Casey

For the second time since 2007, the Palm Beach area chapter of the Red Cross is losing its CEO after a brief tenure.

Larry Casey, the visible frontman of the disaster-responding charity, told Page2Live he’ll step down on April 9. He has been leading the non-profit’s branch, which reaches into the Treasure Coast and cuts across Florida to the west coast, for just 20 months.

Casey took the reins from J.B. Hunt, who was fired in 2008 because she made it a habit to take decisions without discussing them with the board.

About his departure, Casey said he is looking for a change in his career. And he’s taking in a teenage family member, with whom he plans to spend more time.

Privately, according to an insider, Casey had expressed frustration with the American Red Cross’ current drive to take more control of local chapters.

And then, Casey always seemed more at ease in one of his previous jobs, as longtime aide to former Republican U.S. Rep. E. Clay Shaw.

“It’s just the right time to go,” Casey said. “Hurricane season is still a few months away and the chapter will have time to find someone else.

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Exline

Disgraced former West Palm Beach City Commissioner Jim Exline this week filed a lawsuit against a woman who caused a chain collision in Lake Worth last year, ultimately injuring him.

I’m told the woman’s insurance company, State Farm, wants to pay Exline $6,500 for the medical bills that resulted from the June crash. Exline’s bills are at least five times higher, and counting. So he sued.

Exline, 45, made news in 2007 when he resigned his seat and pleaded guilty to tax evasion. He was sent to a federal prison camp near Atlanta for 10 months.

Although he wouldn’t comment about the accident or the lawsuit, Exline, an urban planner by trade, says he has been struggling since he rejoined society in April 2008.

“There’s absolutely no planning going on out there,” he said today. “I’m just waiting it out, like a lot of people. I’m a planner. That’s what I do. I don’t know anything else.”

And he’s still nursing the injuries that occurred near downtown Lake Worth, when a Hyundai plowed into another car, which then hit Exline’s Jaguar.

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The Fanjuls

Emilia Fanjul, the wife of Palm Beach sugar mogul Pepe Fanjul, told Page2Live today that the thief they allowed into their suite at the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills “didn’t take much.”

The Fanjuls were on the Left Coast to attend the Oscars when a polite, well-groomed man they thought was a hotel worker weaseled his way into the suite Friday afternoon, saying he needed to repair the AC.

While the couple milled about their expansive suite, the man helped himself to their bling.

“At least, there was no violence, nobody was hurt, and very little taken,” Emilia said. “He went into our bedroom and he took what was on the bed. A gold chain that my great-grandmother gave me before we left Cuba and some pearl earrings.

“It was more sentimental than valuable. But the police asked me how much it was worth.”

She told them: 45 Gs.

Pepe Fanjul is, along with his brothers, one of the owners of the West Palm Beach-based Florida Crystals and one of the biggest landowners in the state.

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Palm Beach sugar and land baron Pepe Fanjul and his wife Emilia were robbed in their room at the fancy Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills Friday night, shortly after the couple arrived in the Los Angeles area to attend the Oscars.

Fanjul, 65, a generous donor to the Republican Party, is one of the owners of the West Palm Beach-based sugar grower and manufacturer Florida Crystals.

According to several reports from the West Coast, the Cuban-born Fanjul and his missus, 63, struck a conversation in Spanish with a man as they rode up in a hotel elevator. The Fanjuls went to their room, then heard a knock on their door.

It was the man from the elevator, wearing a blue uniform with the word “hotel” written on it. He claimed he needed to fix their air-conditioning.

As he pretended to work around the room, the suspect allegedly helped himself to Emilia’s extensive jewelry collection, which Pepe described to police as “valuable.”

Hotel staffers have been going through security videos to identify the suspect. There’s been no arrest. The Fanjuls weren’t injured.

The Fanjuls, who are highly-visible on Palm Beach’s do-gooder circuit, were on their way back today and couldn’t be reached for comment.

Despite the too-low-for-the-season temperature, hundreds strolled up and down West Palm Beach’s design district Saturday night for the Young Friends of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County’s yearly Evening on Antique Row. Dixie Highway was shut down to cars between Southern and Greenwood, and visitors got to check out more than 40 acclaimed antique stores. The party then shifted to the pool deck of CityPlace’s South Tower. Check out Michael Price’s gallery of the wingding by clicking here or on the photo:

Susan Morgan (left) and Maxine Massengill (click on the photo for more)

Kelly and Washburn

If you believe her employment file, Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office corrections deputy Perla Kelly was no model worker as of late.

She was disciplined or reprimanded four times last year, and was under Internal Affairs investigation.

But even she may have gone overboard when she got friendly with an inmate she guarded at the county slammer in West Palm Beach — and she got pregnant.

In time, the 17-year PBSO veteran married the dude, Victor Washburn. He was arrested at least 12 times in South Florida over the past decade, according to records.

Newlywed Kelly, 40, got canned two weeks ago, a month before the baby’s arrival.

“She was terminated for abandoning her post,”  said Col. Mike Gauger, PBSO’s chief of operations. “She had a lot of unexcused absences from work and then didn’t show up for three days in a row.”

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Donald Trump and Geri Morrow at the Jan. 15 gala. (Click on the photo for more)

Tensions at Alzheimer’s Community Care.

The popular chairs of the non-profit’s yearly Palm Beach gala, Frank and Geri Morrow, resigned last week after they were told that they’d have to have all features of future events approved by the group’s full-time staff.

Usually, the chair of Palm Beach galas exert tremendous control. They pick the entertainment, decorations, menus and the seating arrangements with little, or no, staff involvement. And attendance depends on a chair’s popularity.

“We resigned when they told us we’d have to get everything approved,” Frank Morrow said. “They are not really giving us a reasons why the policy changed. This year’s event (click here) was very successful.

“But one thing that (CEO) Mary Barnes indicated is that she thinks the gala had become ‘too societal,’ too much of a party and not enough of a fund-raiser. Well, if they want full control, now they’ve got it.”

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A documentary movie about Palm Beach County’s battle to shut down the homeless shelter at West Palm Beach’s Westgate Tabernacle Church will be previewed in this area twice next week. And if the trailer of filmmaker Mark Crupi’s Avis Vs. Goliath is telling, then our local government stands to be savaged yet again. On background of the Rolling Stones‘ Sympathy for the Devil, the trailer starts with: “It’s the story of a county with a long history of scandals . . . and its fight to close a shelter housing children.”

Crupi, by the way, made news this week when he asked county officials for comment about his taped interview with retired county secretary Cyndy Stephens. Stephens claimed that her ex-husband, Terry Verner, the county’s retired code enforcer, would give the church a hard time by day then drive a relative to its shelter at night. The movie’s title refers to the church’s bishop, Avis Hill. Said Crupi: “It’s a classic story of good versus evil.” Evil, here, being the government.

The film will be shown at 7 p.m. March 12, at the synagogue L’Dor Va-Dor on Lake Worth Road in Lake Worth, and March 13 at the Westgate Tabernacle Church, 1600 Suwanee Drive in West Palm Beach.

The boisterous Palm Beach artist Edwina Sandys — a painter, sculptor, illustrator, print-maker, and the granddaughter of WWII British Prime Minister Winston Churchill — is showing some of her work at the Whitney building downtown West Palm Beach. The show’s curated by local collage artist Bruce Helander. The show opened over the weekend, and is scheduled to be open to the public until March 20. To see who’s been there, click here or on the photo.

Former U.S. Congressman Mark Foley (right) with oil heiress Ginny Bond and Foley's partner, Layne Nisenbaum (Click on the Michael Price photo for more)

Trent Thompson, one of three Palm Beach Sheriff’s deputies investigated in connection with illegal oxycodone purchases, resigned from the agency in the wake of a drug test in which he tested positive for opiates, Page2Live has learned from agency sources.

Eighteen-year veteran Thompson, a former SWAT team member and son of former PBSO Col. Tommy Thompson, put in his letter of resignation hours after taking the test. I’m told there will be no further investigation concerning Trent, 38.

However his wife, Deputy Sarah Thompson, 33, remains in the eye of the storm. She’s still on administrative leave after her arrest last week for allegedly buying the powerful and highly addictive painkiller from one of her street informants.

A third deputy, Shawn Monti, 41, was also placed on leave and ordered to undergo a drug test. He tested clean and returned to work.

All three deputies were on the same patrol shift in the North County District.

There’s no comment from the brass.

As a SWAT member in 2003, Trent Thompson killed a MAC-10 wielding suspect in a standoff.