John Pennekamp Glass Bottom Boat, Rush Immediate Care Oak Park, 3000 W Fort Lee Rd, Bogota, Nj 07603, Articles M

With a .45, the killer opened fire. And he may or may not be the same Jerry Jacoby who once strayed into Cuban waters during a scuba-diving trip out of Miami. Although cons have implicated Young in the Aronow murder, some investigators speculate that more than one man pulled off the crime. He announced that he worked for a rich man who wanted Aronow to build him a 60-foot boat. A double-dealing mob tale, it might out-Godfather The Godfather -- if, of course, it's not fiction. Ben Kramer, the fast-life desperado, is also adjusting to life in prison. UM women play immature first quarter, bounced by Virginia Tech in ACC tournament, Mysterious creature seen hopping along rainforest river for first time in 24 years, 11 sharks wash up on South African beach, researchers say. A fisherman found his body in a canal in Broward County. You can arrest me now if you want to. A shy waitress and a persistent customer put their faith in fortune cookies in this sweet story from the director of Lbs. Both liked money, winning, fast toys and the color white. Call girls got him into Leavenworth. The next day, Young, using the name Bobby Scott, took some shots at Panzavecchia -- four .25-caliber bullets through the skull. Saccenti says they didn't talk about Kramer or bad business blood. "What do you do for your boss?" A world-champion boat racer who enjoyed wild success in business, he was also an unapologetic playboy and fabled bon vivant. An old Bell chopper plucked him from the prison's athletic field -- only to snag on a barbed wire fence and crash. A day or two after the murder, Kramer told police how troubled he was to lose his "friend" Aronow. He didn't want to talk to The Miami Herald. And Benjamin Barry Kramer, the world champion fast-boat millionaire, could have ordered the daytime ambush after he and Aronow squabbled over a shady business deal, some investigators surmise. He was a hero and a genius, a ballbuster and a bully. In 1985, Kramer and a car-racing pal paid $50,000 to have a 36-year-old Fort Lauderdale man killed, witnesses told federal agents. Another lawyer, now disbarred, could be a player in the Aronow investigation, too. Prosecutors said the lawyer helped cycle Kramer's dirty profits through secret bank accounts and phony companies stretching from Colombia and Los Angeles to Miami, London and Lichtenstein. . Investigators don't have the proof. But Aronow's son explains: In 1984, his dad sold his USA Racing Team firm to Kramer's Apache company. A Lincoln Continental with tinted windows was parked nearby, waiting. But Aronow may have possessed a darker side that even he could not outrun. Young skipped out on his $120,000 bond. It hasn't been easy. A couple of weeks ago, a federal jury found Kessler guilty of a drug conspiracy charge. At his boat shop, dopers occasionally visited him. Aronow drove a white Mercedes, Kramer a white Porsche. ", To another officer, Fort Lauderdale Organized Crime Detective Stephen Robitaille, Young said: "I'm a mercenary.". USA Racing Team's primary mission was its lucrative U.S. Customs contract -- to build "super" anti-smuggling catamarans called Blue Thunder. The chauffeur is 39 years old and 6 foot 2 -- about the same age and height of the stranger who walked into Aronow's office on the afternoon of the murder. And they looked for Jerry Jacoby. This time the dispute was over a 40-foot custom-made sailboat, Cat Dancer, named for Young's green-eyed girlfriend, a one-time topless dancer. For years, Young used different dates and places of birth, different names and occupations. "Bobby is one of those guys you should be afraid of, " the detective says. In the summer of 1987, Fort Lauderdale police arrested Young after he twice shot an Army vet, Craig Marshall. Just last Friday, he was sentenced in a daredevil escape from Metropolitan Correctional Center April 17, 1989. Says Michael Aronow, the slain racer's son: "The way my father lived, it (the murder) could have been as casual as a handshake. Don Aronow was a dead set legend. Marshall lived. They never found the other one. The drug deal went bad. Some think two cars might have been involved. He got himself into Cuba -- for smuggling. And the street talk is that he also gave Aronow cash -- under the table. "What they did personally amongst themselves, I have no idea, " says Robert Saccenti, a former pal of both men. His technique was to establish a company's reputation by winning races (the world. Another possible government witness is William George Walton, also serving time. What's more, Young's description -- blue eyes, dark-blond hair -- does not match a composite drawing of the Lincoln's driver made from eyewitness accounts: a white man with a tanned complexion, a day or two's growth of whiskers and wavy brown hair. One of their horses--named Don Aronow--won more than $200,000 in prize money. But this Jerry Jacoby wasn't that Jerry Jacoby. In the 1970s, police said, he ran a "floating prostitution" enterprise in St. Louis; Columbia, S.C.; Wheeling, W.Va.; and Las Vegas. Not six months later, Young plotted a drug deal with John "Big Red" Panzavecchia, 39, a member of the "Dixie Mafia." Even before police crack the case, though, mystery writers and prime-time TV producers have penned scripts for the gangland-style killing on Feb. 3, 1987. Abruptly, he left the office, just as Aronow announced he had to be on his way. But his gold Rolex was missing from his wrist. Someone put a small pipe bomb underneath the seat of his maroon Jeep last September. Robert Samuel Young, 41, the suspected hit man, is a "soldier of fortune type, " says Fred Haddad, one of his multiple lawyers. He is Paul K. Silverman, also convicted on a drug charge, also serving time in Oklahoma. "I'd even kill for him.". Aronow's last boat venture, USA Team Racing, was sold in November. Andreu wrote a report: DeCora "stated he had information from a source who was in federal custody in Oklahoma and provided them the name of Robert Young as the shooter in their investigation of millionaire boat builder Aronau, " spelling the name wrong. "They were having trouble with a deal.". Aronow knew a Jerry Jacoby, a racing champion and former partner. He is in jail in Oklahoma City, awaiting sentencing on the federal drug charge. Once a Boca Raton officer stopped Young's Mercury Marquis and spotted one of the dogs in the back seat. The murder of Aronow, shot to death three years ago, seems to be unraveling as one of the most sensational chapters in the nation's drug story. A tall stranger walked in, introducing himself as Jerry Jacoby. Young, already serving time for the "Dixie Mafia" murder, didn't respond to a telegrammed request for an interview. Conceivably, they could be wrong. The street talk is a bit different: Aronow returned the land, the equipment and the chopper to Kramer -- and kept the under-the-table money. "And Don did buy it back, " Michael Aronow says. He boasted to a cop of running guns "south" and bumping off three Cuban military men. Along Thunder Boat Row, people are reluctant to talk about the extent of the Aronow-Kramer relationship. a perplexed Aronow asked. Aronow, afraid of nothing, also moved in corporate circles. Cuban authorities said they found almost 300 pounds of marijuana aboard. Kramer turned over land, assets and a Bell helicopter. He sold his pricey, high tech vessels to the political world: King Hussein of Jordan, the state of Israel, the Sultan of Oman, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier's Haiti -- and George Bush and the United States. Along Thunder Boat Row, they called him the Old Man. He sold boats to Christina Onassis and Victor Posner and allegedly was a pal of Meyer Lansky, the financial brains of organized crime. He instructed his employees to accept collect calls from a con in a federal pen. Supposedly, he kept a squad of Rottweilers trained to attack on hand command. No buyer, pal or partner turned out to be quite so volatile as Benjamin Barry Kramer, 35, a brash, impatient boat racer who packed a .357 Magnum and ran a worldwide drug empire complete with a toll-free beeper number. Detectives looked for the watch. Publicly, the Metro-Dade Police Department, the Dade State Attorney's Office and the FBI refuse to comment on the Aronow investigation -- except to cite substantial progress. They threw him in jail. "But Kramer took a big loss. He seemed "agitated, " says Jerry Engelman, Aronow's manager. He kept newspaper clippings about unsolved murders in his house. He was bested businesswise very badly.". Aronow built the dead-end street where he died, known as Thunder Boat Row, and paid his well-tanned laborers for designing and manufacturing his sassy speedboats: Formula, Donzi, Magnum, Squadron XII and the needle-nosed Cigarette. The locals also found out that the FBI was interested in "a case of murder on the high seas involving the killing and discarding of a body from Robert Young's boat.". Still recovering from the failed breakout, Kramer limped out of court on a wooden crutch. Or it could have had something to do with Ben Kramer, he says. "They've been following leads, " says Gary Rosenberg, assistant state attorney. "Unless you could hear that directly from Ben or Don, it's guessing.". About two weeks later, Palm Beach SWAT officers coaxed Young out of a five-acre estate. According to the Nashville newspapers, Silverman is a federal informant. "To tell you the truth, " he told Officer Tim Frost, "I'm looking for a guy who's been selling crack to my niece and I'm going to kill him . He designed, built and raced the famous Magnum Marine, Cary, Cigarette, Donzi and Formula speedboats. U.S. District Judge James Kehoe gave him 10 years, on top of life. On April 19, 1988, a federal grand jury in Oklahoma City indicted Young and three other men in a Colombia-to-U.S. drug pipeline. "I can't confirm or deny anything that's not public record, " says Walton's lawyer, Paul A. The racers, Aronow and Kramer, had much in common. By the 1980s, the two men were in the boat business together. . . Bush named a Cigarette Fidelity. It could have had to do with the CIA.". Young's latest lawyer, Virgil C. Black, says his client is simply a convenient police target. Jesse Jackson has a bit part -- as the innocent humanitarian who got Young out of a Cuban prison in 1984. He was holed up with his green- eyed companion, three Rottweilers and a .22-caliber semi- automatic rifle. No one has been charged. Aronow built the dead-end street where he died, known as Thunder Boat Row, and paid his well-tanned laborers for designing and manufacturing his sassy speedboats: Formula, Donzi, Magnum, Squadron. Their livers were missing, Little dragon found on uninhabited Australian island is a new species. Others raced in the Kentucky Derby. He named a Donzi 007. The cast of characters -- two behind bars, one the victim of a mysterious bomb explosion, and one unaccounted for -- all have connections to a trans-Atlantic network of shell companies and secret bank accounts. Lacy. "That's hearsay, " Michael Aronow says. Someone swiped a gold Rolex watch from the dead man's wrist. His co-defendant: Ben Kramer, the racer-turned-drug lord, also guilty. He shot Aronow in the chest, blasting his way down to the groin. He refused to identify his employer. Michael, the oldest of three children from Aronow . "They didn't like each other in the end, " says Dr. Bob Magoon, an eye surgeon, racer and friend to both. With him on the ill-fated scuba trip was Robert Young, also jailed. And in the end, he wound up as nothing more than a target for an assassin's bullet. It could have been international. Then Aronow left. At least one he had committed. Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand. The Aronow stables at Ocala, Fla., house about 40 2-year-olds in various. Takeaways and reaction, Miamis falling murder rates show the fallacy of Republicans anti-immigration stance | Opinion. They found the Jerry Jacoby the murdered man knew. A child of the Depression, Aronow, 59, founded several of the world's hottest speed-boat manufacturing companies. Then he counted the rings, Mysterious ball seen beside road was 14-foot invasive snake, New York officials say, Elite gathering of financial titans returns to Miami for annual event, UM, Pitt battle for first place in ACC Saturday in front of sold-out Watsco Center, Philly phenom Carranza back at DRV PNK Stadium to face former Inter Miami teammates, Fourth-quarter burst by LaShae Dwyer propels UM women to ACC tournament quarterfinals, Heat falls to 0-2 on important homestand with painful loss to Knicks. . Panzavecchia ran guns. It pulled up to the Mercedes, driver's side to driver's side. Then he stopped talking upon the advice of his lawyer. We act in a management and/or Agent capacity in any and all aspects of the industry.. They were Communists. About 2 p.m. the day of the murder, Don Aronow arrived on Thunder Boat Row. UMs Destiny Harden was ill and almost didnt play against Virginia Tech. Young's old lawyer, Melvyn Kessler, doesn't represent him anymore because of his own criminal problems. He might or might not be the Jerry Jacoby who has a chauffeur's license from Seminole County. My Prince Charming had a shot at the Kentucky Derby . Michael Aronow Inc. 1988 - Present35 years Port Washington, New York Thoroughbred and Equine Consultants. An Aronow family lawyer, Murray Weil, won't discuss the racers' financial dealings. But when the Feds found out they were buying the boats from Kramer, a drug suspect himself, they cringed.