Feds nix sentence reduction for Lauderdale’s brazen con artist

No Scott Rothstein. No return. Not here. Not anytime soon. Much to the relief of this town’s tainted aristocracy.

Federal prosecutors reneged on the 2010 deal that might have reduced Rothstein’s 50-year prison sentence, snuffing out any chance he’ll be coming back to the city that enabled his billion dollar crime spree. Not before he’s in his 90s.

Well, good. Keep him in the joint. No one around here wants to be reminded how an unctuous cabal of judges, police brass, elected officials, lawyers, bankers, developers, car dealers, jewelers, restaurateurs, professional athletes, even a governor, had lent an air of legitimacy to this thieving vulgarian’s $1.4 billion Ponzi scheme. How, until his fraud unraveled in the fall of 2009, their association with Rothstein helped keep the suckers coming.

Fort Lauderdale would just as soon forget that all it took for a cigar-chomping, guntoting, wanna-be tough guy to grease his way into high society was a multi-million-dollar flash wad, no matter how suspicious its origins.

Just get yourself five waterfront mansions (one equipped with a gold toilet seat), three yachts, a private jet, buckets of insanely expensive jewelry to complement your 21 insanely expensive cars (including a Rolls Royce, two Ferraris, a Lamborghini, a Maserati, a Bentley and two Bugattis) and you’re in, baby, you’re in. Host a few charity balls at your overwrought digs and, presto, photos of you and your felon-to-be wife grace the covers of Lauderdale slickest society mags.

Also helps to keep a condo stocked with high-priced call girls down the block from your Las Olas Boulevard law offices. “I mean, there were probably times when we spent $50,000, $60,000 a month on escorts. It just depends,” Rothstein volunteered during one of his many depositions. “When there were political things in town, more.”

In another depo, back in 2011, Scottie summed up his relationship with the civic hierarchy hereabouts quite nicely: “We were involved in public corruption with politicians. We were involved in public corruption with law enforcement. We were involved in activities with mob-related individuals. We were involved in activities involving the physical threats of other individuals. We were involved in the public corruption side of purchasing of political positions. We were involved in the manipulation of the judiciary.”

Fort Lauderdale would hardly welcome a return of this infamous reminder of our unseemly local ethics. No worries. On Sept. 26, federal prosecutors notified U.S. District Judge James Cohn that Rothstein, despite providing crucial testimony that helped convict 11 of his former colleagues along with a low-rent Miami Beach mafioso, had skunked his sentence reduction deal. Prosecutors, according to the Sun Sentinel’s Paula McMahon, complained that Rothstein had “provided false material information to the government and violated the terms of his plea agreement.”

Among other violations, the feds discovered that Rothstein, even while he was feigning cooperation with investigators, was secretly conspiring with his now ex-wife Kim to hide more than a million dollars worth of jewelry, including a 12.08-carat yellow diamond.

Of course, Rothstein misled the feds. Lying was Rothstein’s modus operandi. Lying was his very business plan. Lying was what enabled him, along with his co-conspirators, to convince hapless investors to buy shares in phony lawsuit settlements.

It should have been utterly obvious to everyone in town, back in 2008, that this blustering thug, who kept an oil portrait of Al Pacino/Michael Corleone from “The Godfather” hanging in his office (in case one missed the more subtle hints), was a crook. The Las Olas law firm he founded in 2002 included several former prosecutors, three judges, the former Broward County sheriff (and convicted felon) Ken Jenne. Rothstein had 25 cops on his payroll, moonlighting as his security team. He ladled gobs of money into the campaign coffers of then-Gov. Charlie Crist, a former state attorney general.

Surely, one of those guys, all supposed experts in criminal justice, should have noticed that there was something dodgy about this audacious poser with an inexplicable billionaire lifestyle.

Oh, a few folks suspected. Back in 2008, the New Times Bob Norman (now with Channel 10) profiled Fort Lauderdale’s flashiest wheeldealer, writing: “Rothstein’s big-spending ways and race to the top of the Fort Lauderdale glitterati has legal and business insiders wondering: Who is this guy? Is he for real, or is he building a house of cards?”

Those insiders must not have wondered too hard. Not while Rothstein was diverting hefty chunks of his stolen loot into political contributions and local charities and outlandish business deals. As long as civic leaders got their cut, as long as the money kept flowing, they saw no need to ask awkward questions.

Fred Grimm