Phil Ammann
Secret underground chemicals. Bait and switch. Republican cronyism.
They’re all part of the crosscurrent of negative campaigning reaching a fevered pitch in the highly charged Democratic primary for Florida Senate District 30.
The Palm Beach Post is reporting on Michael Steinger, who is blasting his Democratic opponent, state Rep. Bobby Powell, with accusations he wants to store “secret” chemicals underground, favors a “bait and switch budget” and is close to Republican Rick Scott.
Powell fights back with charges that Steinger, an attorney, is a “rich guy trying to buy elections,” who drives a $121,000 vehicle and lives in a $10 million waterfront mansion.
Both sides have elevated the rhetoric in TV ads, mailers, billboards and speeches, earning the distinction as one of the nastiest races ever in Palm Beach County.
“(Steinger’s) allegations are all based on fallacies and exaggerations. His campaign is an act of desperation,” Powell told the Post.
A West Palm Beach resident, Powell serves as an urban planner with Urban Design Kilday Studios.
Steinger, from Palm Beach Gardens, is a personal injury attorney with Steinger, Iscoe & Greene. He does not deny having a nice home and car, but is not ashamed of his successes.
“Yes, I live in a $10 million waterfront home,” Steinger said in a recent interview. “I drive a $120,000 Mercedes-Benz. I have been successful. But I was brought up with a single mom, ate school lunches and went to a public school. I’m running to represent voters, not special interests.”
The most-recent exchange came this week when Powell accused Steinger of failing to report donations from a local special interest group — West Palm Beach Residents for Integrity and Government — in excess of state contribution limits. Steiner denies he ever received any money from the group, noting that about $500,000 of the $730,000 he has raised for his campaign came from his own pocket.
Another recent exchange involved both candidate’s fathers — each have been convicted of crimes — beginning with a TV ad from Steinger’s campaign featuring a mug shot of Powell’s father. Powell’s father was arrested on aggravated assault charges, and allegedly hit a woman in the head and fired a gun at the Riviera Beach home shared by the Powells.
Powell said his father’s situation had no bearing in his campaign. Steinger contends it is relevant, since Powell has called for stricter gun laws.
“(Powell’s father) illegally owned a firearm in the home he was sharing with (Powell),” Steinger told the Post. “My opponent touts himself as being in favor of stricter gun control. His father’s actions are a relevant campaign issue.”
A fundraising email from Powell’s campaign points out that Joel Steingel, Michael’s father, was serving a 20-year federal prison sentence since 2014 for operating a billion-dollar Ponzi scheme.
The winner of Tuesday’s primary will face Republican Ron Berman in November. SD 30 is a Democratic-leaning district covering northeast Palm Beach County. According to the Post, nearly 40 percent of the district’s voters are Democrats, 29 percent are Republican and about 27 percent either no party affiliated or registered as other.
One comment
Ben Diller
August 28, 2016 at 9:54 am
In Palm Beach Senate District 30, the son of a mobbed-up career con-man and mastermind of one of Florida’s largest Ponzi schemes is running for Senate.
Michael Steinger, who is currently campaigning for state Senator in Palm Beach, on the platform of ‘Protecting Our Community’ comes from a family of criminals with closes ties to the Jewish mafia.
Michael Steinger’s father, Joel Steinger, is serving 20 years in prison for masterminding one of Florida’s largest Ponzi schemes. He stole nearly $1 billion from over 30,000 people in a scam he committed through a company called Mutual Benefits Corp., that sold fake Viatical settlements of people suffering from AIDS, to elderly investors who lost their retirement savings.
Joel Steinger was one of legendary Jewish mafia boss Meyer Lansky’s closest confidants. He helped invent, and implement, many of the scams the mob committed in south Florida over the past 4 decades. In a 60 minutes television interview in the 1970’s, Joel Steinger was interviewed about a brazen commodities scam he committed in Florida. When asked about going to jail, he said he was taking the fall for the Mafia.
When Joel Steiger recently went to prison in 2014 for orchestrating the billion dollar Ponzi scheme, his son Michael began spending lavishly, on himself and on his Senate campaign, as if he hit the lottery. Many people believe that Michael was given much of the Ponzi scheme proceeds to hold for his father until he gets released from prison. It was Senate candidate Michael Steinger who paid the $500,000 bail to get his father released from jail during the trial.
Michael Steingers stepbrother, Rosen, says his stepfather, Joel Steinger “spent all of his days in telephone boiler rooms smoking cigarettes, drinking whiskey, and cheating on Rosen’s mother. He went from one scam to another, selling bogus commodities, fake diet pizza, whatever he could come up with. And when Steinger was home, he would verbally abuse the boy and his mother, often calling her the c word. Looking back, he realizes his father lacked all form of affection — and he grew up thinking this swaggering, vulgar, criminal existence was normal.”
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/mutual-benefits-con-man-joel-steinger-spent-a-lifetime-getting-mobbed-up-6334742
Being related to a con-man is not as bad as being compared to a con-man, but Michael Steinger has been ridiculed for both. In a magazine article titled, Like Father Like Son, the Broward New Times reported, “When people talk about where Ponzi schemer and Mutual Benefits czar Joel Steinger might have stashed some of his millions, many point at his son, West Palm Beach lawyer Michael Steinger.” http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/the-steingers-like-father-like-son-6455621
Just like his father, Michael Steinger has also been investigated, and sued, for running a fraudulent, illegal and unethical business. Senate candidate Michael Steinger was suspected of referring patients from his law firm, Steinger, Iscoe and Greene, to a defunct medical practice to charge insurance companies excessively high rates for a fraudulent spinal device. Court records don’t reveal much about the details of the scam since Michael Steinger has evoked his 5th amendment right to not speak about the case, so that he does not incriminate himself any further. https://www.thestreet.com/print/story/10417682.html
The Rip-Off Report has a page dedicated to Michael Steinger and how little regard his law firm has for their clients. http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/steinger-iscoe-greene/port-saint-lucie-florida-34986/steinger-iscoe-greene-attorney-sean-greenejeffery-rollins-micheal-feiner-my-attorneys-645884
Although Senate candidate Michael Steinger proclaims on his campaign website that he will “focuses on protecting the rights of victims and their families” he does not seem to have the same compassion within his own law firm. Steiger was sued in 2015 by a paralegal, John Richardson, that he hired in 2008. Mr. Richardson eventually earned his law degree and became one of the Steinger law firms most respected and promoted attorneys. He was so highly regarded in the firm that he was chosen to open a new law office in Fort Myers, but in 2014 he was diagnosed with brain cancer that metastasized from lung cancer. During a two year period of intensive treatment and surgery it is alleged that Michel Steinger reassigned Richardson’s cases and his email was cut off ‘to ensure that none of his clients could contact him.” Steiger told him to “move back east” and then forced him out of the office and out of a well paying job so he could rid himself of an ailing employee.
The case was just settled. In court documents, Richardson calls Michael Steinger “the lowest of the low.”
The Steinger family has been manipulating the political process for decades. Joel Steinger’s stunningly long life of crime has been perpetuated by pumping millions into the political process. The Miami Herald Reported, “Steinger, once a major donor to the Republican Party in Florida, also sought credit for helping the FBI and Justice Department investigate and convict a major GOP fundraiser, Dr. Alan Mendelsohn of Hollywood, who lobbied on behalf of the executive’s company in Tallahassee. Mendelsohn, convicted of tax offenses and released from prison this summer, had asked Steinger for a $400,000 campaign donation back in 2007. As Steinger wore a wire, the physician falsely boasted that he could give some of that money to Gov. Charlie Crist to get him to shut down the federal fraud investigation into Mutual Benefits.” http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article1984194.html
Although Michael Steinger is registered as a democrat, he contributes to Republic candidates and supports Republican issues. He donated thousands of dollars to the U.S. Senate campaign of Republican Mike Haridopolos, who was rated A+ by the National Rifles Association. Most Democrats in his district would probably be upset to know that Steinger is helping the Republican agenda.
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