Aronow case now closed.

[dfunde01]

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/sout...ry/977938.html

[Marlin275]

That link is broken?

Unfortunately we are unable to locate the page you have requested. This could be due to content on our site having expired, a broken link, an outdated bookmark, or a mistyped address. Please use the navigation provided on this page, or click here to visit our home page.

[VetteLT193]

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/977938.html

if that doesn't work, go to google news and search "aronow" and the same story will pop up as the top link

[Marlin275]

Thanks
I typed that headline into Google and The Miami Herald site and no results!

[dfunde01]

Both links worked for me.

[f_inscreenname]

Not hard to cut and paste...


Hit man's death closes notorious Aronow case

A drug-trafficking hit man who killed a Miami powerboat king more than two decades ago has died in a Miami hospital, closing the chapter on one of South Florida's most sensational murders.

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BY JAY WEAVER AND DAVID OVALLE

jweaver@MiamiHerald.com (jweaver@MiamiHerald.com)

In 1987, hit man Robert ''Bobby'' Young blew away speedboat mogul Don Aronow in his Mercedes sports car.
Young, paid $60,000 for the contract murder, achieved such notoriety for the gangland-style killing that it secured him a place in the pantheon of South Florida assassins.
On Tuesday, Young, 60, died at Jackson Memorial Hospital, apparently of natural causes, authorities said.
''He finally got what he deserved from a higher authority -- that death sentence he deserved,'' said retired Miami-Dade police Detective Greg Smith, lead investigator on the Aronow murder.
Miami-Dade police pursued the ambush slaying for six years, interviewing terrified witnesses and investigating a twisting path of coincidences, murders, mistresses, mobsters, dopers, spies, jealous boyfriends and snitches before finally stumbling upon Young.
''Robert was a cold-blooded killer. He was full of bravado, and very much into himself,'' said Assistant State Attorney Gary Winston, who put Young away for Aronow's slaying in 1995. ``He would love to talk and reveal the things he had done. Cold and heartless.''
Young had been incarcerated at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami before recently falling ill.
He served his sentence for the Aronow murder in Oklahoma, at the same time he was incarcerated in federal prison for cocaine trafficking.
Young returned to South Florida in 2001, having fled Oklahoma while on parole. He was arrested in Broward County in October 2001 after his ex-brother-in-law gave federal agents his address. They found a revolver and $75,000 on him.
ASSAULT RIFLE
After he was sentenced to 10 years for having the handgun, Young was recorded on the Federal Detention Center phone talking to an associate about planting an assault rifle that Young had owned on the former brother-in-law, according to court records.
''I was very upset that I was betrayed by my own family,'' Young told a federal agent in 2004.
``I was just brokenhearted and figured maybe justice could be done. I could set him up by putting it into his vehicle and having him arrested.
''Let him feel the same pain, suffering and fate that I was feeling,'' he said.
In January, Young was sentenced to a 27-year prison term for owning the assault rifle.
It was but the latest felony conviction in the life of the serial criminal, whose brazen violence was part of the so-called Cocaine Cowboy era in Miami.
PROSTITUTION
Young boasted of involvement with gun-running, prostitution rings and violence during the 1970s.
Later, he was thrown in a Cuban jail after island authorities found him on a boat offshore with 300 pounds of marijuana.
JESSE JACKSON
In 1984, he was released along with 21 other Americans in a deal engineered by civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.
Back in Miami, Young hooked up with a group of dope peddlers who considered themselves a new version of the 1960s Dixie Mafia crime group.
Young was later convicted for the 1984 murder of Dixie Mafia member John ''Big Red'' Panzavecchia, in a drug deal gone wrong. After he shot Big Red dead, Young took the man's solid gold Rolex, former Miami homicide Detective Nelson Andreu remembered on Tuesday.
''Bobby took it as a prize and was wearing it when we arrested him,'' Andreu said.
Looking back, Young was lucky to escape the electric chair.
In 1995, he pleaded no contest to the contract hit of Aronow, the powerboat king.
He had cut a deal with state prosecutors that spared him the electric chair -- and ensured he would never testify against Benjamin Barry Kramer, his co-defendant who allegedly paid Young $60,000 to kill Aronow.
`NOT A RAT'
''Bobby is not a rat,'' Young's lawyer, Kayo Morgan, said at the time. ``He is not a cheese-eater.''
In 1996, Kramer, who once owned a casino and raced powerboats, pleaded no contest to ordering the killing of his rival, Aronow. Kramer, already serving a life sentence on federal drug-smuggling charges, received 19 years in prison -- the same time amount of time Young had received.
THUNDERBOAT ALLEY
Aronow, 59, a rich and handsome millionaire among the powerboat set, was killed Feb. 3, 1987, outside his USA Racing office at 3030 NE 188th St. -- a dead-end street dubbed Thunderboat Alley that he made famous with his Formula, Donzi, Magnum and Cigarette speed boats.
So fast were his boats that U.S. Customs agents commissioned Aronow to build an intercept vessel called Blue Thunder.
The $142,000 boats were used to chase drug smugglers, who many times were using Aronow boats themselves.
THREE BULLETS
Aronow had left his office in his white Mercedes, shortly after visiting a rival boat dealership owned by Kramer. Down the street, he stopped next to a Lincoln with a tinted windshield. From the Lincoln, a hit man opened fire. Three bullets struck Aronow's 225-pound frame.
On Tuesday, Smith, the retired detective, called Aronow's widow, Lillian Aronow, to break the news. ''He certainly deserved more than what he got for the death of her husband,'' he said. ``She was relieved, certainly, knowing he died while in custody.''

[f_inscreenname]

How is this possible?

1984 murder of Dixie Mafia member John ''Big Red'' Panzavecchia

In 1995, he pleaded no contest to the contract hit of Aronow, the powerboat king.

Young returned to South Florida in 2001, having fled Oklahoma while on parole. He was arrested in Broward County in October 2001.

In January, Young was sentenced to a 27-year prison term for owning the assault rifle.

He pleads guilty to a contract hit, murder for higher in 1995 and is on parole in 2001.

[BlownCrewCab]

I was working in the Cougar Building (old Donzi Building) about 300' from where Aronow was shot when it happened, I didn't hear anything because of the air compressors and stuff, But I saw that schmuck (Bobby) Drive down the street earlier in the day (at lunch) Kinda freaky finding out years later what actually happend. I'm Glad he finally bought the farm, Bit the dust, kicked the bucket, Just fuggin Died. one less Azzhole to support, one less egg to fry...

[chappy]

I was working in the Cougar Building (old Donzi Building) about 300' from where Aronow was shot when it happened, I didn't hear anything because of the air compressors and stuff, But I saw that schmuck (Bobby) Drive down the street earlier in the day (at lunch) Kinda freaky finding out years later what actually happend. I'm Glad he finally bought the farm, Bit the dust, kicked the bucket, Just fuggin Died. one less Azzhole to support, one less egg to fry...

Pretty amazing to me to read the words of someone that was within a football fields length of the murder. Thanks for sharing BCC.

[CHACHI]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxD4OONiZFo&feature=player_embedded


I Googled Robert (Bobby) Young and found this.

Ken

[Conquistador_del_mar]

I was working in the Cougar Building (old Donzi Building) about 300' from where Aronow was shot when it happened, I didn't hear anything because of the air compressors and stuff, But I saw that schmuck (Bobby) Drive down the street earlier in the day (at lunch) Kinda freaky finding out years later what actually happend. I'm Glad he finally bought the farm, Bit the dust, kicked the bucket, Just fuggin Died. one less Azzhole to support, one less egg to fry...

I can only imagine the shock that everyone went through there. A friend of mine called me that day with the news - it reminds me of the day when Steve Irwin died. Did you help build the Cougar cat boats with the narrow sponson tunnels? I have two very good color photos that the factory gave me of one of their designs. How did they work out in terms of performance? Bill

[BlownCrewCab]

Narrow Sponsons or tunnels? The narrow tunnel went on to be a welcraft I believe. But yeah, I worked on most of them, Wood, Aluminum, Glass, Kevlar. Cool stuff. Don used to come down to cougar and use our Travel-lift to launch the USA cats (before he got his own) I remember the first one he brought was just the hull with motors in it, no deck, just to test the hull.

[Conquistador_del_mar]

Narrow Sponsons or tunnels? The narrow tunnel went on to be a welcraft I believe. But yeah, I worked on most of them, Wood, Aluminum, Glass, Kevlar. Cool stuff. Don used to come down to cougar and use our Travel-lift to launch the USA cats (before he got his own) I remember the first one he brought was just the hull with motors in it, no deck, just to test the hull.

Yes, I meant the narrow tunnels between the sponsons. How in the world could he test drive a boat with no deck? It seems like it would have no rigidity. Did that hull design work out or was it squirrely? Bill

[BlownCrewCab]

The narrow tunnel cougar wasn't very impressive. it actually (at certain speeds) sprayed water out the front of the tunnel up over the deck. Tony Roberts (who bought the Building from cougar) made molds off one and sold 7 of them to the Venizualin Navy,The had twin 300hp Merlin Diesels and arneson drives and went 52MPH.

When Don Brought the first USA Cat with no deck it had all the bulkheads in it, with the steering and throttles mounted right to the bulk head. so it had some rigidity, but zero aerodynamics.