The Prince of Paradise

by John Glatt

  On May 1, 1979, Robert Platshorn and Robert Meinster were indicted, along with the other members of the Black Tuna Gang. They were charged with smuggling five hundred tons of marijuana into the United States over a sixteen-month period. It marked the first ever joint operation by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the FBI. Ahmed Boob was never charged with being any part of the illegal operation.

  After handing down the indictments, federal law enforcement then targeted Ben Novack Sr., suspecting him of having used the Fontainebleau to launder some of the gang’s millions.

  “He certainly didn’t, and took great exception to it,” said Platshorn in 2011. “There was an incident where he was about to punch out an agent in the DEA office … for impugning his integrity.”

  Platshorn was eventually sentenced to sixty-four years’ imprisonment for smuggling marijuana. He was finally freed from federal prison in 2008, after serving almost thirty years. He still remains evasive about whether Ben Novack Sr. was aware of the smuggling operation.

  “They tried to force him to testify against us,” said Platshorn. “He never saw what we were doing. Whether he knew or not is a different story.”

  * * *

  In early June, Ben Novack Jr.’s best man, Pete Matthews, threw him a bachelor party, and several of their friends from the Miami Beach Police Department came. Matthews had organized a dinner, followed by a tour of strip clubs around Miami Beach.

  “It was fun,” he said. “We went to three or four of the strip places that were active on the beach … the Gaiety, the Place Pigalle—we hit them all.”

  At one of the clubs, a stripper was doing an exotic pole dance to everyone’s delight. “Benji slipped a dollar in her garter,” recalled Matthews. “She was up and down the pole, and had all kinds of bills sticking everywhere from every crevice in her body.”

  Then one of the bills got dislodged and fell to the floor.

  “Benji palmed it,” Matthews said, laughing, “and I said, ‘Ben, I don’t believe it.’ He said, ‘I’ll give it back to her the next round.’ That was always Benji, God love him.”

  * * *

  On Tuesday, June 19, 1979, Ben Novack Jr. married Jill Campion in an Orthodox Jewish wedding conducted by Rabbi Irving Lehrman at the Temple Emanu-El in Miami Beach. Several months earlier Campion had converted to Judaism, to please her new husband and his family.

  “Yes, they did want that,” said Jill. “I went to the Oceanside with Rabbi Lehrman and got in the water. I went through the whole thing.”

  The bride and groom were married under a traditional chuppah. Jill wore a long flowing white gown and a matching white hat, and carried a bouquet of flowers. The bearded groom wore a loose-fitting white suit and pink shirt with a wide striped tie. During the service, Ben Jr.’s large pyramid-shaped yarmulke fell off, though the guests were too polite to notice.

  A proud Ben Novack Sr. attended the wedding, appearing on good terms with his ex-wife Bernice, who brought along George.

  After the service, Ben Jr.’s parents posed together with the happy couple under the chuppah. Ben Sr. looked debonair in a white open-neck shirt and a large gold chain, his chevron mustache combed immaculately. Everyone in the picture is smiling, except Bernice, who was against the wedding, as Jill was eight years older than her son.

  The maid of honor, Dovie Ann Hart, remembered Bernice being unusually subdued on her son’s wedding day. “Bernice did not appear to be happy about the wedding,” said Hart, “but she was very gracious.”

  Then, after a small family reception, Ben Jr. kissed his new bride good-bye and drove to Miami International Airport for a business trip.

  “He got on a plane by himself,” said Jill. “That was our honeymoon. He said we’ll have a big party later.”

  * * *

  On July 4 of that same year, Bernice Novack threw a lavish wedding party in her garden for her son and his new wife. The bride had made her own low-cut white gown and a lace shawl. Looking very relaxed, Ben Jr. wore a white waistcoat and an open-neck shirt.

  “It was very nice and fully catered,” Jill remembered. “And they had tables all over the yard, with umbrellas.”

  Ben Sr. arrived alone, wearing a bright pink silk shirt, with various gold chains dangling from his neck. His sister Lillian and her husband, Harry Brezner, also attended, and Maxine Fiel flew in from New York with her daughters, Meredith and Lisa.

  Ahmed Boob came with a beautiful redhead, and happily sipped champagne and posed with Ben Jr. and Bernice for photographs.

  None of Ben Jr.’s celebrity friends showed up, although many sent gifts. Frank Sinatra and his wife Barbara gave the newlyweds a beautiful crystal platter with a card attached reading, “Dear Jill and Ben—Wishing you a long, happy and wonderful life together—Love & Kisses, Barbara and Francis.”

  Among the guests were several important Amway executives and their wives, and several of Ben Jr.’s friends from the Miami Beach Police Department.

  At one point, to everyone’s delight, a man burst into the garden, complete with a monkey on his back and clashing cymbals, to deliver a singing telegram: a humorous song to the bride and groom.

  Later, everybody posed for photographs around a huge wedding cake with a miniature bride and groom on top.

  “It was very modest,” best man Pete Matthews said of the event. “The reception was in the backyard, and it was really nice.”

  A few weeks later, when the caterer’s bill came in, Matthews received a phone call from an angry Ben Jr., who had his mother on the other line. They informed him that they intended to challenge the bill and demand a discount, as processed turkey had been served instead of real meat.

  SEVENTEEN

  MARRIAGE

  Soon after they married, Ben Novack Jr. admitted to being almost five years younger than he had claimed. He was taking a shower and suddenly called his new wife into the bathroom, saying he had something he had to tell her.

  “Listen, I’m not really twenty-seven. I’m twenty-five,” he told her.

  Jill Novack, who was now in her early thirties, told him that it was no big deal. Then, a few weeks later, he confessed that he was actually only twenty-three years old, and had been only twenty when they first met.

  “I felt such a fool,” said Jill. “That’s why his mother wasn’t happy with me, and was so upset about the wedding.”

  After their wedding, Ben Jr. concentrated on organizing Amway conventions all over the country. By 1980 he had built up so many contacts in the convention business that he quit his Amway job and set up his own company, Novack Enterprises, Inc., appointing himself president. He would still do Amway conventions, but now he would be able to take on new clients.

  “He started his business from people he knew,” said Richard Marx, whom he had recently hired as a legal adviser. “And I admired Benji to be able to do what he did. He accomplished something. He truly did. And he did it basically away from his father.”

  Ben Jr. was now on the road most of the time, organizing Amway conventions and courting new corporate clients. He would often take his beautiful new wife along, viewing her as a great business asset. “We went out to dinner with his business associates a lot,” recalled Jill. “I attended parties and traveled with him.”

  One time, he brought Jill along to an Amway convention he was running at the Playboy Club Retreat in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. “We ran into Rip Taylor and hung out with him,” Jill remembered of the flamboyant comedian. “I colored his hair and mustache and we had a great time.”

  On another trip to Las Vegas, Ben Jr. brought her backstage to meet Neil Sedaka, whom he had known since he was a child.

  “We’d get all dressed up and have carte blanche to backstage,” Jill said. “And you’d meet everybody. He was close to all those heavy-hitters: Sinatra, the Rat Pack, Ann-Margret. We were rubbing shoulders with them and were treated like royalty. It was very, very nice.”

  In retrospect, Jill believes Ben Jr. viewed her as a “trophy wife,” a way to
replicate his father’s relationship with his mother at the Fontainebleau. “I was that trinket,” Jill said. “I was a showgirl dancer, but I could hang out with the respectable people.”

  * * *

  In 1980, Ben Novack Sr. moved into a new condo development on the Seventy-Ninth Street (now John F. Kennedy) Causeway, eight miles west of Miami Beach. He bought a small stake in the Racquet Club in North Bay Village, and started managing it. It was a steep fall for the man who had once commanded one of the world’s most glamorous hotels.

  Since the breakup of his third marriage, the septuagenarian had dated a string of beautiful young women, some young enough to be his granddaughters. Bernice was furious when he fell for an eighteen-year-old schoolgirl, and even went along to her high school prom as her date.

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Maxine Fiel, “Give me a break.”

  After that short-lived relationship, Novack started dating a former Miss Uruguay in her late twenties named Juana M. Rodríguez Muñoz. As a token of his love, he presented her with the same heart-shaped hammered gold ring Bernice had worn during their marriage.

  When Ben Novack Jr. learned that his father’s new girlfriend was wearing the ring, he was furious, and cornered the girl in the street, demanding it back.

  “The same bad choices,” Richard Marx explained. “Both Junior and Senior … seemed to have problems with women. And they paid a price for it. They paid a big price for it.”

  * * *

  Before long, Jill Novack discovered that her new husband had been cheating on her during his frequent out-of-town business trips. “He had met this woman,” said Jill, “who was running his convention for [a] hotel, and they liked each other.”

  One evening, he took Jill along for dinner with another couple at their favorite hangout, the Celebrity Room at the Diplomat Hotel. “And all he could do was talk about this woman,” Jill said. “I stormed out crying.”

  Ben Jr. followed her out of the restaurant and into the parking lot, where they started arguing. Soon afterward, Jill found the woman’s phone number. “So I called her,” Jill said.”She admitted to it and said it was nothing. You know how things get really intense when you’re doing a convention. Yeah I know.”

  Another major problem in the marriage was Jill’s mother-in-law, Bernice, who used her money to control her son. “His mother ran the show,” Jill explained. “In person, I got on with her great. She was very charming and lovely … but she wasn’t going to be happy with any woman.”

  “At eleven o’clock every night,” Jill remembered, “his mother would call him on the phone because the rates went down then. And finally I said, ‘You know eleven o’clock is not a good time for your mom to be calling us,’ because sometimes we’d both be in bed and didn’t want to be disturbed. I told him to tell his mother to stop calling, and that was an issue.”

  According to Jill, she and Ben Jr. enjoyed a normal sex life during their marriage. “He never asked me to do anything kinky or weird,” she said. “The only thing is he had one or two soft-porn films, a pretty story and a filter with lenses. A couple of times he turned those on.”

  To make extra money, as well as fulfill a long-cherished dream of being a private eye, Novack set up his own security company, called Eagle. In addition to supplying security guards for special events, he also conducted discreet surveillance for divorce attorneys.

  “Once, he was hired to follow someone’s wife,” said Jill, “to prove if she was having an affair.”

  One night, Ben Jr. had parked his burgundy Lincoln Continental outside a condominium, hoping to use his high-powered camera to photograph the wife and her lover in a compromising position.

  “It turned out to be uneventful,” Jill said. “At around two A.M. he had me bring him food and drink and sit with him to keep him company. He was lonesome and bored.”

  During his rare downtime, Ben Jr. loved to mix his own rock-and-roll tapes, using his expensive customized sound system.

  “I remember him with a headset mixing music tapes and stuff,” Jill said. “But he never really shared that with me. I sewed a lot.”

  However, Ben did share his passion for jazz with Jill’s best friend, Dovie Ann Hart. “Ben loved jazz,” Hart said, “and he had an entire music room devoted to his ‘state-of-the-art’ electronic sound system. I loved jazz, too, so we listened together and discussed the artists.”

  Pete Matthews was in awe of the expensive high-tech equipment in Ben Jr.’s Fontainebleau Park apartment. “He went first class with all the high-end technology,” said Matthews. “With the TVs and the stereos.”

  Although he never skimped on anything for himself, Ben Jr. was parsimonious when it came to anybody else.

  “We were celebrating a birthday party for Jill’s mom,” Matthews said, “and Jill and Benji came and he bought a bottle of wine. It was a fun night. And I remember Benji leaving with Jill, and he turns around and looks at the wine. Then, in front of everyone, he says, ‘Oh, I see they didn’t open it, so I’ll take it home.’ I couldn’t believe it. He took the wine and left. That was Benji. I don’t think he really cared what people thought. He just spoke his mind and did what he wanted to do.”

  * * *

  To save money, the newlyweds opened a joint savings account, both putting away a few dollars a week. One day, Jill checked on the account, which should have had $2,000 in it, and discovered it empty.

  “He was traveling, and I called him out on it,” she said. “He could make you mad.”

  After Ben explained that he had transferred the money into a new account in his mother’s name, as it was a good investment, his wife decided to teach him a lesson.

  “He had over $20,000 worth of electronics,” said Jill. “We had televisions. We had music equipment. So I packed up the whole apartment. Everything.” Then a girlfriend helped her move everything out to her mother’s house. “I went over to my Mom’s and stayed there,” Jill said. “And when he got back in town, he walked into an empty house. First off he called his mother, who told him, “You see, I told you. She wanted your money.”

  When a furious Ben Jr. arrived at her mother’s house to confront her, Jill immediately gave him back everything, saying she just wanted to teach him a lesson.

  “Here’s your stuff,” she told him, “I don’t want it.”

  She then agreed to come home, but things between them would never be the same again.

  In early 1981 they decided to buy a house together, hoping to get their marriage back on track. Jill was overjoyed, as this had always been their long-term plan.

  “We’re buying this house,” she recalled, “and everything is going well. [Then,] on a Sunday morning, he came in with a document in his hand and says, ‘I can’t do it.’ I said, ‘You can’t do what?’ And he says, ‘I can’t buy this house and put your name on it. My mother won’t let me.’ She held the purse strings.”

  Jill then became suspicious that he was cheating again, and looked at his planner. There, to her horror, she found divorce papers Ben Jr. had had an attorney draw up saying that the two of them were no longer married.

  “Well, I called my attorney,” she said. “He checked the court, and there was no record that we had been divorced. When Benji came back, I held [the document] up to him and said, ‘What’s this for?’ And he looks at me with those big eyes.”

  He then confessed that he had invented the divorce for his mother, so she would stop nagging him about not putting Jill’s name on the deed for the new house.

  “And we’re still going to her house at weekends as usual for dinner,” Jill said, “and she’s thinking we’re divorced, and never even said a word to me. That’s just weird.”

  Recently, Bernice had even taken Jill to one side and confided that she had a twenty-four-carat gold purse in her safety deposit box that would one day be Jill’s.

  “Why tell me that if you don’t want me there?” she asked. “But she was very nice to me in person.”

  A few weeks after the divo
rce document incident, Ben Jr. coldly handed her a separation agreement offering a $2,000 settlement. When Jill complained that it was not enough even to get an apartment, he reluctantly agreed to double the figure.

  “Two months later he called me back,” she said. “We weren’t divorced yet. And he says, ‘I learned my lesson. Please come back. I’ll rip up the separation agreement and put your name on the house.’ And I said no, because I knew if I went back it would be twice as hard to get out the next time.”

  On March 18, 1981, they were officially divorced after less than two years of marriage. Jill accepted a $4,000 payoff and gave him back her engagement ring.

  “It was all congenial,” she explained. “It was like his mother was in control. She broke us up and she did it with a smile on her face.”

  * * *

  In April 1981, two weeks after his divorce was finalized, Ben Novack Jr. bought a house on the water off Atlantic Boulevard in Pompano Beach, a short drive from his mother. He now spent most of his time on the road, organizing conventions for Amway and his other clients.

  When he was at home, he still went out in his uniform on patrol for the Miami Beach Police Department. After seven years as a volunteer, he had an excellent attendance record, somehow managing to log the required shifts each month.

  “He was very proficient,” said Officer Pete Matthews, who still partnered with Ben Jr. on midnight patrols. “He wrote an excellent arrest record, and the citations were flawless. He knew what he was doing, and I never had to second-guess him.”

  On May 8, 1983, Ben Novack Jr. was promoted to fully sworn reserve status. To qualify, he had to pass a thorough background investigation, a psychological examination, and a polygraph test. He also had to explain in writing why he was applying for the promotion.

  “For the past nine-years [I] have enjoyed being able to devote time each month,” he wrote, “to help serving community, help people and do my share in upholding the laws of our government, for which I have a very high regard.”

  However, Officer Novack’s dream of ever making the detective bureau was handicapped by his uncontrollable stutter. “Ben desperately wanted to [make detective],” said former Miami Beach Police field training officer Pat Franklin. “He had a very bad stuttering problem and this precluded him, because he couldn’t use the radio. He couldn’t speak under stress, so he was frustrated.”