Late Thursday, West Palm Beach nursing assistant Icilda Cole called her son to firm up their Thanksgiving plans.

Otis Beckford, 26, promised the 44-year-old woman he’d bring his girlfriend and their 7-month-old daughter, Danielle,  to his grandmother’s home in Palm Bay for turkey and ham.

Cole said he looked forward to the four-generation gathering at her mother’s house.

“Now, he won’t be there,” Cole said, repeating Beckford’s nickname, Nickalous. “Such a shame! I had two children. Otis and my daughter. I have one left. I never thought something like this would happen to him.”

Beckford was killed by a crazed gunman Friday at the offices of the engineering firm RS&H, downtown Orlando. Beckford, a Royal Palm Beach High School graduate who left West Palm Beach two years ago after being laid off, did architectural work of the firm.

He had given himself a few more months to pile up money before going to college to finish his bachelor’s degree, Cole said.

“He wanted to be an architect,” Cole said by telephone from Orlando, where she’s claiming the body. “He loved that job but he couldn’t find any in West Palm Beach.”

Was she worried to see Otis leave?

“No,” she said. “I never feared that something would happen to him. He was a very good person, quiet too, and he got along with everyone. He wasn’t the type to be in trouble. And then, he was an adult. What could I do?”

Shortly before noon Friday, a former employee who’d been fired by the firm, Jason Rodriguez, burst into the RS&H office, pulled a handgun from a holster under his shirt and fired at Beckford. Beckford stood by the reception area, Orlando cops said. Rodriguez, 40, a draftsman, shot five other people, injuring them all, before vanishing. Authorities caught up with Rodriguez at his mother’s home two and a half hours later.

After he graduated from high school, Cole told me, Beckford worked odd jobs before attended classes at the New England Institute of Technology in New England.

“He worked for a small engineering firm in West Palm, but he was laid off,” said mom. “He searched everywhere for a job. Tthere was nothing for him here. He really didn’t want to leave, but he had to.

“You know what,” said the soft-spoken Cole, who brought her son into the United States from Jamaica when he was 15, “every time you turn on the news these days, there’s another shooting like this one. It’s high time for this country to change many things, including how it deals with all the crazy people out there.”

Cole said Beckford will be buried in West Palm Beach.

Norman (AP Photo)

Double bogey for Jupiter Island golfer Greg Norman!

Not only is he dealing with his separation from new wife Chris Evert, the Boca Raton-based former tennis star, but now he’s got a ticked off ex-wife to deal with.

Palm Beacher Laura Andrassy says the Great White Shark stiffed her in his yearly payment of their divorce settlement.

She contends in new paperwork filed in the Martin County courthouse in Stuart that his $2 million wire transfer to her June 15 was about $72,000 short. She asked a judge to force Norman to pay up, or order arbitration.

According to their contract, the missus, a former flight attendant, will be $103 million richer by 2023 as a result of the agreement they signed when they were divorced two years ago.

So, what’s $72,000?

“It’s a substantial sum of money,” said Andrassy’s lawyer in West Palm Beach, Jack Scarola. “I have no desire to annoy Mr. Norman. But he has an obligation to meet his contractual commitments. If someone owes $72,000, just pay up.”

Andrassy, leaving a divorce hearing with lawyer Jack Scarola in 2007 (The Palm Beach Post archives)

Norman’s divorce attorney, Jeff Fisher, declined comment. But in his response filed in court, Fisher wrote that Norman and his ex promised they’d seek arbitration for disputes instead of the court system.

Andrassy’s recent motion to enforce is nothing more than a “method to feed information (usually of a disparaging nature) about the former husband to the media.”

The $72,000 alleged shortfall, according to court papers, comes from the calculation of Andrassy’s share in Norman’s Colorado ranch, Seven Lakes Lodge. She’s supposed to get close to $780,000 a year for the ranch, but got much less.

Incidentally, Norman recently put the property on the market for $55 million.

The motion reopens the saga of golfer/vintner’s divorce, which was filed in June 2006 after Andrassy accused him of cheating on her with tennis champ Evert. Although Norman and Andrassy were officially divorced when he married Evert in June 2008, they’ve been ironing some of their differences since.

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The Mine Games (Courtesy www.charterworld.com)

The office of State Attorney Mike McAuliffe Monday declined to prosecute a businessman from California accused of raping a well-known area woman after a party on a Palm Beach-based yacht.

The alleged victim, whose name is being kept confidential by Page2Live because of the nature of the crime, told Palm Beach Police in February that she believes someone dropped a roofie in her drink during a Super Bowl party on the 164-foot Mine Games. The yacht, which is usually docked at the Australian docks, is owned by West Virginia coal mogul and North Palm Beach resident Chris Cline.

The victim, a 38-year-old woman who’s popular among The Island’s nightlife dwellers, told police she remembers being at the party, at times doing tequila shots. But she doesn’t remember much past 9:30 p.m., Feb. 1, until she found herself in the front seat of her car engaged in sex with a man who was on the yacht but whom she had not met.

For more on this story, look below or click (Read more…)

Lt. Paula Kronsperger, one of the highest-profile females at the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office, is out on worker’s comp as more allegations of sex-related wrongdoing rain on her.

Kronsperger, 41, the warrants and fugitives unit’s executive officer, went out on leave Oct. 11, according to PBSO spokeswoman Teri Barbera. Barbera couldn’t legally discuss the reason for Kronsperger’s temporary departure. But two sources at the department said months under Internal Affairs scrutiny and a new investigation by PBSO’s Human Resources have stressed out Kronsperger.

Four days before Kronsperger’s departure, as many as 20 of her employees descended on the office of HR honcho Joyce Stelling to file a federal EEOC complaint against Kronsperger.

Reason: Hostile work environment!

John Kazanjian, head of the local PBA police union, confirmed the existence of the EEOC complaint.

“The sheriff (Ric Bradshaw) called me to ask if I could hold off some of my members from joining the EEOC action,” Kazanjian said. “But I couldn’t do it.”

The troops, meanwhile, are grumbling that it is highly unusual for a PBSO employee to be allowed on worker’s comp for stress. Usually, stressed out employees have to use the Family Medical Leave Act.

FMLA leaves are unpaid. But because Kronsperger is on worker’s comp, PBSO continues paying her $104,000-a-year salary, Barbera confirmed.

Last month a member of Bradshaw’s cabinet, Maj. Michael Veccia, invoked the FMLA to take a leave the day he was supposed to be interviewed by Internal Affairs in connection with a hostile work environment complaint. He, too, told the brass he was stressed out.

Why the double standard? It’s nothing of the sort, Barbera said.

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

Satan protecting the vodka bar? A good call with this crowd! (Michele Sandberg/Special to Page2Live)

Nearly 400 people — culled mostly from local young society — passed the gates of party hell Friday night for the Ann Norton Sculpture Garden’s yearly bash known as Devil’s Night.

Devil’s Night is, bar none, one of the best Halloween-themed event in SoFla. I’m told students from the Dreyfoos School of the Arts spent most of the week decorating with ghouls and skeletons and graves and spider webs a garden that seems to have been designed only for this party.

And as they do every year, the dark nooks and crannies filled up, on the late side, with those seeking a little privacy.

At $160-per, the affair is the Gentlemen of the Garden’s richest fundraiser of the year. Proceeds go to the waterfront sculpture museum.

Check out Page2Live’s largest ever party photo-gallery, by Michele Sandberg:

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Author Dave Irving

Outsiders – protesters who call author Dave Irving a Nazi sympathizer, Adolf Hitler apologist and Holocaust denier – is what Irving mostly worries about on his current coast-to-coast book tour.

But in Manalapan on Monday night, the threat came from within his audience, 35-plus people attending his lecture at the Ritz-Carlton.

As Irving stood at the podium and discussed “decoding the Nazi message,” he said, two of his guests – one with a knife – started rumbling outside the Ocean 1 conference room that Irving rented.

When the dust settled, about 9 p.m., both fighters were taken to the Delray Medical Center for treatment. Both were released overnight.

Manalapan police identified the combatants as Christopher Nachtman, 31, of Lake Worth, and John Kopko, 43, of West Palm Beach.

Kopko, whose criminal record includes a firearm arrest and another for aggravated assault, is a known white supremacist who once tried to force the county’s library to buy Nazi magazines and literature. During his effort in 1992, Kopko was known to perform the Nazi salute before Jewish library patrons.

Neither Kopko or Nachtman has been charged in the Ritz incident.

“I’m deeply ashamed that this happened,” said Irving, who once was imprisoned in Austria for spreading his rhetoric there. “I want to apologize to the people of Palm Beach County and the Ritz-Carlton management. But this incident had nothing to do with me or my lectures.

The Ritz

There was some broken furniture, Irving said, and plenty of blood on the hotel’s carpets. The group rented the conference room under the name Focal Point Publications, Irving’s book publisher in Great Britain.

“We didn’t know about this individual,” said the Ritz-Carlton’s General Manager, Brad Cance. “We’re still waiting for the results of the police investigation, but I can already tell you we don’t condone the kind of behavior we saw last night.”

Irving said his tour will continue. He’s headed to Clearwater and up the coast to New York City. Irving said both men were registered properly for his lecture, and paid their $15 fees. Vetted attendees are told about the lectures’ location just hours before the start.

“We do background checks on everyone who comes to my lectures,” Irving said. “We want no trouble or confrontations with protesters. But just the fact that someone came armed with a knife is worrisome.”

Irving said Nachtman came with his wife, Jessica, who might set up a bookstore and sell his books. Irving said he didn’t know Kopko personally but said he, too, was properly registered. Irving called Kopko “some kind of extremist.”

“I guess we’re going to double up our efforts to keep trouble-makers out,” Irving told Page2Live. “But so far, what we were doing worked since we never had anything like this happen.”

As it is the case on each tour stop, local protesters were trying to track down the location of Irving’s lecture most of Monday afternoon and night.

“We sent them to a phony location,” Irving said. “They all went to the Hilton at the West Palm Beach airport while we were at the Ritz.”

Irving said the two men had prior beef, although he said he didn’t know why. Neither Nachtman or Kopko could be reached for comment. Their phones are only activated for outgoing calls.

Incidentally, a Palm Beach Post photographer this morning found a handgun, in full view, on the ground across the street from the Ritz. Police seized it. There is no indication whether the discovery is related to Irving’s gathering.

Said Andrew Rosenkranz, head of the Florida regional Anti-Defamation League: “Irving’s events attract anti-Semites, white supremacists and racist skinheads, so it should be no surprise that these violent assaults occurred last night.”

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Mr. Bean lookalike David Irving says Hitler was an OK guy (Photo courtesy irvingbooks.com)

Unlike run-of-the-mill publicity book tours, British author David Irving’s is the stuff of spy novels.

There’s a good reason for that.

An Adolf Hitler apologist, Irving denies the Holocaust existed. His fans usually run the gamut from skinheads to white supremacists. And protesters often stand outside.

Irving’s coast-to-coast circus passes through West Palm Beach tonight, according to his Web site www.irvingbooks.com.

Thing is, only a chosen few know where he’ll be at 7 p.m.

Irving, a military historian by trade, reads from his books and meets followers in hastily rented hotel meeting rooms or restaurant back rooms. The establishments’ owners are kept in the dark about his beliefs.

Those who’ll attend the West Palm gathering need to sign up online, and pay $15, before being told where to go.

“Each person is vetted by his local contacts,” said a WPB activist who only gave his first name, Nick. “We’ve called just about every hotel in the area and he hasn’t reserved a meeting room. We were hoping to protest, but we can’t find him.”

This time Irving, who owns a home in Key West, is pushing Banged Up, a book in which he writes about spending 400 days in solitary confinement in Austria for spewing his rhetoric in that country.

If someone knows where Irving will be tonight, please post it on a comment. I’d like to interview the dude.

(Meghan McCarthy/The Palm Beach Post)

Look who showed up at a private polo match Friday afternoon at Wellington’s International Polo Club! Comic Pauly Shore, who’d never seen polo before. “Yeah, that looks like something I’m going to take up when I get home,” Shore told Page2Live. Not! Then Shore found out he’d be going head-to-head against Jerry Seinfeld this weekend in West Palm Beach. Seinfeld’s at the Kravis. Shore at the Improv at CityPlace. “Oh really,” he said. “Well, Seinfeld’s the man.” Pause. “But then, I’m the man, too!”

Ellington (Copyright Jason Myers)

How short a memory does Palm Beach County have?

A convicted felon and lawyer who resigned to avoid disbarment is being inducted into the Palm Beach County Sports Hall of Fame.

He’s been off probation for barely three years.

Richard Ellington was nailed for his attempt to cover up a corruption scandal that rocked the county’s Housing Finance Authority in the late 1990s. Ellington was sentenced in 2004 to four months in prison, four months of house arrest and two years of probation for his fraud and conspiracy conviction.

He was accused of trying to cover up illegal payments for votes. His voice ended up on wiretaps telling an authority official not to leave a paper trail.

Still, the 61-year-old Ellington will be inducted in the spring alongside the likes of baseball great Hank Aaron, a West Palm Beach resident, New England Patriots running back and Glades Central High grad Fred Taylor, former Miami Dolphins team chaplain Leo Armbrust and Olympic equestrian Margie Engel.

So, what gives? Find out by looking below or click (Read more…)

Can’t blame some TV viewers for getting a little confused. Krista Marx, the judge in the recently ended, high-profile Dunbar Village rape trial, and WPBF-Channel 25’s Terri Parker, who covered the trial gavel to gavel, look like they could be sharing the same DNA.

Krista Marx (left) and Terri Parker: Do they share similar DNA?