January 2024
Serving Hypoluxo Island, South Palm Beach, Manalapan, Ocean Ridge, Briny Breezes, Gulf Stream and Coastal Delray Beach
Volume 17 Issue 1
Along the Coast
Judge cuts in half disgraced addiction doctor’s 20-year sentence By Pat Beall and Steve Plunkett
Postcards from our past Memories of U.S. 1 tourist stops come alive in historic collections By John Hughes Florida was known for tourist attractions long before it was known for Disney World. Hard to fathom, but that’s a fact. Before Mickey and Minnie and being this tall to ride a ride. Before wait times and paid proxies as place holders in admission queues. Back when rubber alligators were prized. Back then, this state was thick as swamp air with attractions that often exploited the nationwide notion that Florida was America’s WILDerness. Before there was Interstate 95 or Florida’s Turnpike (née Sunshine State Parkway), one two-lane road — U.S. 1 — was See POSTCARDS on page 19
Colorful: Long before tourists celebrated their travels by posting selfie photos on social media, picture postcards were the rage. See more on Page 18. Photos provided
Jamie Daniels made it just 228 days in Palm Beach County’s fraudravaged addiction treatment system before overdosing in a local sober home seven years ago last month. A college graduate and aspiring lawyer, Daniels landed in the heart of a $746 million scheme built on exploiting drug users and bilking insurance companies. Coastal Delray Beach osteopath Michael Ligotti was a key player and profiteer who pocketed millions from it, prosecutors said. When he was sentenced to two decades behind bars in January, a Department of Justice press release heralded his arrest and conviction as the largest Ligotti addiction fraud case ever brought by the DOJ. Ligotti, though, was not locked up. Instead, he remained free as he worked with prosecutors on investigating and prosecuting other fraudsters. And his testimony that led to convictions in two key cases resulted in a federal judge chopping Ligotti’s sentence in half, to 10 years, with the possibility of getting out of prison in 8½ years. “It is only right,” U.S. District Judge See SENTENCE on page 12
Ocean Ridge
Neighborhood’s beach-access spat morphs into slurs and legal one-upmanship By Jane Musgrave
When Mark Feinstein opened up the Facebook page for the town of Ocean Ridge, he was stunned to find out that alongside notices of upcoming zoning meetings, blood drives and boil water orders, he had been accused of engaging in a bizarre sexual act. Repulsed and angry, the 64-year-old lawyer, Turtle Beach condo president and father of three didn’t have to wonder about the identity of the person who used the social media forum to attack him and a former Ocean Ridge mayor. Sean Currie, a fellow Ocean Ridge resident
who has become Feinstein’s nemesis, used his own name when he posted the nasty missives and later admitted he had no regrets about making the unfounded allegations. The social media posts are among the many strange volleys that have been fired since warfare erupted between residents of Turtle Beach and those who live on Tropical Drive, which runs along the southernmost border of the yellow 26unit oceanfront condominium a half-mile south of Woolbright Road. Lawsuits have been filed, an arrest has been made, ethnic slurs have been hurled and political See BEACH on page 16
PRSRT STD US POSTAGE PAID WEST PALM BCH FL PERMIT NO 4595
Passion project Norton exhibits collector’s masterworks. Page AT11
The red outlines show the beach access and slice of roadway property that some Tropical Drive residents were able to acquire adjacent to the white-roofed Turtle Beach condo complex. SOURCE: Palm Beach County Property Appraiser
Gumbo Limbo problems Donations to nonprofit are way down. Page 25
En plein air
Artists embrace painting the outdoors. Page AT1