7 January 4-10, 2024 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | CuLture | Cafe | MusiC | Month XX–Month XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | Charlie Adelson A TV set would have been sufficient for his sister’s divorce present. Instead, Fort Lauderdale periodontist Charlie Adelson hired two hit men to kill his sister’s estranged husband, Florida State University law professor Dan Markel, in Markel’s Tallahassee driveway in 2014. After years on the police radar, Adelson was arrested in April 2022. During his trial this past fall, co-conspirator and Adelson’s ex-girlfriend Katherine Magbanua told a Leon County jury how Adelson approached her about finding a hit man on Halloween and how she linked him up with Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera. Taking the stand in his defense, the dentist maintained that Garcia and Rivera took it upon themselves to murder Markel and then tried to extort him out of money. Adelson insisted he was joking when he spoke of hiring a hit man as a divorce present for his sister. Declining to buy what Charlie was selling, the jury convicted the 47-year-old of first-degree murder, solicitation, and conspiracy to commit murder. Adelson’s mother, Donna, is a candidate for next year’s Dirty Dozen: A week after her son’s conviction, she was arrested while attempting to board a flight out of Miami International Airport to Vietnam — a non- extradition country. Coincidence? Tell it to the jury. Fabián Basabe On the campaign trail en route to a Florida House seat in District 106, which covers barrier-island communities from Miami Beach north to Sunny Isles, ostensibly grown-up reality TV star/“it” boy Fabián Basabe pledged to support LGBTQ rights and abortion access. But when legislation targeting the LGBTQ community came up for a vote in the Republican-dominated House, the self-styled GOP moderate voted in lockstep with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ culture-war agenda, then declined to take a stand on the governor’s six-week abortion ban. Basabe again thumbed his nose at LGBTQ Floridians when he put in an appearance at the Miami Beach Pride Parade, blowing kisses to the crowd as attendees showered him with boos. Though he doesn’t grace the tabloids the way he did in his party-boy days, Basabe scores bonus Dirty Dozen points for popping up in headlines for alleged face slapping and butt groping. Matthew Bergwall Matt Bergwall wasn’t your run-of-the-mill University of Miami undergrad. According to a recent federal indictment, from December 2021 to the spring of ’22, the computer science major from Darien, Connecticut, also identified in court documents as “MXB,” was leading a double life — a fraudulent one that had him flaunting a $41,000 Rolex watch and jetting with his new girlfriend to Mexico, Spain, and Dubai. How’d the New England nerd do it? Feds say Bergwall hacked into an unnamed multinational “shipping, receiving, and supply chain management company” and executed 10,000 fraudulent returns totaling $3.5 million, including electric skateboards, a TV, and an $80 pair of Reeboks. Late last year, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Bergwall with mail fraud and conspiracy charges that could land him in prison for 45 years. As he awaits an early 2024 trial date, though, Bergwall appears to be partying on. A judge approved a December trip to New York City followed by a cozy Yuletide sojourn at his mother’s home in a tony Connecticut suburb. Frenel Cenat Take a suspected dirty cop, sprinkle in a few kilos of fake cocaine, and you have a recipe for a quintessentially Miami scandal. Federal agents say officer Frenel Cenat of the Miami Police Department believed he was shaking down coke traffickers when he performed two November traffic stops wherein he identified himself as “Officer Martez” and gave the ostensible suspects a choice: hand over their cash and blow or get hauled off to the hoosegow. Unfortunately for Cenat, the tipster who clued him in to the supposed traffickers, along with the traffickers themselves, were part of an elaborate undercover FBI operation. Prosecutors say he didn’t realize he was the mark until he arrived at an agreed-upon meetup to split $80,000 in proceeds with his partner and was greeted by an anti-corruption unit and charges of Hobbs Act extortion, theft of government funds, and attempted possession with intent to distribute cocaine. All the while, South Florida’s reputation as a haven for the LGBTQ community was tarnished by a cascade of culture-war laws pushed through by hypocritical legislators seeking to score political points by marginalizing their fellow citizens and neighbors. Speaking of hypocrisy, Florida Republican Party chair Christian Ziegler missed this list only because his bizarre moment in the spotlight occurred a little too close to the end of the year. (In case you missed it, Ziegler — whose wife, Bridget, is a member of the Sarasota School Board and a cofounder of the infamous book- banning group Moms for Liberty — was accused of sexual assault by a woman with whom he and his wife are said to have previously engaged in a ménage à trois.) So much for preserving our innocence. On a lighter note, the Dolphins don’t suck, and David Beckham brought the world’s most dynamic soccer player to town. Enough with the formalities. Below, listed in alphabetical order, are your 2023 Dirty Dozen, an appropriately motley crew of Florida Men and Women.
