Attorney General Pam Bondi's Cayman trip looked like a wedding; many wonder why it wasn't

It looked like a wedding.

Sixty or 70 guests at a luxury Caribbean resort, including the governor and a former Tampa mayor. A beaming bride in a white dress with a flower in her hair. A photographer flown in to take pictures of the smiling couple with aqua water behind them.

But Attorney General Pam Bondi says no ceremony took place at the Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman on Saturday. And many questions remain about when and why Bondi made the last-minute decision not to get married.

Did Bondi bow to conservative critics who felt her jaunt across seas was politically tone deaf? The 46-year-old now says she will be wed in a small, private ceremony at a Tampa-area Baptist church.

Did leaks on gossip blogs and social media sites cause the couple to shy from the publicity? A photo of Bondi serving cocktails during the plane ride to the Cayman Islands quickly made the rounds online.

Or is something more personal and heartbreaking involved? Bondi and her fiance, 62-year-old ophthalmologist Greg Henderson, spent the weekend entertaining family and friends and are still on vacation together. But that hasn't stopped people from wondering whether one of the two got cold feet or if there was a prenuptial disagreement.

Florida sends $33.4 million in foreclosure settlement money to general revenue

Out of $334 million in cash payments sent to Florida in a multi-billion dollar mortgage settlement with major banks, about $33.4 million will go to help bolster the state’s budget.

Florida is one of several states taking a portion of the $2.5 billion in cash payments from big banks and using it for programs not directly related to the foreclosure crisis, ProPublica reports.

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Pam Bondi—who negotiated the settlement-- confirmed that 10 percent of the cash has been sent to the general fund.

“Ten percent went to the state of Florida as a penalty,” she said. “That money goes to GR (general revenue).”

Florida’s total take in the overall $25 billion settlement—which includes principle writedowns and mortgage modifications--is worth about $8.4 billion.

More groups lobbying Bondi with ideas for $300 million in foreclosure settlement cash

Attorney General Pam Bondi is being flooded with advice after she asked members of the public for their thoughts on how she should spend more than $300 million in unallocated cash from a $25 billion mortgage settlement over foreclosures

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, a Tampa-area Democrat, sent Bondi suggestions on how to spend the cash this week, urging her not to allow it to be used for plugging Florida's budget hole. She wants the money to go directly to housing initiatives.

The Florida Housing Coalition is the latest group to ask Bondi to spend the money on affordable housing initiatives like the State Housing Initiative Program (SHIP) and the State Apartment Incentive Loan (SAIL). State funds that normally go to those programs have been redirected in recent budget years. 

Gov. Rick Scott's biggest failure: Chief of Staff Steve MacNamara

Rick Scott’s biggest failure as governor has a name: Steve MacNamara.

An at-times ethically challenged Tallahassee insider, MacNamara was hired by the neophyte governor to avoid the very type of major embarrassment Scott suffered last week.

Last Tuesday at a Miami Freedom Tower event, Scott ceremonially signed a law cracking down on firms that do business in Cuba and Syria. But he then issued a letter that called the very law he signed unenforceable and unconstitutional because it infringes on foreign trade.

The about-face transformed Scott from Cuban exiles’ toast of the town into a suspected foe politically undermining their bill to help big business.

The Cuban-American Republican lawmakers at Scott’s side were blindsided by his letter. They wondered if his office was double dealing. Even the team supporting Attorney General Pam Bondi — Scott’s most-powerful and helpful elected ally in the state — is suspicious.

So the governor lost face with big political allies. His poll numbers remain dangerously low. But MacNamara gets to keep his $189,000 annual salary to keep Scott’s administration running smoothly.

“Clearly,” said U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, “the governor’s staff has not served him well and has really hurt him.”

The Rick Scott of 2010 could have predicted as much when he campaigned against Tallahassee insiders. But after a few rookie missteps, Scott last year hired MacNamara from the office of the Senate President, who incidentally had one of the most politically embarrassing years under MacNamara’s watch.

In the Senate, the AP reported Friday, MacNamara "helped steer a no-bid consulting contract worth $360,000 to a friend who now leads a task force rooting out state government waste."

Questions about MacNamara’s integrity go back a decade. In between his stints as staff chief to the Florida House Speaker in 1999 and 2000, MacNamara secretly worked out a lobbying gig to help persuade the state to reverse course and permit a cement plant on the scenic Ichetucknee River. More than two years later, the Commission on Ethics cleared him after another lobbyist and MacNamara ally changed his story.

Once on Scott’s team, MacNamara the insider got to work.

MacNamara walled off the governor from others, played agency heads against each other, hired loyalists at six-figure salaries (paying them more than women in the same jobs), forced out his rivals and helped out his buddies, according to a Herald/Times story Sunday. Tea partiers have expressed concern, noting the governor has vetoed less government spending — a favorite Tallahassee endeavor — when compared to Scott’s first year without MacNamara.

More here

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/06/2786591/gov-rick-scotts-biggest-failure.html#storylink=cpy

 

Bondi seeking public advice for how to spend $300 million in housing aid

Attorney General Pam Bondi is asking the public to give her office suggestions on how to spend about $300 million in settlement money from a $8.4 billion settlement with several large banks.

Part of a $25 billlion national settlement over robo-signing abuses, Florida's $8.4 billion settlement includes money for principle reductions, mortgage modifications and cash payments to people who were foreclosed upon.

Then there's a $300 million chunk of change that goes to the state, that has not yet been allocated. Bondi has not yet said what the money will be used for, but she's beginning to seek public input. 

The money is supposed to be used for "consumer relief" and could go to help hire housing counselors, fund foreclosure assistance programs, or pay for neighborhood revitalization. Some states have indicated they'd use their unallocated funds to plug their budget holes, but Bondi indicated that she is not considering that.

Members of the public have until May 14 to make comments at MyFloridaLegal.com.

Scott names two new members to task force to look at Stand Your Ground, public safety

Gov. Rick Scott has added two members to the task force that will review the state's controversial Stand Your Ground law, and other safety issues.

Scott, along with Attorney General Pam Bondi, selected Sheriff Jerry Demings, of Orange County and Chief David L. Perry, the chief of Florida State University Police Department.

Some are crying foul over the makeup of the 19-member task force, which includes several gun-friendly legislators and two of the lawmakers who helped write the Stand Your Ground law. The chair, Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, is reportedly a member of the National Rifle Association, which helped pass the controversial law at the heart of the Trayvon Martin case.

Here's our story on the task force, which many believe will not be able to produce any meaningful change to an NRA-backed law, given its gun-friendly makeup.

The task force has been criticized not only for a lack of diversity of thought, but also racial and age diversity. A group called the Dream Defenders marched to Scott's office on Friday to protest the lack of young people (specifically young minority males) on a task force created in the wake of the death of a young black teenager.

Both Demings and Perry are black.

Demings has at least once taken on the gun lobby, hiring a lobbyist in 2011 that fought against an NRA-backed "open carry" law. According to the Orlando Sentinel, the lobbyist used drivers license photos of alleged gun-toting motorcycle gang members to fight against the law. The lobbyist was investigated for violating a law that makes it illegal to disclose gun owners' information, and lambasted by NRA's top lobbyist, Marion Hammer. He was later cleared.

Perry has gone up against the NRA as well. In 2011, he opposed an NRA-backed bill that would have allowed guns on the campuses of Florida colleges and universities, including FSU.

"You have young people still learning how to be adults, and unfortunately alcohol and drugs are part of that equation on campus," Perry told the Miami Herald in 2011. "This is a place of learning and nurturing and you shouldn't be put in a position where you feel intimidated by someone walking around with a gun."

Here's the press release from Scott's office:

Governor Scott Names Two to Task Force on Citizen Safety and Protection

Tallahassee, Fla. – Today, in collaboration with Attorney General Pam Bondi, Governor Rick Scott added two members to the Task Force on Citizen Safety and Protection. This action completes the process of naming individuals to the task force.

Sheriff Jerry Demings, of Orlando, is the Sheriff for Orange County.

Chief David L. Perry, of Tallahassee, is the chief of the Florida State University Police Department.

--@ToluseO

Fla. notches $40 million insurance settlement with MetLife

The state of Florida, along with several other states, has reached a $40 million settlement with a group of MetLife insurance companies over allegations of life insurance improprieties. All of that money is being used to pay for the states' investigation, but consumers may receive more than $500 million in other payments. 

Consumers may benefit from new business practices that MetLife has agreed to use moving forward.

MetLife had apparently been using the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File to check to see if a policyholder has died only in cases where such a death would be beneficial to the insurance company. For example, MetLife allegedly used this Master File to stop annuity payments to deceased clients, but did not use it to issue life insurance payments to beneficiaries of the insured. 

In Washington this week, Pam Bondi led GOP legal efforts to overturn the health care law

WASHINGTON -- Blessed with sound bite sensibilities in an all-male scrum of long-winded gray suits, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi stood out in Washington this week as the unofficial spokeswoman for the 26 states that challenged the health care law to the Supreme Court.

Elected in 2010, the telegenic former state prosecutor and former Fox News legal commenter inherited the lawsuit from former Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum. But she campaigned on the issue herself, and has seized it as her own since taking office at the beginning of 2011.

Beaming on Wednesday after the historic three-day arguments in front of the Supreme Court, Bondi said she thought it went "very well, once again." And insisted that Florida’s opposition to the signature achievement of President Barack Obama’s administration is on constitutional, not political grounds.

"As attorneys general, we keep going back to the constitutionality, because that’s our job," she said. "We’re not here to debate health care policy. It’s all about the Constitution and following the law."

Bondi hires legal team to assist with state's BP oil spill claim

Nearly two years after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the gulf, Attorney General Pam Bondi has hired reinforcement in the state's impending legal battle with BP over economic damages from the oil spill.

The legal team consists of the following firms: Nix Patterson & Roach, LLP; Harrison, Rivard, Duncan & Buzzett; Fowler White Boggs P.A.; and Harrison Sale McCloy. Here's the contract.

Bondi says these firms have represented local governments and private clients in claims against BP through the Gulf Coast Claims Facility process, Bondi said. The lead firm is Nix Patterson, which previously pursued cases against BP, among other oil companies, as co-lead counsel in Federal False Claims Act cases, Bondi said.

One of the chosen lawyers, Carl Nelson, who works for Fowler White Boggs, praised Bondi last year for not pursuing a lawsuit against BP like other gulf states as criticism of the choice mounted on the spill's first anniversary.

"I just can't believe the courage that the governor and the attorney general displayed by deciding to stay out of that litigation," Nelson told the Times/Herald. "It's important to follow this claims process."

A Times investigation: State regulators failed to address onslaught of timeshare resale schemes

From Sunday's Tampa Bay Times investigation: Timeshare resale schemes have quietly become the most rampant form of consumer fraud in Florida, affecting people across the United States and in some foreign countries. The state Attorney General's Office received 964 complaints against Florida timeshare resale companies in 2008. Then 2,929 in 2009. Then 12,257 in 2010.

Last year, even with a dip in calls, Florida's fraud hotline fielded more complaints about timeshare resale companies than the next four categories of consumer complaints combined.

The Tampa Bay Times reviewed thousands of those complaints and spent six months investigating timeshare resale companies and the state's attempts to stop their abuses. Despite an avalanche of allegations, Florida regulators and law enforcement agencies at every level have failed to take basic steps to protect consumers and curb fraud: