Florida class-action case takes aim at Citizens’ reinspection program

Thousands of Florida homeowners buffeted by higher windstorm premiums have sued state-run Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to recover potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in “back-door” rate increases driven by “arbitrary” reinspections of their residences.

The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed in Broward Circuit Wednesday, aims to halt Citizens’ reinspection program, claiming it has illegally stripped discounts from homeowners who had earned them under a 2007 inspection program approved by the Florida Legislature. Their original inspections were supposed to be valid for five years.

But in 2010, Citizens violated the due-process rights of homeowners, who had submitted official inspection forms, by arbitrarily reinspecting their properties to boost lost revenue that the agency could not generate lawfully through premium hikes, the suit said.

Lawyers who filed the suit, whose class representative is a Broward homeowner, said Citizens violated the due-process rights of its policyholders, costing each higher premiums averaging upwards of $1,000 — and possibly more — a year.

The collective cost to homeowners throughout Florida exceeds more than $100 million, said attorney Todd Stabinksi, whose Miami law firm, Stabinksi & Funt, filed the suit with Farmer, Jaffe of Fort Lauderdale and Kula & Samson of Aventura. They gathered Thursday for a press conference outside the West Broward County Courthouse in Plantation.

“Citizens got the benefit of lowering their risks, but Citizens’ policyholders did not get the benefit of lower premiums,” Stabinski said. “It should have been a mutually beneficial bargain.”

Consumer advocates have accused Citizens of using the reinspection program to impose “massive” rate hikes on homeowners. Citizens has denied the charge, saying that it is simply trying to get accurate information about the homes it insures.

“Since at least 2010, Citizens has used a wind mitigation reinspection program to systemtically deprive policy holders of legitimate wind mitigation credits,” said a nonprofit group, Florida Association for Insurance Reform, which praised the legal action.

A spokesperson for Citizens said the company has been operating under the law, and that the reinspections came after regulators changed the mitigation criteria. “Our position is Citizens’ reinspections were conducted under statutory authority afforded any insurer to verify, at the insurer’s expense, the accuracy of inspection reports submitted for a mitigation discount,” said spokesman Michael Peltier.

Discontent has been widespread among Citizens’ policyholders, who spent large sums of money on roof, window and other upgrades to earn windstorm mitigation discounts while protecting their homes against potential hurricane damage. In response, Citizens unveiled major changes to its home reinspection program last August, after consumers expressed outrage over media reports about a staggering $137 million in premium increases generated by the unpopular program.

Under its new plans, homeowners who lose insurance discounts because of a reinspection can receive a second inspection free of charge. They will have new tools to dispute the findings of the first reinspection. That decision could impact more than 200,000 property owners, who have already seen their premiums go up by an average of about $800 after the initial reinspection.

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NTSB says pilot error caused fatal 2011 East River helicopter crash

Pilot error caused an October 2011 East River helicopter crash that killed three overseas visitors, the National Transportation Safety Board said today.

Probers found that the Bell Ranger chopper was as much as 261 pounds too heavy when it lifted off from the East 34th Street Heliport, and say pilot Paul Dudley underestimated his passengers’ weights.

Dudley’s miscalculations led to a phenomenon called “loss of tail rotor effectiveness,” which caused the chopper to spin out of control and crash.

Dudley, the manager of Linden Airport in New Jersey, disputes the NTSB findings.

“We strongly disagree with the conclusions in the report, which are based on conjecture and estimates and that lead to questionable conclusions,” he said.

“You don’t go 30 years of flying without an accident by being careless.”

In 2006, Dudley made an emergency landing of a Cessna 172 in Calvert Vaux Park in Brooklyn.

The chopper crash victims were Helen Tamaki, 43 and her partner Sonia Marra, 40, both of Sydney, Australia, and Marra’s mother, Harriet Nicholson, 60, a British national who lived in Portugal.

Nicholson’s husband Paul and Dudley both survived without serious injury.

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Knights Arts Challenge seeking grant applicants

Miami-Dade County Schools students diagnosed with physical, developmental and intellectual disabilities learned a new dance last year and performed it for their peers.

Florida Grand Opera sopranos and tenors performed in new locations.

And artists who worked with clay at The Ceramic League of Miami received new kilns and other studio tools.

These were some of the 31 winners of the 2011 Knight Arts Challenge, which distributed about $2.9 million in grants to artistic organizations in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties.

Five years ago, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation initiated the Knights Arts Challenge to help fund programs and makes the arts more accessible.

“The Knight Foundation’s mission is informed and engaged communities,” said Dennis Scholl, the Knight Foundation’s vice president for arts. “We also want to make art in Miami so everyone sees and hears cultural activities.”

In the last five years, about 6,600 organizations and individuals entered the challenge, Scholl said. About 140 of those entries were rewarded with a grant. Since 2008, the Knight Arts Challenge has distributed about $20 million to arts organizations in South Florida.

The foundation set up the program initially for five years. It has since extended it for another three years. About $3 million will be awarded each year for the next three years, Scholl said.

Karen Peterson and Dancers, a South Florida nonprofit for dancers with and without disabilities, received a $10,000 grant in 2011. Thanks to the grant, the organization was able to place a dance teacher in 23 schools, reaching 375 students, instead of the usual 200, said Karen Peterson, the organization’s founder and artistic director.

The nonprofit embarked on the in-school residencies in 2005. As a result of the grant, the group extended the teachers’ time in the schools from 15 to 20 weeks.

“A lot of the inner-city schools have had such programs canceled because of budget cuts,” said Peterson. “This might be the children’s only artistic, creative one hour per week. We as dance artists are encouraging them to be physically expressive, physically free. Those elements are not what Miami-Dade teachers do because they have to worry about the FCAT.”

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Dillion Casey Nikita Season Three Interview 2013

From losing hands to losing power, every character on Nikita has had to come to terms with the loss of something major this season. But perhaps no one has given up more than Sean Pierce, who in the last episode was forced to fake his own death after Amanda framed him for multiple murders.

But as Dillon Casey tells ETonline, his character's funeral frustrations are directed at someone else in the coming weeks. That was just one of the intriguing tidbits he brought up during our interview today!

ETonline: What was your reaction when you found out Sean would have to fake his own death and join Division full-time?

Dillon Casey: I was excited about it. Sean had been kind of floating along the surface for a while, trying to figure out how he could work with these people -- he didn't like that Alex was a part of Division, but he kept coming back because he loves her and wanted to make sure she was safe. If it was up to him, Division would be destroyed so forcing him to be a part of it, especially in this way, was an amazing turning point for the character.

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ETonline: We saw him struggling with his decision after the fact last week. Will that continue or does he come to accept it?

Casey: I think that as a SEAL, he's very good at accepting a situation and moving forward. He's obviously torn up about the fact his life was turned upside down and he died a traitor and a murderer, but he know that's something he can't change. All he can do is accept that he's a part of Division now and needs to make the best of it. I think that a part of him thinks if he keeps working hard, he can figure out a way to get his life back, but all he can do right now is take things one day at a time.

ETonline: Does this have a positive or negative effect on Sean's relationship with Alex?

Casey: It changes their relationship. They had the added benefit of not spending every waking hour with each other, that's going to turn out to have been a good thing. Now, they're kind of stuck in prison together and a serious tension arises from that because Alex feels guilty for Sean's situation. Whether he likes it or not, Sean does feel a bit of resentment to all of them. He was given this choice to change his life, and he's not sure it was the best choice to make [plus,] he resents having to make the choice at all. There's this resentment that Sean feels, and now he can't even go into the field and back Alex up like he wants to because he’s injured. So Alex get partnered with Owen and it's a whole new set of problems they have to deal with.

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ETonline: What does Sean think of Owen?

Casey: Owen and Alex share this dark history; this violent past, and that kind of gives you some insight into the butterfly tattoo on Alex's back. Owen has a lot of tattoos as well and they can bond over what that represents, while Sean doesn't have that dark past to bond with Alex over. The fact that Owen is taking Sean's place in the field and has this shared past to bond over with Alex kind of leads to a lot of jealousy from Sean.

ETonline: What's it like for Sean to be trapped in Division while Alex is in the field?

Casey: He's going stir crazy and kind of taking it out on Alex. He's trying to find a way to be useful, but tactical work is not what he really wants to be doing. He's very versatile; there's an upcoming episode where Michael has to go out into the field and Sean is the only person left at Division, and he takes over seamlessly.

ETonline: Ryan made a speech about how Division can be used for good, depending on the people running it. Do you agree?

Casey: Personally, I don't think Division should exist. I think it's awful and should be disbanded. I agree that it's only as good or bad as the people running it, but my problem is that there are no checks and balances. There's nobody to keep them in line. It's kind of a strange way of working. So I don't think Division is a good place, I don't think it should exist any longer than it takes to get rid of it.

ETonline: What are you excited for Nikita fans to see in the coming weeks?

Casey: I'm really excited for them to see Owen and Sean in the field together. That's a really interesting episode because they have to rely on each other but they don't like each other. As a SEAL, Sean's training tells him that the life of his partner in the field is more important than his own, so for that person to be Owen is difficult for Sean. I don't know what Owen’s like. I think he's a bit of a loose cannon [because] his loyalty is to Nikita, and he'd do anything for her.

Nikita airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on The CW.

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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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Cardinal Timothy Dolan longshot as oddsmakers peg favorites to replace Pope Benedict XVI

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan is a longshot at the holy book to become Catholicism’s new world leader and first American pope.

Offshore oddsmakers have pegged Peter Turkson and Angelo Scola as slight favorites in a wide-open race to replace Pope Benedict XVI, who retired today in the first papal resignation in nearly 600 years.

Ghanaian Cardinal Turkson is nearly a 5-to-2 choice, according to various offshore bookies. Turkson’s papal hopes are pinned on conventional wisdom that cardinals want to pick a new leader from outside Europe, in a nod to the church’s new world growth.

G.N.Miller/New York Post

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan.

But several Italian cardinals, playing with home-field advantage, could just as easily emerge on top when a new man is picked, according to oddsmakers.

Archbishop of Milan Scola is a little more than a 5-to-2 selection, while Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone [5-to-1 consensus] and Archbishop of Genoa Angelo Bagnasco [9-to-1] are also in the mix.

Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet appears to be the third pick in most virtual sportsbooks, hovering at about 4-to-1.

Cardinal Dolan, the popular, jovial leader of Big Apple Catholics, is a longshot with odds anywhere between 10-to-1 and 25-to-1.

No American has ever been pope.

Even though Turkson has emerged as the gambling favorite, oddsmakers are struggling to peg the next most likely challengers.

For example, Bagnasco is a 5-to-1 pick at British book William Hill but a 12-to-1 longshot at BetUs.com.

Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze is a hot 4-to-1 selection at BetUs.com but a 25-to-1 dog at Bovada.lv.

“Anytime you are dealing with non-sports related odds, it’s always difficult as we are setting these odds based on what so-called experts are saying about each candidate,” said Bovada.lv sportsbook manager Kevin Bradley.

“We will monitor how each candidate is bet and that is why you will see some movement in these odds.”

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Jurors deliberating in money-laundering trial linked to South Florida ‘Ponzi scheme’

One-time Fort Lauderdale executive Steven Steiner and his former live-in partner, Henry Fecker III, had a taste for the finer things in life.

They owned multimillion-dollar homes on the waterfront in Fort Lauderdale and Camden, Maine, along with a Manhattan condo.

Now, a federal jury in Miami is deliberating whether the former partners laundered millions of dollars in ill-gotten profits from an investment scam allegedly run by Steiner’s former company, Mutual Benefits Corp. The company sold $1.25 billion worth of life insurance policies, held by people dying of AIDS, to investors who lost $830 million — among Florida’s biggest financial frauds, federal authorities say.

Both men, who stood trial for the past month, are charged with laundering millions through homes, hiding assets from authorities and lying to a court-appointed receiver who was seeking to reimburse Mutual Benefits investors who bought the so-called viatical policies.

The 54-count indictment charges them with conspiracy, money laundering and obstruction of justice, which carry potentially lengthy sentences.

Steiner, 60, a former Mutual Benefits vice president, has been detained at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami since his arrest in August 2011. Fecker, 58, who was arrested in Maine that summer, has been out on bond.

During trial in February, Steiner testified that no fraud was committed at Mutual Benefits and that he complied with his settlement obligations with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the court-appointed receiver, who took over the bankrupt company in 2004. Steiner also testified that his company was a “victim” of the receiver’s decision to wind down the business.

On the witness stand, Steiner name-dropped Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Phil Donohue as friends.

Fecker’s lawyer, Valentin Rodriguez, argued that his client was a dupe who was misled by Steiner.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerrob Duffy depicted Steiner and Fecker as partners in crime, claiming they used “money from a massive Ponzi scheme” at Mutual Benefits to support their “lavish lifestyle.”

“When we started, we told you this case was about a crime spree, involving fraud, lies and deception,” Duffy said in closing arguments last week. “Now that you have heard all the evidence, you know that it is about ‘catch me if you can,’ a game of hide and seek.”

According to the indictment, Steiner and Fecker plotted to funnel nearly $11 million of Mutual Benefits proceeds through a consulting business, using the money for their Northeastern homes and lying about the real value of their assets to the court-appointed receiver for Mutual Benefits.

The receiver, Bob Martinez, was named by a federal judge in 2004 when the Securities and Exchange Commission shut down the company and froze its assets. The receiver recovered about $120 million for Mutual Benefits investors.

To obtain a favorable settlement with the SEC, Steiner and Fecker submitted a series of false and misleading documents to conceal their true financial condition, according to the indictment. In 2007, the SEC agreed to settle their liability for $5 million and later reduced the penalty to $3.95 million. But to date, Steiner and Fecker have paid only $750,000, according to Duffy and fellow prosecutor Dwayne Williams.

At trial, Duffy and fellow prosecutor Dwayne Williams sought to show that Steiner and Fecker actively thwarted the efforts of the court-appointed receiver and the Securities and Exchange Commission,

In one example, Fecker refinanced the waterfront Maine property in 2006 and placed the proceeds of $480,000 into a series of certified checks to conceal their existence from authorities, according to evidence at trial. Fecker then cashed the checks from 2008 through July 2011 to support him and Steiner.

In another instance, evidence showed that in late 2009, Steiner sold their luxury Manhattan apartment for $1.3 million but said the sale was for $1.1 million in documents submitted to the SEC and Mutual Benefits receiver.

Steiner allegedly provided “false and misleading testimony under oath” to the receiver about his assets, according to prosecutors.

Separately, Steiner is awaiting trial this spring on charges accusing him, his brother, Joel Steinger, and a one-time Mutual Benefits lawyer of conspiring to bilk investors between 1994 and 2003. (Although Steiner and Steinger are brothers, they spell their last names differently.)

Fecker was not charged in that fraud indictment, which was first filed in 2008.

So far, several former company employees, including president Peter Lombardi, have pleaded guilty and been sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

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Bobby Brown Sentenced to Jail for DUI

Bobby Brown has been sentenced to 55 days in jail for his second DUI conviction in a year.

The 44-year-old singer received the sentence Tuesday after his lawyer entered a plea of no contest on his behalf to charges that Brown was under the influence and driving on a suspended license when he was arrested in October 2012.

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He was ordered to report to jail beginning March 20 and was also placed on four years of informal probation and will be required to attend Alcoholics Anonymous sessions each week.

Brown also pleaded no contest last year to another charge of driving under the influence in connection with an arrest last April.

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Drivers line up for $2.27 gas at the Finish Line in Sweetwater

Hundreds of cars were backed up for more than four blocks waiting for gas Wednesday at the Finish Line in Sweetwater.

Drawing the crowd: a special promotion at the gas station and convenience store on 109th Avenue and West Flagler Street.

Drivers started lining up at 5 a.m. to pay a cash price of $2.27 per gallon, close to a 50 percent savings.

The promotion was part of the “14 Days of Neighborly Love,” an event hosted by Miami-Dade Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz. It started on Valentine’s Day and ended Wednesday.

Miami-Dade residents were able to take advantage of other services and goods at a discount or for free, such as tax preparation, marriage counseling, car washes, and free SunPass transponders.

Finish Line owner Tony Cuevas and Roly Ramirez, owner of Doral Collision Center and Exclusive motoring, sponsored the $2.27 gas on the event’s opening and closing day.

“We’re very grateful for the success that we have,” Ramirez said. “I always give back in some way or another.”

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Bernanke defends Fed's low-interest-rate policies

WASHINGTON — Facing criticism from Republican lawmakers, Chairman Ben Bernanke stood behind the Federal Reserve's low-interest-rate policies Wednesday and sought to reassure members of Congress that the central bank has a handle on the risks.

In his second day of testimony on Capitol Hill, Bernanke told members of the House Financial Services Committee that the bond purchases are needed to boost a still-weak economy and that they have helped create jobs for average Americans.

The bond purchases are intended to lower long-term interest rates. That encourages more borrowing and spending, which generates growth.

AP

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies on Capitol Hill today.

Still, Republicans said the bond purchases could generate higher inflation.

"We have gone too far in monetary policy and the monetary easing and it is in this member's opinion time to pull back," said Rep. Gary Miller, R-Calif.

Bernanke said the Fed is weighing the costs and the benefits.

"We plan to have a continual discussion and review of both the costs and the benefits and try to make sure that we are taking the right steps given those costs and benefits," Bernanke told the House panel.

Bernanke's remarks during his semiannual monetary report to Congress largely repeated comments made a day earlier to a Senate panel.

The Fed chairman made clear that the Fed's low-interest-rate policies are giving crucial support to an economy still burdened by high unemployment. He also acknowledged the risks of keeping rates low indefinitely. But he expressed confidence that such risks pose little threat now and gave no signal that the Fed might shift away from those policies.

The aggressive program to buy $85 billion a month in Treasurys and mortgage bonds had kept borrowing costs low, he said. And that, in turn, has helped strengthen sectors such as housing and autos, he said.

Bernanke rejected a suggestion by Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., that the Fed's policies were mainly helping the federal government with its borrowing needs and big banks and foreign governments.

"This is very much focused at the average American citizen," Bernanke said. "Our estimates are that we've helped create many private-sector jobs. ... People are able to buy houses at very low mortgage rates, refinancing at low mortgage rates. People are able to get car loans at low rates."

The low borrowing rates have boosted demand, Bernanke said, and that has helped to lift home prices, making home owners feel more financially secure.

"In a lot of dimensions, we have, I think, benefited Main Street and that's certainly our objective," Bernanke said.

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