I've been doing more research on Classic Motor Carriages, to flesh out the
wiki article on StreetBeasts.
Been accessing the Miami Herald archives, which has plenty of coverage on CMC.
I had heard that employees of the Florida attorney general's office were "involved" in protecting Classic Motor Carriages, but I wanted to verify it. There are some details on this in a February 6, 1995 Miami Herald article, entitled: "A Classic Collision: There's Lots of Finger-Pointing as Car Company Flounders".
Turns out that there were some questionable actions by Rhonda Lapin, the then-Assistant Attorney General in Florida.
Here's how the Miami Herald reported that the complaints against CMC were "referred" to another Florida regulatory agency:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Miami Herald
Armed with two violated settlements, the attorney general could have sued. Instead, then-Assistant Attorney General Rhonda Lapin referred some of the new complaints to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in Tallahassee.
"We could have moved quicker, and I take responsibility for that," said Mike Burnstein, deputy attorney general of the southern region.
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And, here's the quote regarding her resignation.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Miami Herald
The same month, Lapin, who was in charge of the Classic case, resigned from the attorney general's office.
"It was a mutual decision because of a change in the structure of our economic crime unit," Burnstein said. "Classic was among many factors in the decision."
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Looks like her shady dealings prompted the Florida Attorney General's office to force a "change in the structure", which pushed her to resign.
I'm going to contact the Herald to see if we can get explicit permission to reprint the articles in our wiki.