Deers of joy: Seemingly dead fawn pulled from icy waters 'licked' back to life by family of deer

It’s like the Enchanted Forest out there.

Suffolk County cops pulled a seemingly-dead fawn out of icy waters in Fire Island today — and a family of deer came up to it and licked it back to health!

Suffolk County PD

Marine Bureau officers Robert Femia and Peter Bogachunas were nearing the Davis Park Marina on their boat about 1:04 p.m. when they noticed a little baby deer’s head among pieces of ice and slush floating on the water about 30 yards from shore.

“They don’t know how long it’s been there, so they maneuver their boat close to the deer, pick it up and throw it into the boat,” said Lt. Raymond Epp, of the Suffolk County Police Marine Bureau, who met the officers on the dock as they tried to rescue the little animal.

The cops quickly covered the brown-eyed deer in several thick blankets but, despite their best efforts, the little guy remained freezing wet and motionless.

Suffolk County PD

Suffolk County police officer with the fawn.

Suffolk County PD

Suffolks County police officer feeding fawn popcorn.

“It wasn’t flailing or kicking, it was just sitting there,” Epp said. “We weren’t sure if it was in shock of hypothermia.”

That’s when the Enchanted Forest-like miracle happened: Three deer — an adult and two young babies that appeared to be members of the fawn’s family — came out of the woods and began to lick the little guy.

Slowly, he started to come back to life, first blinking its big brown eyes, then getting up slowly and moving around the dock.

The officers took the fawn over to the station house and fed it warm popcorn, which the little guy took gladly. “We had limited food,” Epp explained.

After a few minutes, the fawn started to get even more alert and ran off with the other deer.

“I couldn’t wait to go home and tell my daughter about it,” said Epp, who has an 11 year old. “It was just such a nice, heartwarming story.”

Read More..

Sign up for Feb. 21 Miami Herald Small Business Forum

Prepare your best pitch for the Miami Herald’s Small Business Forum, Feb. 21 at the south campus of our sponsor, Florida International University.

In addition to how-to panels and inspirational stories from successful entrepreneurs, our annual small business forum will include interactive opportunities with experts to learn about financing options and polish your personal and business brands.

During our finance panel, audience volunteers will be invited to explain their financing needs to the group. During our box-lunch session, they will be invited to pitch their business or personal brand to our coaches.

Those who prefer just to listen will be treated to a keynote address by Alberto Perlman, co-founder of the global fitness craze Zumba. Panels include success stories from the local entrepreneurs who founded Sedano’s, Jennifer’s Homemade and ReStockIt.com; finance tips from experts in small business loans, venture capital, angel investments and traditional bank loans; and insiders in the burgeoning South Florida tech start-up scene.

Plus, it’s a real bargain. $25 includes the half-day seminar, continental breakfast and a box lunch.

Register here.

Program

8 a.m.

Registration and continental breakfast, provided by Bill Hansen Catering

8:30 a.m. Welcome

Host: David Suarez, president and CEO, Interactive Training Solutions, LLC

•  Jerry Haar, PhD, associate dean & director, FIU Eugenio Pino and Family Global

Entrepreneurship Center

•  Alice Horn, executive director, Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE South Florida)

•  Jane Wooldridge, Business editor, The Miami Herald

Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge Overview:

•  Nancy Dahlberg, Business Plan Challenge coordinator, The Miami Herald

8:45 a.m. Session I – Success Stories

Moderator: Jerry Haar, PhD, associate dean & director, FIU Eugenio Pino and Family Global

Entrepreneurship Center

Speakers:

•  Jennifer Behar, founder, Jennifer’s Homemade

•  Matt Kuttler, co-president of ReStockIt.com

•  Javier Herrán, chief marketing officer, Sedano’s Supermarkets

10 a.m. Session II – All about Tech

Moderator: Jane Wooldridge, Business editor, The Miami Herald

Speakers

•  Susan Amat, founder, Launch Pad Tech

•  Nancy Borkowski, executive director, Health Management Programs, Chapman Graduate School of

Business, Florida International University

•  Mark Slaughter, CEO, Cohealo.com

•  Chris Fleck, vice president of mobility solutions at Citrix and a director of the South Florida Tech Alliance

11:15 a.m. Keynote

Speaker: Alberto Perlman, CEO and co-founder of Zumba® Fitness

Introduction: Jane Wooldridge, business editor, The Miami Herald

11:45 a.m. Session III – Show me the money: Financing your small business

An interactive session featuring audience volunteers who will be invited to make a short investment pitch before a panel, including experts in microlending, SBA loans, traditional bank loans, venture capital and angel investing. Audience volunteers should come prepared with a two-minute presentation that includes details about current backing, how much money they are seeking and a brief synosis of ow that money would be used.

Moderator: Melissa Krinzman, founder and managing director, Venture Architects

Panelists:

•  Marjorie Weber, chairman, SCORE of Miami-Dade

•  Cornell Crews, Jr., program director, Partners for Self Employment

•  Darius G. Nevin, co-founder, G3 Capital Partners, a mid-market and early-stage investment company

•  Boris Hirmas Said, chairman of the board, Tres Mares S.A. (Santiago, Chile) and entrepreneur in

residence at the Eugenio Pino and Family Global Entrepreneurship Center

1 p.m. Lunch session - Polish your Pitch, Brighten Your Personal Brand

An interactive session featuring audience volunteers who will be invited to make short pitches about their businesses and themselves. Audience volunteers should come prepared with a two-minute presentation.

Coaches: Melissa Krinzman of Venture Architects and Michelle Villalobos of Mivista Consulting

advise audience volunteers on how to best pitch themselves and their products.

Box lunch provided by Bill Hansen Catering

All speakers confirmed unless otherwise noted. Agenda is subject to change without notice .

Read More..

Miami judge calls child support prosecutor’s actions ‘reprehensible’

When his ex-wife falsely accused him of shirking on $3,632.25 in child support, Miami businessman Tony Schehtman discovered that the government had stripped him of his passport.

That sparked a lengthy legal dispute that ended in unusual fashion: a Miami-Dade judge chastised prosecutors for going along with the claim, then ordered them to pay Schehtman’s legal bills.

The judge’s unusually scathing order sanctions prosecutors and Schehtman’s ex-wife, ordering them to each pay $7,645 in legal fees. Circuit Judge Pedro Echarte, in his Jan. 8 order, called their actions “reprehensible” and “irresponsible.”

The judge said that even though Schehtman had proven he was not in arrears, the prosecutors failed to correct the wife’s claim, instead quibbling in court for months and hindering Schehtman’s ability to travel for work.

“This court finds that the State Attorney’s Office engaged in pointless litigation,” Echarte wrote.

Prosecutors have decided against asking a higher court to review the judge’s decision.

“We are not appealing the judge’s order despite a belief in the merits of our position,” said spokesman Ed Griffith.

The legal clash stems from a bitter divorce between Schehtman and former wife, Lina Maya-Schehtman. Together, they have a 6-year-old son.

Schehtman describes himself as the CEO of International Technologies Marketing, a tech sales firm focused on Latin America.

The State Attorney’s Office, through Florida’s Department of Revenue, is tasked with enforcing the payment of child support.

In December 2010, Maya-Schehtman went to the State Attorney’s Office and filed a routine sworn-affidavit alleging her ex-husband was late on child support.

Schehtman, the judge later found, filed documents with the court and prosecutors showing the affidavit was wrong. Prosecutors nevertheless “certified” the delinquent child support, reporting it through a computer system to the Florida Department of Revenue.

In Tallahassee, any “non-custodial” parent who owes more than $2,500 in back support is then automatically reported to a federal child support office, which then notifies the U.S. State Department — which then freezes the person’s passport.

Schehtman — who says he travels often to Latin American for business — did not know the document had been frozen until he went to renew his passport. He was out of work for several months, his lawyer say.

“This is one of the most egregious cases I have ever witnessed in 19 years of practicing family law,” said Schehtman’s lawyer, Jonathan Jonasz.

A slew of court hearings followed. Prosecutor Stephen Glazer told the judge that as they soon as they learned the wife was wrong, they tried to amend the affidavit. Echarte didn’t buy it.

The State Attorney Office’s said the case has sparked change in internal politics. Now, the office does not report back child support payments to Tallahassee based only on a sworn affidavit — instead, prosecutors wait for a court order.

“We acknowledge that no system is infallible,” spokesman Griffith said. “The State Attorney and her leadership team are constantly seeking ways to improve the process. This case has afforded such an opportunity.”

Schehtman has since hired San Francisco lawyer John G. Heller to explore a civil lawsuit.

“The State Attorney deprived a law-abiding citizen of a fundamental liberty: his freedom of movement,” Heller said. “We will do what it takes to make sure this never happens again.”

Read More..

Mindy McCready Admitted to In-Patient Facility

Following the death of Mindy McCready's boyfriend David Wilson on January 13, ET has now learned that the country star has been admitted to an in-patient facility.

RELATED: Last Year's Biggest Celebrity Scandals

A rep for McCready confirmed the news today, going on to add: "While taking appropriate, much needed and deserved time to grieve, [McCready's] sons have been placed in foster homes where they are comfortable and cared for. We have no further statement at this time."

McCready has two sons: 6-year-old Zander (fathered by McCready's ex Billy McKnight) and 9-month-old Zayne (who she had with now-deceased boyfriend David Wilson).

This news comes after McCready spoke to Today last week, denying any involvement with the shooting that resulted in Wilson's death.

RELATED: Mindy McCready Denies Killing Boyfriend

Wilson, a record producer, was initially rushed to the hospital after suffering a reported self-inflicted gunshot wound that did not immediately kill him. McCready recalled how she discovered him after the shooting. "I just started screaming, calling 911. I laid down next to him and just pleaded with him not to die." The singer said Wilson "was responding" after the shooting, but only making sounds, not words.

McCready, 37, had several successful country albums in the '90s, but her career was later overshadowed by domestic abuse issues, drug and DUI arrests and a suicide attempt.

Read More..

Security guard assists NYPD in corralling loose goat

A goat that fled a slaughterhouse for the streets of Bedford Stuyvesant is going to find peace and love on a farm in Woodstock.

Terrified Brooklynites called cops to corral the little beast as it ran along Fulton Street around 1 a.m., yesterday.

Members of the NYPD’s elite Emergency Services Unit tried to corral the animal, which was tagged for slaughter, but it eluded cops by galloping through a parking lot near Interfaith Medical Center.

It took a security guard, who herded goats in Africa before he moved to New York, to show the city slickers how it’s done.

He used a lasso, then tied the goat’s four legs together, so it could be picked up and placed into a marked NYPD cruiser.

The bearded bandit wasn’t booked, however. He was sent to Animal Care and Control, which found a home for him in Woodstock.

kconley@nypost.com

Read More..

Miami startup that turns text to video receives $1 million in seed funding

Guide, a new technology startup based in Miami, announced Tuesday it has closed a $1 million round of seed funding from investors including the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Sapient Corp., MTV founder Bob Pitman, actor and producer Omar Epps, and early Google employee Steve Schimmel. The Knight Foundation is supporting Guide through its new early-stage venture fund, the Knight Enterprise Fund.

Led by CEO and founder Freddie Laker and COO Leslie Bradshaw, Guide’s team of seven is focused on turning online news, social streams and blogs into video for users who may be cooking, exercising, commuting or getting ready in the morning. The free application offers consumers a selection of about 20 “anchors” — including a dog, a robot and an anime character — that will read the article and present the accompanying photos, pull-out information and video clips in its video presentation. Revenue drivers for Guide could include in-app purchases, advertising-based anchors and customizations from publishers, said Laker, a former vice president at SapientNitro.

Laker and his team plan to launch a public beta next month, which they plan to do with a splash at the huge technology conference South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.

Read more about Guide here on the Starting Gate blog. Follow Nancy Dahlberg on Twitter @ndahlberg

Read More..

Citizens Insurance reform plan could cost property owners more money

TALLAHASSEE --
Property insurance rates across the state could shoot up much faster beginning next year under a massive new proposal being drafted in the Florida Legislature.

The proposal, released in draft form Wednesday, shows that lawmakers’ attempts to reform Citizens Property Insurance could have costly repercussions for millions of property owners.

“We’ve all seen that artificially suppressing rates is a recipe for disaster,” said Senate Banking and Insurance Committee Chair David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs. “When you cause a private company to not be able to make a profit, what do they do? They do what we have seen. They have a flight from the state of Florida.”

Simmons disputed the claim that the proposal would lead to higher rates and said there would likely be several amendments to address any concerns.

The bill is full of enticements long-coveted by private insurers and business groups, who wield considerable political power but regularly face legislative defeats because of the pocketbook implications of their requests. The latest proposal gives insurance companies more latitude to raise premiums faster and weakens their top competition — Citizens — by forcing it to charge higher prices.

One measure in the 34-page bill is particularly telling: It changes a legal mandate that insurance in Florida be “affordable,” adding new language requiring premium prices to “reflect the risks covered.” It also mandates that Citizens charge prices that are higher than what’s available in the private market.

Because the proposal could have a multibillion dollar pocketbook impact on millions of homeowners in coming years, it is likely to face opposition from lawmakers in South Florida and the Tampa Bay area, where insurance costs are highest.

Any rate increases engendered by the bill would likely hit homeowners in 2014, right as campaigns for primary and general elections in the Legislature heat up. Also up for reelection: Gov. Rick Scott, who has said lowering the cost of living is one of his top governing principles. Scott could face former Gov. Charlie Crist, who froze Citizens’ insurance rates while in office and mandated “affordable” coverage, saving homeowners millions of dollars.

Throughout his governorship, Scott has steered clear of making specific proposals for property insurance reform, while simultaneously pushing Citizens’ board to aggressively shrink the company. The board’s actions have led to hundreds of millions of dollars in price hikes and coverage reductions. Scott has expressed concern that Citizens is undercutting the private market with its rates and could leave taxpayers liable to assessments after a once-in-a-lifetime storm.

The new proposal seeks to address that concern, along with several others. It includes the following provisions:

Citizens must charge rates that are higher than average rates in the private market.

Insurance companies may use an “insurance inflation factor” to raise premiums faster than currently allowed by law.

Insurance companies, including Citizens, may charge homeowners additional fees to help cover the cost of backup insurance.

Insurance companies can charge rates that are higher than what regulators traditionally allow, if homeowners agree to the higher charges.

Read More..

Rihanna Accompanies Chris Brown to Court

Rihanna is standing by her man.

The controversial pop star, who recently reconciled romantically with Chris Brown, accompanied her boyfriend to a probation hearing in Los Angeles, reports The Associated Press.

Related: Rihanna and Brown Share Intimate Instagram Pics In Bed

Brown visited the courthouse briefly on Wednesday to oppose a motion to revoke the singer's probation stemming from his 2009 assault on Rihanna. Prosecutors claim Brown did not show sufficient evidence that he completed his required community labor sentence.

The AP reports Rihanna blew Brown a kiss before entering the court room, and when the hearing was over, the two left the courthouse together.

Related: People Need To Support Chris Brown, Says Rihanna

Judge James Brandlin has asked for additional reports regarding Brown's community service and scheduled a new hearing date for April 5.

Read More..

Inwood man confesses to setting wife's head on fire with blowtorch

First he bought his wife coffee. Then he set her head on fire.

Officials today released the confession of the Inwood man charged in last month's blowtorch revenge attacks on his wife and ex-boss -- admissions eerie in their mix of the mundane and the maniacal.

"I woke up this morning around 6 a.m. with the plan already made," Carlos Diaz, 35, told cops of the morning he doused wife Cathy Zappata in the face with accelerant, than blasted her with a blow torch as she sat in her car in a Pathmark parking lot.

"I went to Dyckman Bakery to buy her coffee," he told cops in the confession, released as Diaz pleaded not guilty through an interpreter to two counts of attempted murder.

Steven Hirsch

Carlos Diaz, 35, hit his estranged wife in the head with the blowtorch, poured a liquid accelerant in her hair and lit her on fire.

"I did that to buy more time so that I could take my kid to school and then there wouldn't be as many people in the mechanic's shop," he said.

Diaz told cops he'd wanted to lure his wife to the 10th Avenue garage, so that he could attack both her and his ex-boss, shop owner Helson Marachena, at the same time.

"She suspected something," though, he told cops of his wife, so he doused her on the spot in his car, he said.

"I sprayed her with starting fluid in her face and everywhere and lit her with a blow torch," Diaz told cops.

Lead prosecutor Scott Leet was asked today by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Gregory Carro to recount the facts of the case, and the prosecutor told the judge that Zappata suffered second degree burns throughout her neck and face.

"Parts of her hair were singed down to the scalp," Leet told the judge, who set Diaz's next date for April 10.

The ex-boss, Marachena, fared better, the prosecutor told the judge. Diaz admittedly walked to the nearby mechanic's shop and doused Marachena with accelerant too, according to police and Diaz's own confession.

"But the torch wouldn't light," Diaz told cops.

Read More..

Miami startup that turns text to video receives $1 million in seed funding

Guide, a new technology startup based in Miami, announced Tuesday it has closed a $1 million round of seed funding from investors including the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Sapient Corp., MTV founder Bob Pitman, actor and producer Omar Epps, and early Google employee Steve Schimmel. The Knight Foundation is supporting Guide through its new early-stage venture fund, the Knight Enterprise Fund.

Led by CEO and founder Freddie Laker and COO Leslie Bradshaw, Guide’s team of seven is focused on turning online news, social streams and blogs into video for users who may be cooking, exercising, commuting or getting ready in the morning. The free application offers consumers a selection of about 20 “anchors” — including a dog, a robot and an anime character — that will read the article and present the accompanying photos, pull-out information and video clips in its video presentation. Revenue drivers for Guide could include in-app purchases, advertising-based anchors and customizations from publishers, said Laker, a former vice president at SapientNitro.

Laker and his team plan to launch a public beta next month, which they plan to do with a splash at the huge technology conference South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.

Read more about Guide here on the Starting Gate blog. Follow Nancy Dahlberg on Twitter @ndahlberg

Read More..