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 .

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Brooklyn teacher's aide pleads guilty to producing child porn

A teacher’s aide pleaded guilty today to producing a homemade child porn film inside a New York City grammar school.

Taleek Brooks, who worked at PS 243 in Crown Heights, admitted that he had produced a video of a student entrusted to his care while the child was engaged in explicit sexual activity.

"I was responsible for the filming of a minor masturbating," Brooks told Brooklyn federal Magistrate Judge Roanne Mann.

Brooks, 42, also conceded that he sent digital files over the Internet via a file sharing Web site to an undercover FBI agent, saying the files included another pornographic video showing an adult sexually assaulting a child.

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Taleek Brooks.

He will face from 15 to 50 years in prison when he is sentenced this summer, according to a plea agreement with Brooklyn federal prosecutors.

Brooks was on the staff at the Brooklyn public school - also referred to as "The Weeksville School" - for nearly two decades until FBI agents arrested him early last year.

The feds discovered more than 1,000 digital files of children as young as 10 posing in explicit photos during a search of his house.

Those developments prompted an aggressive FBI probe and eventually led investigators to believe that Brooks was molesting school children entrusted to his care, after they found child porn videos on his computer hard drive that were filmed inside several classrooms.

Agents interviewed teachers, school staff, parents, and children, in an effort to determine the extent of Brooks' alleged damage.

City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott also visited the elementary school, and the school's principal called the molestation allegations “deeply troubling news."

The former school staffer is still awaiting trial in separate criminal case leveled by the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, charging him with two counts of sexual contact with a child and one count of endangering the welfare of a minor.

Brooks, who earned $37,000 a year as a teacher's aide, was assigned to a small, special-education classroom with one teacher and 12 kids at the school.

A disquieting photograph posted on Brooks’ blog on the elementary school's Web site showed him dressed as the Easter Bunny and surrounded by young children in a playground.

The blog was taken down after his arrest.

mmaddux@nypost.com

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Murder charge dropped in Miami Gardens self-defense case

Prosecutors on Thursday dropped a murder charge against a man who claimed self-defense in fatally shooting an armed teen during a June 2010 brawl in Miami Gardens.

Travis Cooper, 28, had been charged with second-degree murder in the killing of Gregory Gant, 16.

The men were part of two groups of fighting men. Cooper claimed Gant pistol-whipped a friend of his, then “pointed the gun in his direction.”

Cooper, a security guard who had a concealed weapons permit, shot and killed Gant. He later called police.

“It’s a relief. They charged me with second-degree murder for no reason,” Cooper said Thursday, flanked by lawyers Andrew Rier and Jonathan Jordan.

Prosecutors decided they could not defend a request for immunity filed under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, which gave judges greater leeway to throw out criminal cases.

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Pat Houston Says She will Be Attending Clive Davis' Grammy Party

Though Whitney Houston tragically passed away just hours before Clive Davis' Grammy party last year -- which she had planned on attending -- Whitney's sister-in-law Pat Houston tells ET that she and Whitney's brother Gary will in fact be attending Davis' annual Grammy party on February 9.

Pics: Remembering Whitney on Her Birthday

"You know what, we're actually going to California to support Clive, who was such an important part of Whitney’s life," Pat confirmed to ET during the unveiling of Madame Tussauds' four wax figures of the late singer in New York. "I mean, that was her industry father and he really, really was ... my husband and I -- Gary and I -- will definitely be there this weekend for the Grammy party to support Clive. Absolutely."

Video: Whitney Houston's Autopsy -- An Expert Weighs In

Davis' Grammy party will be held at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, the very same hotel where Whitney died. The room where she passed away, No. 434, has since been taken out of circulation.

This year's party guest list includes Jennifer Hudson, Usher, David Guetta and more, but it is not known whether there will be a planned tribute regarding the one year anniversary of Whitney's death.

The 2013 Grammy Awards airs this Sunday, at 8 p.m. on CBS.

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Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano charged with illegal solicitation and expenditure of campaign funds

Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano's political opposition has submitted a criminal complaint to the state Attorney General and the Board of Elections - charging Mangano with illegal solicitation and expenditure of campaign funds.

Nassau County Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs filed the complaint saying Mangano's campaign collected more than $70,000 in corporate contributions, many of which were made by firms doing business with Nassau County.

The complaint alleges that Deputy County Executive Rob Walker solicited the money through the Hicksville Republican Club. Jacobs says that Walker and Mangano violated campaign finance contribution limits by illegally contributing funds to support Mangano's reelection campaign.

Events included hosting a fundraiser in a $200,000 luxury box at Met Life Stadium and a golf fundraiser at Disney World. Jacobs said Mangano also had a September 2012 Bruce Springsteen fundraiser at MetLife Stadium.

"Mangano and Walker are enjoying their 'Glory Days' in a luxury suite purchased with a pile of illegal campaign cash," said Jacobs.

But Mangano's spokesman shot back: "The only campaign Jay Jacobs knows is one of mudslinging and slander," said Brian Nevin

"All campaign contributions were properly reported and the campaign will take the necessary steps to address any contributions that exceeded the cap."

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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

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Judge OK’s plan for gay man, lesbian couple to be legal parents of young daughter

A Miami-Dade circuit judge has approved a private adoption allowing three people — a gay man and a married lesbian couple — to be the legal parents of their 23-month-old daughter.

“We’re creating entirely new concepts of families. If you have two women seeking to be listed as Parent One and Parent Two, that does not exclude listing a man as father,” said Miami family lawyer Karyn J. Begin, who represented dad Massimiliano “Massimo” Gerina in a two-year paternity case involving lesbian friends who had his baby.

Maria Italiano and Cher Filippazzo, who married in Connecticut, and their attorney, Kenneth Kaplan, declined to be interviewed.

The women, according to Begin, are longtime partners who unsuccessfully attempted to become pregnant through professional fertility clinics.

Instead of giving up, they decided to try again at home and approached Gerina about fathering a child.

“They asked me,” Gerina said. “I was flattered by it. I thought what a great opportunity for me to have a baby.”

A single Bay Harbor Islands hair stylist, Gerina explained why he desires children: “It’s nature — the same reason a woman wants to be a mother.”

Gerina grew up Cagliari, Italy, where he never thought he could become a father. Eight years ago, though, he moved to South Florida and encountered many gay parents raising children.

“It’s not unusual here. Where I am from it’s unusual. I grew up with the mentality that it would never happen,” he said. “When I moved here, I saw gay couples, lesbian couples having families.”

On only a verbal agreement, Gerina gave the women his sperm and Italiano conceived. The lesbians planned for Filippazzo to later adopt the baby and they would both raise the child.

Florida law specifies that sperm donors have no legal rights in artificial inseminations. Thus the hitch: Gerina says he considered himself a parent, not simply a donor. The women, he claimed, “wanted a father for the baby, not just the sperm.”

Two weeks after insemination, Italiano learned she was pregnant. About seven months later, the women called Gerina and asked him to sign a contract.

“When they gave me the paper to sign that I had to give up all my rights to the baby, I didn’t,” he said.

Gerina began to ponder the legal consequences of siring a child. He hired Begin and presented the women with papers of his own.

“My papers said I would have parental rights, a visitation schedule,” he said. “They hated it. They said this wasn’t what they wanted. I said, ‘Now that you’re already pregnant, you should have thought about that before.’ ”

Their daughter, Emma, was born March 10, 2011. “The paternity lawsuit was filed right after the birth of the child,” Begin said.

The three parents feuded in court for nearly two years. A trial was set for Jan. 31, 2013.

A week before trial, Gerina, Italiano, Filippazzo and their attorneys settled the case privately.

Before posing for photos with the three parents and Emma, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Antonio Marin approved the settlement and the court adoption clerk submitted paperwork for Emma’s new birth certificate:

• Birth mother Italiano, a retail saleswoman, received “sole parental responsibility,” Begin said.

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Jennifer Lawrence's Long Lost Monk Appearance

Though she's already been nominated for two Academy Awards at just 22 years old, Jennifer Lawrence hasn't always had her pick of the best roles in Hollywood -- which she hilariously displayed by revealing to Conan O'Brien the major letdown she received earlier in her career when she thought she was getting a plum guest starring role on USA hit Monk.

"For the Monk episode there was Emily J. and Emily C. -- I thought I was going to play Emily C.," she explained during her guest appearance on Conan Tuesday night. "So this one girl that's in [my] church goes, 'I'm gonna be playing Emily J. on Monk,' and I go, 'Oh my God I'm going to play Emily C., this is great!'"

Pics: Fierce Fashions -- Hot Looks of the 2013 Oscar Luncheon

Only it turns out Jennifer didn't exactly get the part she was hoping for.

"[Turns] out I'm not playing that part -- I'm playing the mascot," she laughed. "And so everybody watched it after I told them that I'm going to have this great, huge part and I was just the mascot -- and I've never been back to church since."

Video: J-Law's Biggest Fashion Regret?

Check out the video to see Jennifer's under the radar Monk appearance, and for her priceless reaction to the unearthed clip.

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Can’t find time for play? Try scheduling it

If your resolutions for 2013 include achieving a better work-life balance, your calendar holds the key to your success.

But, to pull off your goals, you’re going to need to turn the traditional way of thinking upside down.

Most people schedule their work commitments on their calendars and squeeze in family, friends and fun around it. Instead, schedule your work around your personal life, say Michelle Villalobos and Jessica Kizorek, speakers, personal branding consultants and co-creators of Make Them Beg, a professional self development program. For example, they suggest you block out gym time, reading for pleasure time, coaching your kid time and date night. Even a person with almost no flexibility in his or her work schedule can block out 15 minutes for a walk rather than eating lunch at their desks.

“You have to plan for play. Otherwise work expands and there’s no time for play,” Kizorek says. Today, it’s easy to stay a little later at the office or work through lunch because there’s always more to do. Using your calendar effectively can help you with boundaries.

Villalobos says once you put “play” into your schedule, it helps to get people who are important in your life to keep you committed. For example, she blocks out three hours twice a week on her calendar to paint. She has asked her boyfriend to help her stick to that schedule.

Realistically, there will be times when you have to reschedule a fun activity because of work demands. “At least you know what you missed so if you don’t do it, you move it to another day,” Villalobos says.

If you’re in a relationship, experts advise letting your partner participate in creating your calendar. A friend of mine sends his spouse an electronic invite to his poker night signaling that she has the night free to schedule her own fun activity.

Scheduling everything may seem rigid. “That’s the opposite,” Villalobos insists. “By putting things on your calendar, you can focus on what you need to do in the moment. It allows you to be far more present.”

With more people converting to electronic calendars or hovering between paper and online options, how we coordinate our schedules is in flux. But for balance, it’s often better to track personal and professional in one place.

Sharon Teitelbaum, a Boston-based work-life coach, says to calendar all important life events including birthdays. It may sound like common sense to calendar your son’s birthday, but people forget and schedule business travel, she has found. She also advises putting work events in your calendar as far in advance as possible and tasks that lead up to them. “You don’t want to agree to host a dinner party the weekend before a work retreat.”

For many busy people, the traditional way of scheduling needs to change from calendaring a due date to creating a timeline. If you have a big project you need to have completed by Feb. 15, Teitelbaum says break it into weekly tasks leading up to that date. “People vastly underestimate how long things take and the number of interruptions they have to contend with,” she says.

Julie Morgenstern, who created the Balanced Life Planner for Delray Beach-based specialty retailer Levenger, says that even on a daily basis people don’t plan realistically. “By bravely recognizing the limits of each day and how long each to-do on your list will take, we can see in advance what will or won’t fit into our calendar, and become more strategic,” she said.

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Divorced parents in legal battle over Autumn Pasquale's gravestone

Three months after a 12-year-old New Jersey girl was killed, her divorced parents are in a court battle over control of a memorial fund and headstone for the girl's grave.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday is the latest publicly visible fissure in the family after Autumn Pasquale's disappearance that, at first, united the couple and an entire community in a search for the girl, who went for a bike ride on Oct. 20 and was never seen alive again by her family.

Forty-eight hours after 200 enforcement officers and hundreds more volunteers began searching, the girl's body was found stuffed in a recycling bin several blocks from her home in the small town of Clayton, 25 miles south of Philadelphia.

AP

Autumn Pasquale, 12, of Clayton, NJ, was last seen alive while riding her bike on October 12, 2012.

Donations rolled in for a reward for an arrest in the case. After two teenage brothers were charged with murder, money came in for her funeral and other purposes. In all, donations totaled at least $100,000.

In the suit, the girl's mother, Jennifer Cornwell, says her ex-husband, Anthony Pasquale, took Cornwell's name off the memorial fund bank account that they had agreed to control together to pay for their daughter's funeral, legal expenses and help with the college education for their two surviving children. She also says her ex-husband has refused to consult her on what the girl's headstone should say.

Cornwell is asking a judge to split the memorial fund so that each parent can have partial control and to bar Pasquale from completing the headstone design without Cornwell's input.

About the only thing the lawyers for the parents agree on is how sad it is that the saga has come to this.

"It's just disappointing and curious," said Douglas Long, a lawyer for Pasquale. "That's about it."

"This is a very sad situation," said Robert Feltoon, the lawyer for Cornwell.

Court filings lay out acrimony between the girls' parents: Cornwell moved out in 2002 when her children were 4, 3, and 1 years old. Though the parents legally had joint custody, they spent most of their time living with their father. The couple were divorced in 2005, seven years after they married.

Cornwell says her ex-husband did not inform her that their middle daughter was missing until two hours after police were called on Oct. 20.

Pasquale says his ex-wife picked up items left at a funeral home by mourners without his permission. She contends he said it would be OK. He also says she was wrong to withhold money from a fundraiser from the fund. She says the money — a $15,500 check plus unspecified cash — is in a safe-deposit box where she placed it after learning she no longer had control of the bank account.

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