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VREGE’S PONZI TAB BY RIP TOFT MORE MUDSLINGING ON THE VREGE AND LISA ARMOYAN DIVORCE FRONT. Lisa’s most recent affidavit describes Vrege’s alleged Florida business relationship with disgraced Miami lawyer Scott Rothstein, who pleaded guilty on January 27 to masterminding a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme (Frank 577). U.S. press reports indicate Armco Capital Inc. bigwig Vrege fell victim to “Miami’s Madoff,” and reportedly invested a whopping $3.62 million US with Rothstein, who scammed dozens of high-rollers by a conjurer’s trick, promising fat returns on bogus settlement claims. The Orlando Sun-Sentinel reports that Vrege received $420,000 from Rothstein in the three months before the house of cards collapsed. Presumably, Vrege’s remaining $3.2 million investment shows up on the Rothstein debtor books. Before Rothstein’s December 1 arrest, Vrege was evidently among the legions of Southern Floridians trying to curry favour with the charismatic snake charmer. I requested an interview on his Rothstein dealings, but Vrege did not call me back. Lisa’s affidavit states Vrege wanted to further his biz relationship and “went so far as to instruct Armco’s employees to encourage the city of Halifax to name a street after Scott Rothstein.” (Street? Try a cul-de-sac! — ed.) According to Lisa, Vrege “was actively trying to establish himself in the Boca Raton business scene” and did not intend for his family to return permanently to Halifax, where their $2.83 million assessed Marlborough Woods abode is now a disputed marital asset in the divorce (Frank 575). Lisa alleges “Vrege told me that he had a team of lawyers, and accountants from Deloitte Touche, working on how we were going to move to Florida without there being any tax consequences for him.” Allegedly, Vrege harboured grand relocation dreams. “He sometimes discussed living on an island in the Caribbean for tax purposes... (and) would remain in Florida, but become a citizen of a Caribbean island, so he could pay taxes but enjoy the life in Florida ... he would buy a boat and a satellite phone, so he could travel back and forth between the island and Florida without his movements being easily traced,” courts papers state. 22 ATLANTIC CANADA FRANK FEBRUARY 16, 2010 An earlier affidavit from Lisa claims in December Vrege purchased a $1.6 million luxury yacht. Prior to their August 2008 move to Boca Raton, Lisa alleges she and Vrege were at the Toronto sushi restaurant KI, when he explained that he could get tax relief if they moved to the U.S., divorced and began co-habiting. As their 16-year marriage crumbled in Boca Raton, Lisa alleges Vrege threatened to abandon Lisa “and leave me penniless if I commenced litigation against him.” Her Florida court divorce petition was prompted by her “growing concern that he would carry out the threat.” Nova Scotia court papers indicate that on December 2, the day local media headlines announced Rothstein’s arrest, a Sunshine State judge ordered Vrege Armoyan Vrege, who receives about $200,000 US-per from Armco, to pay Lisa $150,000 in support. Less than two months later, Lisa, who is renting a $8,000 monthly Boca Raton abode where she lives with their two daughters, claims she has spent most of the $150,000. “Yesterday, Vrege told me he will give me no more money, he will only cover the children’s expenses,” she alleges in an affidavit entered into N.S. court on January 28. “I cannot afford to carry on litigation in two jurisdictions,” she pleads. On February 8, Supreme Court Judge Gerald Moir is expected to rule on the requirement for Lisa’s attendance in Halifax court for Armco v. Lisa Armoyan, scheduled for the Lower Water Street courthouse on February 11. Armco is seeking a court order to prevent Lisa from disclosing confidential biz info the firm alleges she swiped from Vrege’s company laptop. That their dispute has reached the litigation stage is apparently against the wishes of both Vrege and his brother, Bay Street wheelerdealer George Armoyan, who has taken a Vrege-related leave of absence from his moneymaking duties at Clarke Inc. Both brothers, Lisa alleges, “indicated they wanted to avoid publicity and this was before the press had published news of our marriage breakdown.” In the Armco suit, Lisa wants to testify via videotape from Florida, and argues the matter is part of her Florida court divorce action. Stay tuned. Does Frank Know? atlanticfrank@eastlink.ca DINOSAUR ROAMS BARRINGTON ST. I HAVEN’T READ THE LATEST, AND NO DOUBT TREMENDOUSLY EDIFYING, NEWSLETTER FROM PAUL MACKINNON’S DOWNTOWN HALIFAX BUSINESS COMMISSION, BUT I’M WONDERING IF IT CONTAINS A NEW BYLAW ORDERING EVE- RYONE ON BARRINGTON STREET TO PAPER OVER THEIR STOREFRONT WINDOWS. Last year the DHBC make-work project parasitically sucked $569,466 from its duespaying members, a small pool that’s dwindling by the hour. In these lean economic times, where downtown commercial enterprises are falling like dominos, the DHBC, led by Paul the urban visionary, is fast becoming an ineffective dinosaur whose value is nebulous at best. Amassing a whopping $702,321 in total revenue (mostly from the levy, merch sales, sponsorship and the like), Paul’s fiscally outof-control fiefdom ended the last fiscal year in the red, with a $89,693 shortfall. (They can’t even run a decent Xmas parade! — ed.) Excessive salaries and benefits ($217,739, and its website currently lists only three FT staff), and outlandishly high administration ($130,712) and marketing costs ($225,878), suggest that the DHBC is in a league of its own, when it comes to spending like there’s no tomorrow. I propose one way Paul can raise revenue, is by renting himself out as an organ grinder, with a monkey by his side. I suspect Paul will have no trouble finding a vacant spot or two on Barrington to set up shop ... and who knows, perhaps a kind soul may even pass by and throw a coin into his outstretched cap. Does Frank Know? atlanticfrank@eastlink.ca Check out our YouTube page: www.youtube.com/ loyalsubscriber2
I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE... BY IRIS N. CORNEA I UNDERSTAND NEWS OF THE SUDDEN RESIGNATION OF DR. ALEJANDRA VALENZUELA FROM THE CAPITAL DISTRICT HEALTH AUTHORITY’S OPHTHALMOLOGY DEPT. LITERALLY HAS PATIENTS BAWLING THEIR EYES OUT. Dr. Alejandra resigned from Dalhousie, where she held an associate professorship, effective at the end of January. “We received a letter” with Alejandra’s resignation, confirmed uni spokesthingy Charles Crosby. “We accepted the letter. We did not solicit it.” Charles was not at liberty to discuss why Dr. Alejandra, a young, brilliant — and by all accounts adored — woman at the top of her profession, would suddenly call it quits in the blink an eye. Asked about Dr. Alejandra, who I believe is in her early 40s and whose colleagues regard her as an exceptional surgeon — the only specialist of her kind east of Montreal — and whose patients travel from Cape Breton, P.E.I., and New Brunswick to see her, ex-Herald hack turned CDHA spokesthingy John Gillis succinctly replied, “She resigned from Dalhousie, not from Capital Health.” While he helpfully promised to verify her CDHA employment status, John did not get back to me before deadline. But when one calls Dr. Alejandra’s CDHA hotline, which I immediately did after hanging up with John, the good doc’s calming voice declares, “As of January 28, (I) will no longer be practising medicine within the Capital District Health Victoria Hospital,” the sight site of its Eye Care Centre, and where Dr. Alejandra worked her eyeball restoration magic for the past few years. Her voice-mail message also states, “Please be advised that it has not been determined where every patient will be referred.” The visual visionary adds, in a rather detached tone, “There is no doctor with her speciality replacing the position immediately.” I left a message, unreturned at presstime, with Alejandra, a 1992 grad from the prestigious Santiago-based Catolica de Chile U., who MORE MEDIA MADNESS... FOUR SNORES AND THREE COLUMNS AGO, THE COMICAL HERALD TRUMPETED THE ARRIVAL OF FORMER COAST SCRIBE LEZLIE LOWE TO ITS STORIED PAGES, PROMISING READERS WEEKEND OFFERINGS FROM AN EYE-CATCHING LASS IT DESCRIBED AS “PROVOCATIVE, INSIGHTFUL, (AND) UNPREDICTABLE.” Now, nearly a month into the Hydrostone rezzie’s Herald tenure, and having endured rambles around Truro Mayor Bill Mills’s queercommunity aversion, the benefits of at-home teen alcohol consumption and, most recently, international fear-mongering, I’m left thinking Lezlie’s Horrid scribblings are not unlike a rednecked WASP’s inaugural visit to the Chinese buffet. You’re compelled by curiosity and HEALTH & BEAUTY I’m told counts among her CDHA champions medical heavyweights Dr. Bruce Pretty and Dr. Ivar Mendez. According to one of her patients, when word of Dr. Alejandra’s resignation passed through her waiting room in January, “People started crying.” My source tells me she demanded to know why the doc was leaving, and was reportedly told, “I had no choice. I had absolutely no choice.” My source, who can’t stop raving about Dr. Alejandra’s exceptional patient care, relayed how the Walter Havill Drive rezzie would hand out her house number to post-op patients, urging them to call any time, day or night. She adds, “I’ve never known a doctor who loves her job so much. She gives medicine a human face.” But depressingly familiar tales from the rumour mill suggest her CDHA superiors did not show Dr. Alejandra the level of respect the top surgeon deserved. In shades of Drs. Michael Goodyear and Gabrielle Horne, talented doctors whose careers were stymied by managerial brow-beating, unconfirmed indications are that Dr. Alejandra may well be another victim of institutional bullying. The ophthalmology department is run by Dr. Alan Cruess, who then-CDHA ceo Don Ford and Dal prezzie Tom Traves appointed in July 2003. Himself a leading expert in the field, Cruess arrived with impeccable credentials from Queens U. and as medical director of Kingston’s Hotel Dieu Hospital. He succeeded Dr. Raymond LeBlanc, who oversaw the Halifax eye ward for 24 years. Despite being led by touchy-feely, so-called “people-centred”, “leadershift” health nut Chris “Butterfly” Power, the CDHA in many respects remains an old boys club, where the powers-that-be exercise double-standards, and brilliant young women and brilliant young men are not treated alike. Again, I refer you to Dr. Gabrielle Horne’s endless Kafka-esque quest to restore her medical privileges in that last bastion of male chauvinism, our Capital District Health Authority. Does Frank Know? atlanticfrank@eastlink.ca MORE SNORES THAN ROARS FROM EDGY MS. LOWE great supply to consume as much of what’s there as you possibly can — you paid for it, after all — but you’re left feeling empty, if not cheated, the moment the exercise is over. Says one of my followers: “Had Sarah Dennis or whomever actually read Lezlie Lowe (Lezlie’s) column in the years it appeared in The Coast, they would have found another blase hipster with a penchant for liberally dropping f-bombs and ‘mehs’ in hopes of winning over the Facebook and texting-addicted masses.” Says I: We gave up Peter Duffy phantasmic anal-rape tales and Coronation Street spoilers for this? FEBRUARY 16, 2010 ATLANTIC CANADA FRANK 23
Page 1 and 2: MORE MORE SOUTH SOUTH END END PONZI
Page 3 and 4: ATLANTIC CANADA FRANK HALIFAX, NOVA
Page 5 and 6: POOR DR. ISLAM’S WORKPLACE, HOMEL
Page 7 and 8: LOOSE LIPS SINK BISHOPS BY CARDINAL
Page 9 and 10: THE KARMA FAIRY STRIKES AGAIN BY A.
Page 11 and 12: THE BIG BLUE KAHUNAS GIVE MR. BAILL
Page 13 and 14: , & THIS HIS HIS, HIS , THAT THAT &
Page 15 and 16: HURRICANE STU HITS SLEEPY LITTLE WI
Page 17 and 18: BRAVE NEW WORLD SPA BY FAYE SHALL T
Page 19 and 20: TRENTONWORKS TRUSTEE TALK BY RAY L.
Page 21: HOSE WHO’S IN CHARGE BY SMOKEY TE
Page 25 and 26: Sales manager Chris Conrad, left, a
Page 27 and 28: If you continually give, you will c
Page 29 and 30: DEAR GOD - LOOK! GLORIA MACCLUSKY
Page 31 and 32: FAX ANYTIME: (902) 423-0281 LETTERS

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