| Miami blog postings spark $25 million lawsuit
Developer Tibor Hollo has filed a $25 million defamation lawsuit against a Miami real estate agent who blogged that the octogenarian went bankrupt in the 1980s and is headed for a fall with the upheaval in the condo market. Hollo last week sued agent Lucas Lechuga and the Coral Gables brokerage Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell alleging they have engaged in a smear campaign against him and his Opera Tower condo development on Lechuga's Miami Condo Investments blog. On Monday, the postings cost Lechuga his job. ''We just don't condone making statements, especially negative statements, about anyone, so we have terminated our relationship with our associate,'' said EWM President Ron Shuffield. Its agents are independent contractors, not employees. Lechuga, 29, predicted on the blog that at least half of the buyers in the 635-unit Opera Tower at 1750 Bayshore Dr.
797 new area jobs predicted
Roland Mower, CEO of the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corporation; Keith Arnold, president and CEO of the Corpus Christi Convention and Visitors Bureau; and Gene Guernsey, real estate agent with Remax Metro Properties, met with members of the Corpus Christi Rotary Club on Thursday to discuss their forecasts. "I really think we are setting up 2009, 2010 and other years for a really good housing market," Guernsey said. "I think the housing market will remain a buyer's market, and we will have about an eight-month inventory. It will continue to be strong compared with national figures." Month-supply inventories ranging from six to nine months -- meaning the houses take that long to sell -- are considered balanced markets. Anything less than six months shows a seller's market and anything more than nine months shows a buyer's market.
'Linchpin Of The Fraud' Gets 20 Years In Jail
Garcia said Israel pleaded guilty in September 2005 and is awaiting sentencing. Marquez pleaded guilty in December 2006 and was sentenced in January 2007 to 51 months in jail. He was also ordered to pay more than $6 million in restitution to his victims. In 2005, more than $106 million in proceeds from the Bayou fraud were seized and subsequently turned over to the federal government to eventually be distributed to victims of the fraud, Garcia said. .
Virtual world is make-believe, but crooks are real
Stephanie Roberts knew Second Life was just a computer game, but she couldn't resist the virtual world's promise of a real-world interest rate of more than 40 percent. The 33-year-old from Chicago, who played the game as a raven-haired vixen called Zania Turner, deposited $140 in Ginko Financial and waited for the money to grow. Instead, it vanished five months ago when Ginko, perhaps the first Ponzi scheme perpetrated by three-dimensional online avatars, left Second Life. .
Britney's antics drive a personal economy
For a growing number of people and businesses, Britney's saga is about money: Every time she sinks to new lows, cash flows. And these days, no one is above the fray. When a custody dispute devolved into a three-hour standoff at Spears' home Jan. 3, police officers and firefighters were pressed into duty. Television stations sent up helicopters, and cable news anchors reported the unfolding drama in real time. The Associated Press had two reporters working the story, with editors on both coasts updating it seven times throughout the night. .
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