Romney, tasting the spaghetti sauce

The next presidential election is three years away, but a contender in the race that saw U.S. Sen. John McCain emerge as the Republican’s candidate last year is already working on unseating Pres. Barack Obama. Mitt Romney, a conservative former governor of Massachusetts, was in Boca Raton this weekend for a dinner at the $2 million-home in east Boca of real estate investor Mark Guzzetta. Guzzetta cooked — Italian, of course — and a dozen local swells wrote checks for a total $25,000 to Romney’s political action committee, Free and Strong America. Also in da house: Florida Senate President Jeff Atwater. Check out Page2Live’s gallery:

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Boca businessman Mark Guzzetta with Romney

Bova received the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce's Small Business Leader of the Year award in 2004 (Palm Beach Post archives)

The scandal that engulfed the well-known Fort Lauderdale law firm of Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler has spilled into the Boca Raton restaurant biz.

Tony Bova, 58, a Boca resident and the high-profile owner of a string of area restaurants, counts disgraced attorney and political power broker Scott Rothstein among his partners in at least a half-dozen ventures.

And chief among those are Bova Ristorante, Bova’s pride and joy on Boca’s Federal Highway, and the chain Bova Restaurant Group.

Bova Ristorante, where older guys with slicked-back hair loved to hook up with women too young for them, mysteriously closed its doors shortly before Rothstein took off for North Africa last month.

And no one’s talking.

“Tony Bova has no comment at this point,” a spokeswoman said.

Bova’s association with Rothstein, who’s believed to be the principal in a $500 million Ponzi scheme and just returned to Florida to face the music, surprised observers.

“Tony was a very successful restaurant owner in his own right,” said Tom Prakas, a hospitality-business broker. “I don’t know why he needed Scott Rothstein.”

One strange thing regarding Bova and Rothstein is that their businesses last year spent more than $200,000 on political causes, mostly in a heated race across the Palm Beach County line.

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

Todd English and Erica Wang in happier times (Courtesy New York Post)

– Celebrity chef Todd English won’t let a minor inconvenience like his ex-fiancee’s arrest stand in the way of his empire’s expansion in South Florida. Suddenly BFFs English and food entrepreneur Lirim Jacobi (founder of the Taverna Opa party chain) are opening a branch of Olives, English’s signature restaurant, at the old Opus 5 in Boca Raton, according to the local foodie Web site jannorris.com. The new Olives should be open in Boca Center by the end of November. Jacobi and English are also working on Wild Olives, another new joint located at CityPlace in West Palm Beach. The gossip rags, however, is where the particularly photogenic English, 49, has been dwelling recently. He was to have married employee Erica Wang at the St. Regis in NYC. But the runaway groom called her from an appearance at the CityPlace Taverna Opa to tell her it just didn’t feel right. They called it off. Last week, Wang was arrested for throwing a watch at the chef in a fight.

Stephanie Seymour and Peter Brant in Wellington (The Palm Beach Post)

– The divorce of part-time Palm Beachers Stephanie Seymour, the former super model, and her newsprint mogul polo-playing hubby, Peter Brant, is getting more venomous by the day. The two, who co-own a $5.5 million weekend home on Dunbar Road, have been duking it out since May in a Connecticut court. Now, Brant is claiming in paperwork obtained by the New York Post that Seymour secretly traveled to Palm Beach on a day she was supposed to be with their kids last week, and “broke into” their home. She supposedly took $700,000 worth of stuff. Broke in? According to county records, Seymour’s name is on the deed.

The Loebs (Courtesy NickLoeb.com)

Florida Senate hopeful Nick Loeb dropped out of the District 25 race a day after Page2Live reported that his Swedish wife had filed for divorce.

Loeb tells The Palm Beach Post’s George Bennett that he’ll personally reimburse donors who contributed a total of more than $100,000 to his campaign.

He also tells Bennett that wife Anna Loeb ran into an old boyfriend in Sweden this summer and rekindled with that dude.

She filed for divorce Oct. 2, just weeks after getting picked up for DUI.

“I wish things could be different,” Loeb said.

For more, click here.

Andy Mill, in 2001 with his children, Nicky (left), Colton and Alex (Jennifer Podis/The Palm Beach Post)

Tennis legend Chris Evert’s ex husband said Monday he’s happy.

And that’s somewhat of a novelty for Andy Mill, a 1970s Olympic skiing hero and a respected area deep-sea fisherman.

Three years ago, he inked his side of his divorce settlement agreement with Evert in a Fort Lauderdale courtroom.

Depression set in.

Mill didn’t mind standing in Evert’s shadow. He once drank champagne in one of her high-heel shoes in public at the Boca Raton Resort.

But when it came to an abrupt end, Mill had a hard time.

“I cried routinely for close to three years,” the 55-year-old Mill said in an exclusive interview with Page2Live. “I loved my family. I loved Chris and our three sons and my life with them.”

And Mill, who now alternates between homes in Boca Raton and Aspen, Colo., still angrily blames his then-best friend, Jupiter Island golfer Greg Norman, for bringing misery to the life he loved.

Norman and Evert, who left their respective spouses for each other in 2006, announced Friday they were separated – 15 months after getting hitched on Paradise Island, The Bahamas.

These days, however, life is good for Andy Mill.

He’s engaged to, and lives with, a 40-year-old Aspen homemaker, Debra Harvick.

She, he says, is the loyal partner he always wanted.

“We do everything together,” Mill said while waiting for a flight to Florida so that he can check on his kids during the current firestorm. “We go hiking. We go bow-hunting. We go fishing. We go camping. She’s beautiful and a world-class chef. Deb has two kids herself.

“I didn’t know this when I got divorced, but I ended up happier than Chris, or Greg for that matter.”

When asked if he was surprised when he heard that Evert and Norman were on the outs, he said: “Nothing surprises me with those two. Look at the trail of destruction they left behind them for this fling.”

Despite the bliss, Mill says, he’ll never be able to forgive Norman, with whom he and Evert vacationed often. Once, Norman flew birthday boy Mill on his private jet to Augusta, Ga., to play a round of golf at Augusta National.

In 2001, BFFs Greg Norman (left), his now ex-wife Laura Andrassy, Chris Evert and Andy Mill (The Palm Beach Post archive)

Comparing Evert and Norman to “two alpha dogs going at it,” Mill said there’s no doubt they’re headed for divorce court.

“And a divorce is like a golf swing,” Mill said. “It always makes somebody happy.”

She’s not returning calls about her split from fresh, new husband Greg Norman, the Aussie golfer. But Boca Raton resident tennis star Chris Evert did leave her Palm Beach Farms home Saturday, telling paparazzi “I’m fine.” Evert and Norman announced Friday that they separated 15 months after their wedding. The two divorced their previous spouses to be together. On Saturday, Evert had two of her three sons in tow to go shopping in a surf shop. She added: “I just want to spend time with my family.”

Chris Evert leaves a surf shop near her home in Boca Raton (Splashnews/Special to Page2Live)

Chris Evert behind the wheel (Splashnews/Special to Page2Live)

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AKON rocked the fund-raising show at Boca's Mizner Amphitheater on Saturday (Michele Sandberg/Page2Live)

The Mizner Amphitheater in Boca Raton burst at the seams Saturday night with suburban teens and moms who came to see the likes of the chart-busting AKON, and R&B up-and-comers like Shontelle, Melanie Fiona, DJ Cassidy and American Yard.

Thing is, in a music genre where gaudy bling and money rule, the seven bands or solo artists who performed did it for free.

Yep. Just because Boca homemaker Stephanie Robin asked. And the acts’ boss, the Boca-based rap impresario Steve Rifkin, made sure they heard her.

Robin, 41, who suffers from breast cancer that has spread to her lungs, started raising cash for research in 2004. First, there were luncheons. She graduated to a concert last year with Queen Latifah and Saturday’s sold out Think Pink Rocks rap festival.

“We sold 4,400 tickets (at $30-a-pop),” Robin said, adding that the organization hoped to raise $100,000. “I can’t believe how well we’ve done. The buzz has been huge.”

Shontelle, 23, a Beyonce sound-alike, told Page2Live she feels close to Robin’s cause and readily accepted to fly in from New York and perform free of charge.

“As a woman, this is a disease that could one day affect me,” Shontelle said. “I feel very connected to the organizers. A lot of people I know have cancer, and I’m honored I’ve been asked to help.”

Also for sale at the wingding were slices of the world’s biggest cupcake. The 1,316-pound double chocolate pastry will have its place in the next Guinness World Book of Records. It was brought in on a forklift and, pastry chef Alethea Hickman said, baked for 30 hours. Ingredients: 500 eggs, 250 pounds of sugar, 325 pounds of flour, 300 pounds of butter cream and all at a cost of $25,000.

“There was a point when I didn’t think it was going to rise,” said Hickman, of Passion for Pastry.

Check out the night’s photo gallery by Michele Sandberg:

David Brudnoy at the synagogue Thursday (Michele Sandberg/Special to Page2Live

The folks at the Boca Raton Synagogue this week are sending an odorous message to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who’s currently at a meeting of the United Nations in New York: Your rhetoric smells, dude!

David Brudnoy, who’s on the synagogue’s social action committee, is having those sick of the Iranian’s anti-Semitic rantings drop their household garbage, in bags with his picture on them, on the temple’s front lawn.

Anna's mugshot (Courtesy PBSO)

The trophy wife of Florida Senate hopeful Nick Loeb was picked up for DUI Friday at dawn in Boca Raton.

A breathalizer test showed Anna Loeb, a Swedish photographer whom the well-connected Republican Loeb married in 2005, blew more than twice the legal limit of 0.08.

A cop described her as “emotional” and “crying” and suffering from a stuffy nose when she was taken to jail. She was released about noon Friday without bail.

Click here to see the arrest report.

Neither she nor Loeb or his campaign manager, Richard Giorgio, returned calls amid rumors that Loeb and his wife are struggling with marital problems.

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

Joe, Nick and Kevin at St. Andrew's School earlier today (Courtesy St. Andrew's)

The Jonas Brothers, a.k.a. pop stars Kevin, Joe and Nick Jonas, dropped in by the chi-chi St. Andrew’s School in Boca this morning to play some softball and hang with returning students.

Dr. Carlos Barroso, a school spokesman, said the institution was contacted by the Jo Bros’ people last week about playing softball and doing lunch with officials and VIP before their South Florida show.

“They’re doing this in every city,” Barroso said. “They picked us for this date here. It was very casual. They played a game with their team, the Road Dogs, against their sponsor, Marquis Jets, then they catered lunch in a tent. We had about 150 guests on campus, including some students.”

Classes start next week, but some kids have returned to the campus.

The brothers are playing a sold out BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise tonight.

Btw, they lost the game by one run, 12-13. They did, however, find time to sign memorabilia for the non-profit private school to auction off later this year.

The Jo Bros with school principal Dr. Ann Marie Krejcarek (Courtesy St. Andrew's)