In a continuing saga that Murmurs has been following, Bear Smirnoff will be the subject of a new arraignment on the charge of tape recording an individual without that person’s knowledge. The arraignment has been reset for Aug. 6.

The charge against Smirnoff, originally two felony counts of wire interception, was reduced to one count of a misdemeanor and moved to county court by the Felony Screening Unit of the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office.

But given Smirnoff’s lengthy criminal record, which includes cocaine possession, loitering, prowling and forgery, some Mid-Beach residents wondered why the state attorney settled on a misdemeanor charge.

“Clearly upon reviewing the material [by the unit] it did not reach the level of a felony,” said Ed Griffith, spokesperson for the State Attorney’s Office, of Smirnoff’s arrest for tape recording. “Evidence of past conduct can only be taken into account during sentencing. The law requires we view every crime as an individual event.”

Smirnoff, who has had several aliases, led a movement to put lights around Pine Tree Park’s dog park in Miami Beach until the end of May — when he reportedly called police following a dispute with another park user, claiming someone had a shotgun. Instead police said they found Smirnoff with a tape recorder and arrested him. David Marchant, a local journalist who runs Offshore Alert, a newsletter covering issues pertaining to offshore finance, frequents the park and knows of Smirnoff. He recounted the arrest scene to the SunPost, which printed a June 7 article titled “Tuesday in the Park With the SWAT Team.”

But now Marchant has become the target of a smear campaign conveyed via anonymously sent faxes and fliers. On the morning of Friday the 13th, he arrived at Pine Tree Park to find the message boards there plastered with a flier announcing a $100,000 reward for his arrest. The kicker: The accusatory press release is on Marchant’s own Web site and has been for some time.

Marchant himself posted the release, which was created by an offshore investment fund called Tulip Universal Project S.A., doing business as The Tulip Fund, after the fund filed a lawsuit alleging libel against Marchant.

The fund is linked to The Harris Organization financial services group, founded and run by Marc Matthew Harris, according to Marchant’s site.

Marchant says that once his story exposed Harris, Harris concocted the flier. He says Harris lost a federal libel suit trial in July of 1999, and then lost again on appeal. Marchant posted the flier on his own site as a continuing update on the case.

The press release, titled “Tulip Fund offers $100,000 reward for the arrest of David E. Marchant,” alleges that Marchant is an illegal immigrant, “has known arms traffickers with links to terrorism among his clients” and is generally unethical in his news reporting. All of these statements are out-and-out lies, Marchant told Murmurs, and even offered to show his green card as proof.

Murmurs received the same press release via fax at the SunPost office. At the bottom of that fax was the business card that read: Marvin Reinberg, “Board Certified Family Physician,” of West Palm Beach.

But “I didn’t send the fax,” Reinberg told Murmurs. “I don’t give a shit about what’s going on down there.” Reinberg did admit he knew Smirnoff before hanging up the phone.

The same fax showed up several days later, this time sporting business cards from the Miami New Times, the SunPost, a Miami assistant city attorney and the manager of a security company.

Marchant says the faxes are showing up around Miami Beach in other places he frequents, including his home. He recently got a call from the front desk personnel at his Miami Beach condominium urging him to come downstairs — there was something he would want to see. The desk clerk told Marchant someone had just dropped off a stack of those fliers. So Marchant went back upstairs, printed out a copy of Smirnoff’s mug shot and presented it to condo security. “They said, ‘Yeah that’s the guy, just without the beard,’” Marchant said.

Marchant also said he was in line at a local Publix recently when an employee came rushing up to ask him if he’s a journalist. Marchant says when he replied that he was, the employee alerted him to the fliers posted on the message board.

Sgt. Bobby Hernandez, public information officer for the Miami Beach Police Department, says Smirnoff has not come up on the department radar since the incident in the park.

Hernandez also said that unless Marchant is explicitly threatened with bodily harm in the faxes, “it sounds like a civil matter, possibly defamation of character,” Hernandez said.

However, Marchant volunteered that it’s not a whole lot of fun to know the city thinks there’s a $100,000 price on his head.

“It’s just an occupational hazard in my job,” Marchant says. “I expose fraud, lies and deceit, so they turn on me when I expose them.”

Yokel Rising

“To paraphrase Mark Twain, ‘The report of my retirement has been greatly exaggerated.’”

Such was the e-mail message sent by publicist Dindy Yokel as she announced the 18th annual Art Miami event, which will take place this year in Wynwood from Dec. 6 to 10. Just a week earlier, Murmurs heard that Yokel, 45, had emptied out her Lincoln Road office. Murmurs decided to ask Yokel point blank. Yokel, who for the last 10 years has run DindyCo., her own PR firm in Miami Beach, replied that she had in fact closed her office and is now working from home. She says she is “getting back to the basics” of what she loves best about the business. “Representing a client that I believe in, that I respect and like, who pays me well and on time. Eliminating the stress of overhead and staff and finding time to enjoy life,” Yokel explained.

Part of the major stress of the business was that some of her clients apparently opted not to pay her for services rendered. “The rules that apply in other markets don’t apply here,” she told Murmurs. “People don’t respect contracts … [they] don’t pay their bills … and they don’t seem to care.” The “domino effect” of trying to represent clients while going after outstanding bills finally got to her two weeks ago when she returned from a business trip and fainted from exhaustion. She was hospitalized in Mount Sinai Medical Center. “Nothing a few days of being on an IV and lots of starchy hospital food couldn’t cure,” she said. “My family came in. My father said, ‘Don’t you have enough of this business?’” And so, upon her release, she gave her two assistants a severance package, gave her furniture away to the ArtCenter/South Florida (a nonprofit arts group where she serves as chair of the board) and took her computers home. Yokel says the four clients she currently has (which, apart from Art Miami, include a retail store soon to open, a restaurant soon to open and an art collection company based in Atlanta) understand contracts, appreciate her and, most importantly, she appreciates and enjoys working with them. Yokel also said she is looking forward to a somewhat lighter work schedule, hoping to devote more time to charity work and writing. “I just don’t want the stress anymore,” she said. “… I guess you get to a point in life you have to say, ‘It’s me or them.’”

Bombs and Buffet

There was a buffet set up in the Miami Downtown Development Authority’s conference room. There was also a panoramic view of the Miami and Miami Beach skylines. Every so often Murmurs’ attention would drift toward the free food and the scenes offered by the 29th-floor windows of the Wachovia Bank building across the street from Bayside. Everyone else, though, glued their attention to the presentation of a brand-new downtown Miami as envisioned by various consultants. A highlight: Architect and planner Bernard Zyscovich spoke of ridding Biscayne Boulevard of truck traffic (a likely reference to a proposed billion-dollar tunnel to the Port of Miami), stretching the downtown area into Wynwood and Parkview, and expanding Bayfront Park by four and a half acres by building underground parking and dedicating street easements to green space, thereby making the region pedestrian-friendly. Zyscovich had the room’s complete attention — even open space parks advocates looked hopeful.

And then an alarm sounded, followed by a recorded message of a somber-voiced man. “Attention,” the voice said, “we have received a bomb threat …,” pause, then, in a lower octave it seemed to intone, “in the attic.” The attic? Do Miami high-rises even have attics? The recording went on to assure that “police have been called” and that “personnel are examining the perimeter.” The siren went off again. The recording repeated. This happened at least five times. A frustrated Zyscovich shook his head. “I thought I was doing just great,” he said.

The assembled crowd of city personnel, local business people, activists, politicians and press reacted by standing up, exchanging words with friends and then making their way toward the lobby or the buffet table. Few were concerned about any actual bomb disintegrating the attic. Murmurs attacked the buffet table, devouring fish and salad, as did the Miami Herald and Miami Today reporters in the room. “You reporters are worse than us politicians,” joked DDA board member Neisen Kasdin, a former Miami Beach mayor, right before helping himself to a plate of food.

Dana Nottingham, executive director of the DDA, said, while noshing, that he would hope to pick up where things left off at the next regularly scheduled DDA meeting on Friday, July 20. From there he would like to get recommendations as to which plans should be implemented first — or at all. The DDA’s estimate on a total price tag for the new downtown Miami: $238 million.

On the way out of the building for the night, Murmurs ran into a Miami police sergeant who informed him that no suspicious packages were found. Just someone calling in a “general threat” to the building.

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