He exploited a woman in her early 90s who was living a happy and somewhat modest life -- and stole over $300,000 from her over a period of two years," she said.

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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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Miami security guard wounded in stabbing

A security guard was stabbed Sunday afternoon after an altercation with an unnamed subject.

Miami-Dade Police says the stabbing occurred at 5185 NW 29th Ave.

The subject is currently in custody and the security guard was transported to Ryder Trauma Center.

His condition is unknown.

This article will be updated as more information becomes available.

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Independent Spirit Award Winners 2013

The 2013 Film Independent Spirits Awards were handed out in Santa Monica, CA today and lots of Oscar frontrunners cemented their status by dominating in their categories once more.

Check out all the winners below:

Best Feature

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Bernie

Keep the Lights On

Moonrise Kingdom

Silver Linings Playbook

BEST FEMALE LEAD

Linda Cardellini, Return

Emayatzy Corinealdi, Middle of Nowhere

Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Smashed

BEST MALE LEAD

Jack Black, Bernie

Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook

John Hawkes, The Sessions

Thure Lindhardt, Keep the Lights On

Matthew McConaughey, Killer Joe

Wendell Pierce, Four

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE

Rosemarie DeWitt, Your Sister's Sister

Ann Dowd, Compliance

Helen Hunt, The Sessions

Brit Marling, Sound of My Voice

Lorraine Toussaint, Middle of Nowhere

BEST SUPPORTING MALE

Matthew McConaughey, Magic Mike

David Oyelowo, Middle of Nowhere

Michael Pena, End of Watch

Sam Rockwell, Seven Psychopaths

Bruce Willis, Moonrise Kingdom

BEST DIRECTOR

Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom

Julia Loktev, The Loneliest Planet

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Ira Sachs, Keep the Lights On

Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

BEST SCREENPLAY

Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola, Moonrise Kingdom

Zoe Kazan, Ruby Sparks

Martin McDonagh, Seven Psychopaths

David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook

Ira Sachs, Keep the Lights On

For the full list of winners, click here.

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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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