Bob Norman (born April 12, 1969) is a journalist in South Florida who serves as the news director for the Florida Center for Government Accountability and as contributing writer for Columbia Journalism Review. He previously worked at WPLG-Channel 10 beginning in 2011 as an on-air investigative reporter.[1] Norman worked for several years as a weekly newspaper and online columnist. He broke the corruption story[2] of $1 billion Ponzi scheme operator Scott Rothstein's October 27, 2009 flight to Morocco under suspicious circumstances. Rothstein, who returned to face inquiries, is a former Fort Lauderdale attorney investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and arrested on 1 December 2009. In 2008 Bob Norman reported an unusual circumstance following the murder of Melissa Britt Lewis, employee of Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler (RRA) law firm, wherein the prosecuting attorney in the Lewis murder case came to work with RRA two months[3] after the murder. Rothstein has not been connected to the murder, however murder victim Ms. Lewis had been close to Debra Villegas, RRA Chief Operating Officer, whose husband Tony Villegas was identified as the murderer by the City of Plantation Police represented by Scott Rothstein.[4]
Norman, who has also exposed other public corruption such as illegal activities of Broward County, Florida public officials, formerly wrote for New Times Broward-Palm Beach, and browardpalmbeach.com[5] as well as the Miami New Times,[6] all owned by Village Voice Media. His work exposing wrongdoing at the North Broward Hospital District (Broward Health) prompted then-Gov. Jeb Bush to fire the CEO and General Counsel as well as remove six of seven members of the board from that agency.[7] In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Norman reported on chronic failures of the federal Immigration and Naturalization Services department. Mistakes made here in South Florida led to Mohamed Atta's being allowed into the U.S. -- to subsequently live in Broward County and train at Florida flight schools—when he could have been deported had rules been followed. The piece also detailed the undue influence and pressure on immigration agents by the airline industry to rush their work, sometimes at the expense of safety. For that reporting, Tom Brokaw presented Norman with the Livingston Award for Young Journalists in 2002. His reporting is also credited with leading to the criminal conviction of Hollywood City Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom, criminal corruption charges against Deerfield Beach Mayor Al Capellini, Broward County Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin and the removal of Broward Circuit Judge Ana Gardiner for improper conduct[8] and the resignation of Broward County Judge Claudia Robinson from the bench after Norman's work prompted a Judicial Qualifications Commission investigation into alleged favoritism on the bench.[9]
Until 2006, Norman maintained his online column The Daily Pulp (former site).[10] Norman then moved his posts to The Daily Pulp: Bob Norman's Blog on browardpalmbeach.com.[11] Norman's blog remained with New Times Broward-Palm Beach until 2011, when his blog then became part of WPLG-Channel 10's website[12]
A resident of Plantation, Florida, Bob Norman is married to South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigations editor Brittany Wallman.[13] and is a graduate of the University of Kentucky. Bob Norman moved to Broward County in 1998, after working 5 years as a crime reporter in Fort Myers, Florida.[14]