Red light cameras on Okeechobee Boulevard

The West Palm Beach Police Department is throwing professional courtesy into the wind.

Patrolmen have been told Friday they’ll have to pay the city’s $125-fines if they’re caught running red-lights equipped with cameras — even while in uniform and in a squad car.

And the same goes for any other law enforcement agency circulating on the city’s territory — unless, of course, there’s a legitimate emergency!

Tired of lawmen trying to weasel out of paying, Assistant Chief Dennis Crispo last week sent a preachy letter to all other area chiefs and  Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw to lay down the law.

“Please advise your members if they are captured on camera in their vehicles running the red light at these intersections, they will be cited,” the letter reads. “The only remedy for relief will be through the traffic court system. All law enforcement personnel must understand the high standard of conduct is applied to them in order for the public to have confidence in their departments and the officers.

“This trust is a critical and precious commodity . . . and yet it is fragile and easily lost.”

For more, and the poll and the locations of WPB’s cameras, look below or click (Read more…)

Raban, on his old job

Brent Raban, a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office sergeant once known on the tough streets of Belle Glade as “The Punisher,” was fired by Sheriff Ric Bradshaw.

Raban, 34, an 11-year veteran, broke his promise to be good made last year to save his job when he was demoted to patrolman. He’d been bragging on Facebook about beating suspects.

Now, one of his neighbors in Lake Worth has been complaining Raban is “harassing” and “intimidating” her, and Internal Affairs recommended after a long probe that he be terminated.

Bradshaw signed off on it Friday.

Raban made news last year when it was revealed he patrolled the nightscape wearing a camouflage skullcap with the word PUNISHMENT. His strange Facebook postings also surfaced.

In one, he wrote he considered his job to be not so much about fighting crime as about applying punishment! Another read: “But like a good batterer, I know the areas that hide the marks well.” Better yet: Raban, who admitted to being a fan of comic books with troubled heroes like Batman and The Punisher, once commented how he hadn’t beaten anyone in 11 days.

For more, look below or click (Read more…)

The Detters in 2000, as Wendy receives the Palm Beach Post's Distinguished Law Officer of the Year (Lannis Waters/The Palm Beach Post)

The pending divorce of a husband and his wife, both West Palm Beach cops, spilled into their workplace recently.

The husband, Police Officer Steve Detter, 49, complained that his wife, Community Response Division Sgt. Wendy Detter, 48, searched his workstation for his girlfriend’s phone number then called her — while on duty.

Steve also told the brass he was worried Wendy would confront the paramour in person, and that Wendy has been checking out the girlfriend’s Facebook page from her city-owned computer.

So Internal Affairs got involved. And Wendy — winner in 2000 of The Palm Beach Post’s Distinguished Law Officer of the Year — was found to have used Facebook while on duty.

She faces a three-day suspension.

Wendy told the IA sleuths that she just wanted to print the Facebook entries of the husband’s paramour about romantic trips to use in their divorce. She added that she, not the paramour, is the victim of cyberstalking.

For more, and the poll, look below or click (Read more…)

(Click on the Mike Jachles photo for more)

It’s sexy calendar season! A day after the Miami Dolphins cheerleaders, firefighters from Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties unveiled their calendar, which includes 20 beefed up, mostly shirtless guys.

The party, at the Seminole Hard Rock Resort in Hollywood, lured several hundred women who hooted and hollered as the boys strutted their stuff and signed their works of art. (Click here for all the photos)

Since 1992, the calendars raised more than $240,000 for diverse charities. The $17, 2011 edition will raise cash for Here’s Help, a group that provides treatment for teenagers with substance abuse problems, and A Safe Haven for Newborn, which works to prevent the abandonment of children.

(Click on the Mike Jachles photo for more)

– Click here for all the photos

Clinton

The first ex-president ever to visit the West Palm Beach-based Republican web juggernaut Newsmax is a Democrat.

Two-term Commander-in-Chief Bill Clinton materialized in the Village Boulevard headquarters of the company this afternoon, surprising most of the 100-plus employees.

Clinton visited while on a short break from stumping for U.S. Senate candidate Kendrick Meek.

Ruddy

Even more surprising in Clinton’s visit to a business of the “wrong” political color is the fact that its founder and CEO, Chris Ruddy, was a thorn in the side of the Clinton White House through the 1990s when he worked as an investigative reporter.

No matter, Ruddy and Clinton became fast friends four years ago after former New York Mayor Ed Koch brokered a peace lunch at Clinton’s office in Harlem. And now, Ruddy is a donor to Clinton’s charity, the William J. Clinton Foundation.

Ruddy wouldn’t tell Page2Live what he and the ex-prez talked about for 15 minutes, but one thing is sure: Even a liberal like Bubba sure seems to appreciate Newsmax’s clout among conservatives!

Schneider's booking picture from last year (Click on the photo for more mug shots)

Update: Schneider charged officially

Investigators with Palm Beach County’s office of the State Attorney are threatening to file 50 more counts of fraud and official misconduct  against disgraced Riviera Beach Police Det. Lee Ann Schneider, a carrot to convince her to rat out a supervisor, Page2Live hears.

But so far, Schneider has refused to testify against her long time boss, ex-Riviera PD Sgt. Pat Galligan.

“The case is still pending, so we have no comment,” said S.A. spokeswoman Sarah Alsofrom.

Schneider’s lawyer didn’t return calls for comment.

The new allegations against the suspended Schneider, 42, could be even more serious than the 96 counts of officials misconduct she was charged with late last year.

At the time, she was alleged to have signed overtime slips for Galligan, allowing him to pile up overtime from his couch.

The new development, however, involve what law enforcement calls the “chain of custody” of criminal cases — the paper trail that follows evidences in crimes.

For more, and the poll, look below or click (Read more…)

Sterger (click on the photo for more)

Real mature, pro football’s oldest superstar!

Gray-haired NFL quarterback Brett Favre, 40, liked to text-message pictures of his genitals to sexy Florida State grad and Playboy model Jenn Sterger, the host of The Daily Line on cable’s Versus.

Sterger, who roamed the sidelines of the New York Jets as a reporter when Favre played there in 2008, let the kitty out of the bag during interviews with the website Deadspin.

No word yet from Favre, who’s been busy stringing the Minnesota Vikings along on whether he’s coming back to play.

A watch that Favre is known to wear at press conferences is on his wrist in one photo, and he’s nude from the waist down but wears Crocs in another, Sterger said. Sterger was so shocked when she uploaded the attachments that she threw the phone across the room.

(Click here for more photos of Sterger)

For more, look below or click (Read more…)

Ken and Elaine Langone at Mar-a-Lago

Billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffett asked the megarich to give half of their wealth to charity.

They’ve been heard loud and clear in these parts.

As many as four families or individuals with ties to Palm Beach County have pledged to follow the challenge thrown down six weeks ago by Microsoft founder Gates, and Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.

Buffett today published the list of 38 others joining the duo in pumping a whopping $60 billion into philanthropy throughout the world. The group represents just 10 percent of the richest Americans.

Among the locally familiar names are Ken and Elaine Langone, a North Palm Beach couple, and Boca’s Bernie and Billi Marcus.

“Our family is thankful for the many blessings we have enjoyed,” Ken Langone wrote in a letter addressed to Buffett as he accepted the invitation. “It is because we live in a special country, where freedom of opportunity is a cherished virtue that we can reach so high in the first place. But nothing makes our society better than when we live up to its most caring ideals of service and selflessness. So it is also with a deep sense of gratitude that we are pleased to be included in this wonderful undertaking.”

For more, and why Boca’s Bernie Marcus is giving, look below or click (Read more…)

Lemoine

Judge hopeful Ken Lemoine’s history as a West Palm Beach Police officer is a colorful one.

His personnel file — he rode the thin blue line from 1986 to 1993, before he became a lawyer — is stuffed with incident reports that include joyriding on a city-owned forklift and shooting himself in the leg.

“I also received a police combat cross for a fire fight,” Lemoine said, “and letters from members of the public saying how good of a job I was doing. I once was officer-of-the quarter. Nobody’s talking about how I would chase the bad guys in bad parts of the city in the middle of the night.”

When it comes to the negatives, however, the 48-year-old dismisses them as “20-year-old things.”

“Frankly, I don’t even remember some of these,” he said.

According to city archives, Lemoine once described himself as “bored” while working the night shift at the old West Palm Beach Auditorium. So he took a forklift on a joyride. Of course, he crashed and damaged it.

“He got on the lift,” reads the incident report, “and was running it up and down when it hit the cement overhang. Officer Lemoine knows it was wrong . . . (and he received) a copy of the bill for the repairs.”

Cost him $313.50!

For more, look below or click (Read more…)

Gordon, last year, asking a resident to help solve a murder (The Palm Beach Post)

Turmoil at the Riviera Beach Police Department!

Seven-year patrolman Nathan Gordon was stripped of his gun and badge and placed on administrative leave as Internal Affairs unravels his web of personal relationships with violent drug dealers.

And I hear that what the IA sleuths have found so far is about to give the department yet another serving of bad publicity.

A source privy to parts of the report tells me the allegations against Gordon include that he gave the home addresses of fellow officers to drug gang enforcers unhappy with police activity.

For more, look below or click (Read more…)