MIAMI-DADE TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013 OFFICIAL COURT NEWSPAPER OF SOUTH FLORIDA BAY HARBOR APARTMENT BUILDING DailyBusinessReview.com GETS $1.6 MILLION VOL. 88, NO. 117 $2.00 PAGE A9 DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW INSIDE DAMAGES Jury decides manufacturer engaged in cover-up LAW SERVICE TO HONOR LATE JUSTICE Miami couple gets $6M The Florida Supreme Court will hold a memorial service for the late Chief Justice Arthur England Jr. on Dec. 4. A3 WHITE & CASE SIGNS LEASE in tainted drywall lawsuit White & Case has signed a long-term lease renewal at Miami’s Southeast Financial Center. A4 by John Pacenti [email protected] “The jury’s finding of an EEOC TALKING ABOUT BK SIGN intentional cover-up of a A racist sign at a Burger King that went viral has gotten under A Miami-Dade jury concluded government officials’ skin, prompting the Equal Employment a Chinese company manufacturer known product defect by the Opportunity Commission to facilitate a public discussion on defective drywall and covered it up highest levels of these two national origin discrimination. A3 along with its German affiliate to Knauf companies extended produce a $6 million award in puni- tive damages. not only to Florida consumers PRACTICE FOCUS: SECURITIES LAW The jury awarded $5 mil- but also to the media, the Crowd-funding is a wonderful lion against German-based Knauf U.S. scientific community and vehicle for entering the world Gips and $1 million against Knauf of investments with whatever Plasterboard Tianjin China in the the U.S. government.” amount of cash you have verdict handed down late Friday. available for investing, Salazar The award follows a compensatory VICTOR DIAZ Jackson’s Linda Worton Jackson award earlier this month of $1.3 mil- PARTNER writes. But, like the Wild West lion in the lawsuit brought by Jeffrey itself, you need to be careful, she VM DIAZ & PARTNERS Worton Jackson warns. A8 SEE DRYWALL, PAGE A8 J. ALBERT DIAZ COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE TRANSACTIONS House bought in 2010 for $960K TRANSACTIONS BLACKSTONE SEEKS IPO OF LA QUINTA Blackstone Group, which had started a sales process for La Quinta and received initial bids last month, is betting it can Heico hits up get higher returns through an IPO. A10 lenders for $1B BANKING/FINANCE ACCIDENTAL CEO PLOTS NEW COURSE line of credit Arnold Donald has been implementing changes in an effort to get Carnival’s 10 cruise lines to collaborate and become by Eleazar David Meléndez more efficient. A11 [email protected] PUBLIC NOTICES & THE COURTS MELANIE BELL A South Florida aviation con- glomerate announced Monday it Public notices, court information and business leads, including Broward County records show an “Anthony J. Fasano” sold a three-bedroom, 2,606-square-foot home at 350 Riviera Drive in Fort Lauderdale for $2 million. was hitting up its lenders for a $1 foreclosures, bid notices and court calendars. B1 billion line of credit, expanding a previously negotiated borrowing fa- Public notices from Miami-Dade, Broward and cility by nearly 50 percent. Palm Beach also available at DailyBusinessReview.com/ The flood of cash will allow public_notices.jsp. Public notices published in newspapers Anthony Fasano may have Hollywood-based Heico Corp. to go statewide available at FloridaPublicNotices.com. on a buying spree, a company exec- sold house for $2 million utive told the Daily Business Review, Should you have delivery questions, expanding a company that has been call 1.877.256.2472 by Eleazar David Meléndez have received yet another bonus af- snapping up smaller rivals for much [email protected] ter selling a Fort Lauderdale water- of the past two decades. view home he bought three years “One billion dollars is a lot of Postmaster: Send address changes to Daily Business Review, Former Miami Dolphins player ago for more than twice what he money, and you can do a lot with PO Box 010589, Miami, FL 33101. Anthony Fasano already scored paid for it. that,” Heico co-president Victor Published daily Monday through Friday, except legal holidays, by ALM Properties, LLC., 1 SE 3rd Ave., Suite 900, Miami, FL 33131, (305) 377-3721. a nice windfall this year when he Broward County records show Mendelson said in an interview. “It © 2013 ALM, Daily Business Review (USPS 344-300) (ISSN 1538-1749) Miami snagged a $16 million, four-year an “Anthony J. Fasano” sold a three- enables us to go after more and big- Subscription Rates: One year One year (253) issues - basic (individual and small firms) $429 plus tax; discounted group rates available. Single copies (M-F) - $2. deal with the Kansas City Chiefs. Back issues when available (M-F) - $6. Periodicals postage paid at Miami, FL. Now the tight end appears to SEE FASANO, PAGE A10 SEE HEICO, PAGE A11 ON APPEAL Criminal case against W.D. Childers may not be over See Page A16 A2 dailybusinessreview.com TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2013 DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW BUSINESS OF LAW John Edwards returns to law, is done with politics by Jenna Greene [email protected] Renouncing any further political am- bitions, former U.S. senator and two-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has returned to the practice of law, confident that potential clients and juries will look past the personal trans- gressions that pushed him from public life. Edwards is joining forces with his daughter Cate and former law partner David Kirby to launch EdwardsKirby, a plaintiffs firm with a public interest fo- cus. One of the most successful trial law- yers in North Carolina history, Edwards, 60, said Monday that practicing law is “what I was born to do.” His image was tarnished by a very public sex scandal, when in 2008 he fa- thered a child by his then-mistress Rielle John Edwards started a firm with his daughter Hunter while his wife, Elizabeth, was Cate and former law partner David Kirby. battling breast cancer. Edwards, whose wife died two years later, initially denied things than what Johnny was involved paternity, going along with a claim that in. He can probably overcome it,” said an aide fathered the child—details that Joseph Rice, a name partner at South were re-aired in a federal campaign fi- Carolina plaintiffs firm Motley Rice. nance prosecution against him and a “Juries decide cases based on the law pair of tell-all books. and the facts, not on who the plaintiffs The question is, will juries hold his lawyer is.” misdeeds against him? Edwards said he Elizabeth Lampert, president of the didn’t think so. legal media and crisis firm ELPR, said “What I know is that juries do the right the number of sex scandals involv- thing over and over and over,” Edwards ing other politicians—Bill Clinton, Eliot said in an interview Monday in Raleigh. Spitzer and Anthony Weiner, among “They judge cases as they should, based others—“has on some level desensitized on what’s put in front of them. ... I still us to cheating behavior.” believe they’ll do that.” Edwards’ “personal uphill battle is Edwards spoke in his law office in a steep one. However, he has always Raleigh alongside Cate Edwards and been known as a talented litigator with a Kirby. strong ability to connect,” Lampert said. Edwards said point blank that he’s Edwards has been out of the limelight done with politics. When asked whether for more than a year—a wise move, he still harbored political ambitions, he Lampert said, to let public memory fade. responded with a single word: “Nope.” Edwards last made news in June Edwards was elected to the Senate from 2012, when the U.S. Department of North Carolina in 1998—he stopped Justice announced it would not retry practicing law then—and was the 2004 him for six alleged campaign finance Democratic vice presidential candi- violations. date, running alongside John Kerry. In Government prosecutors said he im- January 2008, he abandoned his presi- properly used nearly $1 million from dential primary race—a month before wealthy backers to support his mistress. Rielle Hunter gave birth to their daugh- However, the money had not been fun- ter, Frances Quinn Hunter. neled through the campaign or de- Before joining the Senate, Edwards clared as a political contribution and spent 20 years practicing law, winning the government’s case faltered. A North 54 verdicts and settlements of more than Carolina jury acquitted Edwards on one $1 million, according to Lawyers Weekly, count and deadlocked on the remaining including a record $25 million on behalf five. of a 5-year-old girl who was disembow- Edwards declined to comment about eled by a pool drain. the case. Edwards himself has stressed that During the past 17 months, Edwards “trials are about credibility—if a jury is said, he’s been working on his return to to believe in your case, the jury must be- the practice of law. lieve you,” as he wrote in his 2004 mem- “Since I reactivated my law license, oir Four Trials. “You have to earn their I’ve been contacted by a lot of people trust, and after you have earned it, you about representing them,” he said. He have to earn it again, every day.” said the firm has picked a group of cas- Some lawyers predict Edwards will es, including potential matters in Hawaii, be able to win that trust back. Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, the “A lot of people have overcome worse District of Columbia and New York. CORRECTION The caption for a rendering published Nov. 22 on the Airport West industrial real estate market incorrectly identified the building. It’s part of the AVE Aviation and Commerce Center near Opa-Locka Executive Airport.