Memo Gracida (left), congratulates Goodman after their team, Isla Carroll, won the 2004 U.S. Open in Wellington (click on the photo for more)

International Polo Club Palm Beach owner John Goodman’s bar tab moments before last week’s deadly car crash shows he ordered about $200 worth of booze during Ladies’ Night at a popular Wellington watering-hole.

According to a source close to the criminal investigation into the accident, Goodman used his credit card to pay for 16 shots of tequila, one of Grey Goose vodka and one of Johnny Walker red, then left a $60-tip for the bartender at the Players Club.

“It doesn’t mean he drank it all himself,” the informant told Page2Live. “As a matter of fact, we’re fairly sure he didn’t. But he bought the first round, and there were seven or eight people with him. There was definitely some kind of a partying going on.”

Fewer than 30 minutes after Goodman left, 23-year-old Scott Wilson was dead. Goodman, 46, at the wheel of his $250,000-Bentley convertible, plowed into Wilson’s Hyundai after allegedly ignoring a stop sign. Goodman suffered minor injuries. No charge has been filed, but the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office and state attorneys are investigating whether Goodman was impaired.

Assistant State Attorney Ellen Roberts, who specializes in high-profile DUI cases, subpoenaed Goodman’s credit card receipt from the Players Club but also those of his friends.

The Players Club’s lawyer, Craig Galle, is traveling and couldn’t be reached.

So, what else will Roberts find out? Look below or click (Read more…)

Casey Johnson

Socialite Casey Johnson, the 30-year-old Johnson & Johnson heiress who died mysteriously in Los Angeles Monday, was a Wellington fixture as a young woman.

Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, the wild child BFF of aging celebutante Paris Hilton spent winters learning horseback riding at her parents’ Welly home. Johnson was the daughter of New York Jets owner Woody Johnson and mom Nancy Sale Johnson.

Both are divorced now, and Sale married NFL great Ahmad Rashad in 2007.

But many in Wellington’s equestrian world remember Casey and the rest of the clan as a carefree bunch who bought the best show horses.

“At one point, the family owned a horse that went to the Olympics,” said TV equestrian analyst Mason Phelps, a Wellington resident. “Casey learned from the best, on the best horses. Casey was here mostly as a child. She learned to ride but never competed like her mom.

“Like a lot of winter residents in Wellington, she lost interest as she grew up and the family moved away.”

Born from billionaire parents –- she was the great-great-great granddaughter of Johnson & Johnson founder Robert Wood Johnson -– Casey ended up the target of tabloid news. She recently was engaged to scandalous reality TV star Tila Tequila.

There was plenty partying in Casey’s life. There were lesbian, and hetero, loves. There were the rehabs and the salacious accusations that her 60-year-old aunt, Lisbet Johnson, stole her boyfriend.

Sale Johnson unloaded the family’s Wellington home to equestrian festival owner Mark Bellissimo for $1.87 million in 2004 and left town. But Sale recently returned to Palm Beach County three weeks ago, and paid $4.95 million for a new pied-a-terre at the Bears Club in Jupiter.

You can also read the story on pbpulse, Casey Johnson, socialite and girlfriend of Tila Tequila, has died

Quirky actress Brittany Murphy (Clueless, 8 Mile, Just Married) was last seen in South Florida in early April. She and husband Simon Monjack, a little known writer-director, caught several tennis matches at the Sony Ericsson on Key Biscayne. Murphy, 32, also the voice of Luanne on the Fox cartoon King of the Hill, was discovered passed out in her shower by her mother Sunday morning in West Hollywood. She was pronounced dead minutes later. Although a Los Angeles coroner says the death appears to have been from natural causes, Murphy battled rumors of drug abuse for years. She was fired last month from the lead role of the movie The Caller. And earlier this year, rumors that Murphy abused prescription drugs were fueled by reports of erratic behavior on the set of Something Wicked, due out next year. Her character reportedly was re-written to fit Murphy’s strange demeanor, which included falling in and out of consciousness. Murphy, who denied suffering from an eating disorder, was famous for her portrayal of mentally unstable characters in movies like Girl, Interrupted and Don’t Say a Word.

PBPulse.com: Actress Brittany Murphy dies in LA at age 32

Jim Sitton, staring at one of his awards for a story titled "Dangerously Dim" (Courtesy b-roll.net)

The WPTV-Channel 5 newsroom is going through the toughest day in its 55-year history.

Tragedy struck the station’s best-known, award-winning photographer, Jim Sitton, on what should have been one of the happiest times of the year.

A gunman related to Sitton’s wife, Muriel, entered their Jupiter home and allegedly shot six people gathered for the Thanksgiving feast. Four have died, including Sitton’s 6-year-old daughter, Makayla. The suspect, Michael Merhige, remains at large.

“Since Makayla was born, Jim has been taking pictures of her every single day to chronicle how she was developing and growing,” said a station insider who asked to remain anonymous. “You’d turn on the computer used for editing tapes, and there’d be pictures of Makayla all over the screen. It’s like everyone at the station knew her.”

Sitton, 48, has been at the NBC affiliate for about 15 years, after a short stint at WPBF-Channel 25. Sitton mostly worked investigative assignments with the station’s Contact 5 reporters, Shannon Cake and Kelley Dunn. Both women spent some time with Sitton at the home after the 10 p.m. shooting.

“He’s the most amazing friend,” Cake said, her voice breaking with emotion. “I just can’t talk about it.”

For more about the tragedy, look below or click (Read more…)

Otis "Nickalous" Beckford and girlfriend Daneicka Coley (Courtesy Orlando Sentinel)

Otis Beckford, 26, was killed by a crazed gunman Friday at the offices of the engineering firm RS&H in downtown Orlando. His mother spoke exclusively to The Post’s Jose Lambiet. Read the full story here.
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