Did Sun-Sentinel Editor Howard Saltz seriously think no one would find out the truth of his multimillion-dollar bankruptcies?
Saltz lied twice to reporter Rich Abdill of the Broward/Palm Beach New Times as he was reporting on rental properties that Saltz lost to foreclosure or repossession.
Abdill said Saltz told him “someone else managed” those properties, writes Andrew Beaujon in Poynter.org. However, Abdill learned the truth, finding that Saltz was actually the proprietor of the rental units. Renters sent the rent to Saltz, and he was the person they called when things went wrong.
“He was our landlord for about two years… He essentially stopped paying his mortgage and went into foreclosure,” one of the tenants told Abdill. “I’ll be honest — I don’t have strongly positive feelings about Howard.”
The next lie mentioned in the Pointer article was the type of Saltz’s bankruptcies. Saltz told Abdill they were “a business bankruptcy, not a personal bankruptcy.” The reporter found that to be untrue, when a Miami bankruptcy lawyer told him that the nature of the debt does not change the fact that it was a personal bankruptcy.
After examining documents acquired by the New Times, attorney Timothy Kingcade said the “business” bankruptcy was simply not true.
