Rocsi's Behind the Scenes of Super Bowl Media Day

ET's Rocsi Diaz caught up with both teams at Super Bowl Media Day in New Orleans, getting up close and personal with the players, who let their hair down for Rocsi's camera phone footage.

RELATED: Inside Beyonce's Super Bowl Rehearsals!

Rocsi's Nokia Lumia 920 captured the gridiron warriors of the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens trying to stay relaxed before Sunday's big game.

Click the video to see what the players were willing to do for an ET bead necklace. Super Bowl XLVII airs February 3 at 3:30 p.m. PT/ 6:30 p.m. ET on CBS.

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'Fake lawyer' arraigned after allegedly representing clients with no degree

The bi-polar, heroin-using son of a prominent Albany lawyer walked into a Manhattan courtroom at least three times last year, facing judges and representing a paying client despite having no law degree, according to the charges in a bizarre attorney-imposter case.

Terence Kindlon, 42, just wants to be a real attorney, his defense lawyer argued today. Unfortunately, "He does not know at times when he is taking over another character," said the lawyer, Stacey Richman. "Sadly, he is an extremely intelligent person."

Making the case still more strange is that Kindlon is the defendant in two open burglary felonies in the same Centre Street courthouse.

The mentally-troubled Kindlon most recently played criminal lawyer on Nov. 29 in Manhattan Criminal Court, prosecutors say. Court records show he returned there the very next day, Nov. 30, to face another judge upstairs as a defendant in his two felony burglary cases, one charging he stole a bicycle and another charging he stole a motorcycle.

"The defendant has shown the utmost contempt of the courts -- pretending to be a lawyer in the same courthouse where he has two open cases," the Manhattan DA's rackets bureau chief, Daniel Cort, said at Kindlon's arraignment today.

Kindlon didn't stop there, additionally holding himself out as a lawyer to a small landscaping business in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Staten Island, prosecutors say -- sticking to his "I'm a lawyer" story even as cops questioned him there two weeks ago.

"I am the in-house counsel for Rocco's Landscaping," Kindlon asserted, according to police statements released today.

Kindlon, who prosecutors described as an apparent heroin user, never saw the criminal case -- described only as involving a misdemeanor mischief charge -- through to disposition, and allegedly did even less work for Rocco's Landscaping.

"He left those people high and dry… while representing them on six civil cases," Cort said. "He took [their] money and never came to court."

Kindlon "lawyered" using the name of an actual Manhattan attorney, James David O'Brien, and the ruse was exposed when prosecutors in the misdemeanor case reached the real O'Brien by telephone, prosecutors said. O'Brien did not immediately return calls seeking comment yesterday.

The eldest of seven siblings, Kindlon attended the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan twenty years ago, passed the New York State Bar Exam within the past year and has worked as a paralegal, his father, also named Terence Kindlon, told The Post.

"I'm going to be upfront about this -- he has severe emotional problems," said the dad, a respected, 35-year veteran of the bar and founding member of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"The DA nows that they are shooting fish in a barrel here -- but it's their barrel. Unfortunately, it's also my fish," he said, giving a small, grim laugh.

"It's a very upsetting situation," the dad said. "But there's a very powerful explanation for why this took place."

Manhattan Criminal Court Justice Richard Carruthers set Kindlon's bail at a whopping $300,000 bond or $150,000 cash.

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Marlins hire new PR firm

Maybe a new slogan will help?

The Miami Marlins on Tuesday announced the hiring of a new public relations firm to help with the team’s battered image on the heels of jettisoning star players and renewed backlash against tax dollars used to build the team’s new baseball park.

Miami’s Jeffrey Group won the account. The company replaces RBB and founding partner Bruce Rubin, a longtime friend of owner Jeffrey Loria whose Coral Gables firm represented the team since it won the World Series in 2003.

“The client engagement is over,’’ Rubin said Tuesday. “I never discuss why a client engagement ends.”

The PR switch comes after a bruising debut season for the Marlins in the new $640 million ballpark. The team’s manager caused an international uproar when he declared his admiration for Fidel Castro, management slashed payroll by jettisoning star players, and now the Marlins’ stadium deal with Miami-Dade is under fire again as the Miami Dolphins use it as a foil for the subsidies they want for Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens. At a recent debate on the Dolphins plan, one county commissioner cited a “stench” that lingers from the 2009 Marlins deal, where taxpayers borrowed about $560 million for the project.

Mike Valdes-Fauli, president of the Jeffrey Group, declined to get into the details of the planned strategy for reviving the Marlins’ image. But he conceded his firm of about 100 employees has some work to do with their new client’s messaging.

“Definitely the Marlins are cognizant of how important it is moving forward that they communicate better with fans and stakeholders across the community,’’ he said. “I think it will be important for the Miami Marlins to communicate their point of view on a whole host of issues, including on the upcoming season, some of the challenges they’ve faced in the past, and even the current comparisons with the Miami Dolphins.”

DOUGLAS HANKS

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Related developers find themselves in court over tactics

His company on trial over its tactics in a controversial condo project, Jorge Perez, the celebrated developer, found himself on the witness stand Monday answering to an unexpected foe: Jorge Perez, the author.

Perez, the chairman of the Related Group, testified in the trial of a lawsuit brought against his company by The Vizcayans, a fundraising and support group for the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens. The Vizcayans have accused Perez’s company of secretly manipulating the zoning process at Miami City Hall to win approval in 2007 for a three-tower condo project next to Mercy Hospital in Coconut Grove — forcing the Vizcayans to spend more than $1 million in legal fees in its successful effort to kill the project.

The Vizcayans, who objected to the project because it would have intruded on the views from the historic property, have also accused the developers of quietly buying the approval of two local neighborhood associations by offering them $8 million in exchange for their support.

William Davis, a lawyer for the Vizcayans, questioned Perez about the arrangement by citing passages from Perez’s 2009 book, Powerhouse Principles: The Ultimate Blueprint for Real Estate Success in an Ever-Changing Market (foreword by Donald Trump). In the book, Perez discussed his efforts to build the Mercy Hospital project, and said his team decided to keep the payments to the neighborhood groups secret because “we gave them a lot of money,” and he feared other groups would ask for more if they got wind of it.

Perez sheepishly conceded that he didn’t exactly write his book — it was the work of a ghostwriter with whom he worked. “They were my thoughts interpreted by a person that was writing,” he said.

Davis also tried to hoist Perez on one of his powerhouse principles from the book: “neutralize the opposition.” He suggested that Related sued the Vizcayans seeking public records in an effort to harass them. Perez denied the allegation and said he had no recollection of that lawsuit.

Perez insisted that there was nothing sinister about the deals with the neighborhood groups; he said the payments to the groups were simply a routine practice his firm follows when it seeks community support for its projects.

“I’m doing that on probably 10 projects right now,” Perez said.

Yery Marrero, the president of the Natoma Manors homeowners’ association, told jurors that her group supported the condo project not because of the promise of money, but because they thought the condos would prevent Mercy Hospital from expanding and bringing even more traffic to their already congested neighborhood.

“Our issue in our neighborhood is traffic,” Marrero told jurors. “Per day we have so many cars going through there.”

The Vizcayans’ lawyers have portrayed the payments as part of a larger scheme to win over the Miami City Commission, which had to endorse zoning and land-use changes for the condo project. They have accused Related’s staffers, lawyers and lobbyists of working behind the scenes to essentially rig the commission vote.

In one January 2007 e-mail, a Related vice president told Perez that they had confirmed the votes of three commissioners in favor of the condo deal — days before the first public hearing on the project.

The city commission ultimately approved the project in a 3-2 vote. But following a suit from The Vizcayans, an appeals court later overturned the decision, finding that the city ran afoul of state zoning laws and that then-Mayor Manny Diaz had improper contact with Perez during the veto period after the vote. Diaz is expected to testify Tuesday.

Related’s lawyers, John Shubin and Israel Reyes, have asked Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Daryl Trawick to throw out the case, saying The Vizcayans have failed to prove that the developers set out to deliberately harm the nonprofit.

The developers’ lawyers also called Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado as a witness Monday. Regalado, who was on the commission at the time of the 2007 vote, said he never heard anything suggesting that the developers were trying to harm The Vizcayans.

Shubin said the Vizcayans are wrongly seeking to punish the developers for simply petitioning the government for a zoning change.

“This is all about petitioning activity,” Shubin said. “They can’t even cite to you a case that looks remotely like this one that has been brought.”

Perez took his day on the witness stand with good humor. “I’m glad someone is reading my book,” he said when his testimony ended.

The trial, now in its fourth week, is expected to end this week.

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What the ‘Bqhatevwr’ Did Scott Brown Tweet?

What do politicians do after losing their re-election bids? Take to Twitter, of course. Former Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts has been doing just that.

Brown has been tweeting about his everyday life post-politics, posting blurbs about house chores, football, and his family, but Brown’s tweets are somewhat less refined than those tweeted by his skilled staffers when he was serving in Congress.

On his verified Twitter account on Friday morning, the former senator tweeted about seeing his daughter, Ayla perform at Pejamajo Café in Holliston.

“Yes. Get ready.” The tweet read, but without the finesse of Brown’s tweeting staff, one of his followers misunderstood the message.

“Oh we are. You have no idea how ready #MaPoli is to vote to keep you in the private sector & out of #MASen” @MattinSomerville tweeted back.

Brown responded with a series of three tweets delivered after midnight.

“Your brilliant Matt,” he first tweeted.

“Whatever,” followed.

And finally Brown tweeted, “Bqhatevwr.”

Though he deleted his tweets, “Bqhatevwr” trended on Twitter nearly as quickly as #eastwooding.

The trending typo drew both bipartisan support and mockery. Some taunted the former senator for his late night slip-up, creating Internet memes and “Bqhatevwr” quips, while others defended Brown, saying that he is just an average Joe who committed a typical Twitter faux pas.

But what most Twitter enthusiast failed to recognize what that Brown’s first “Your brilliant” tweet was grammatically incorrect, too.

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Father 'proud' of son who stood up to alleged molester

I'm proud of him, the dad testified today of a brave nine-year-old boy who stood up to an alleged sex-molesting school aide at the Upper West Side's PS 87 last year.

The boy had taken the stand Friday to describe the alleged abuse at the hands of aide Gregory Atkins, 56, angrily confronting the defense attorney during cross examination by shouting, "Stop being a bully!"

In his own turn on the stand today, the kid's father, an educator, described to jurors how his son complained to him of Atkins on the night of the alleged abuse in a manner largely consistent with the kid's witness stand account a year later.

The troubled child had needed counseling three times a week after the incident, but now, "He is doing better than he's ever done before," the dad told a Manhattan Supreme Court jury, where Atkins is fighting first degree sex abuse and felony child porn possession charges.

"He's very extroverted, very curious," the dad told jurors of his son. "I'm very proud of him," testified the dad, whose name is being withheld to protect the identity of the child.

Of the family's $3 million claim against the Board of Education, the dad said that should a lawsuit be pursued, any money damages would be the child's. But another motivation of filing suit would be to prompt the BoE to improve background checks on staff, he said.

Atkins was hired at the high performing school despite a history of being reprimanded verbally for inappropriate sexual behavior toward another boy student at his prior school -- including giving that child inappropriate gifts including a jock strap.

"I've always said he's a significant improvement on the prior generation," the dad beamed to reporters, speaking of his son after court. "He's a great guy."

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Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge opens for entries

Entrepreneurs, please don’t let the name of our contest scare you.

As we launch our 15th annual Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge today, we are putting out our annual call for entries. But we aren’t looking for long, laboriously detailed business plans. Quite the contrary.

More and more, today’s investors in very early stage companies want to see a succinct presentation of your concept and how you plan to turn it into a success. We do, too.

If you have a business idea or an operating startup that is less than two years old, you can enter the Challenge, our annual celebration of South Florida entrepreneurship. Sponsored by the Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center at Florida International University, our contest has three tracks — a Community Track, open to all South Floridians; an FIU Track, open to students and alumni of that university; and a High School Track, co-sponsored by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.

Your entry may be up to three pages and you may attach one additional page for a photo, rendering, diagram or spreadsheet if you wish. Think of it as a meaty executive summary. Experts in all aspects of entrepreneurship — serial entrepreneurs, executives, investors, advisors and finance specialists (see judge bios on MiamiHerald.com/challenge) — will judge your short plan. In doing so, they will be looking at your product or service’s value to the customer, market opportunity, business model, management team and your marketing and financial strategies. See the rules on page 22, which also include tips on preparing your entry.

Your entry is due by 11:59 p.m. March 11. Entries should be sent to challenge@miamiherald.com, fiuchallenge@miamiherald.com or highschoolchallenge@miamiherald.com.

Don’t worry, we’re here to help!

“Frame your business from your customer’s perspective and not yours. Rather than diving into a detailed explanation of your product or service, a more compelling way to tell your business story is to clearly share the problem that you are solving for your customers and how your business is different, better, faster, cooler, cheaper, smarter,” says Melissa Krinzman, managing director of Venture Architects and a veteran Challenge judge.

On Feb 26 at 6:30 p.m. at Miami Dade College, we’ll host a free Business Plan Bootcamp, where you can bring your working plan with you for advice from experts, including Krinzman. Find the sign-up link on MiamiHerald.com/challenge.

And each week in Business Monday and on MiamiHerald.com/challenge, we’ll be bringing you advice and answering your questions. You can post your questions on the Q&A on MiamiHerald.com/challenge or email your questions to me at ndahlberg@miamiherald.com. Follow @ndahlberg on Twitter.

The top six finalists in the Community and FIU Tracks will present their 90-second elevator pitches for our popular video contest. Last year our People’s Pick contest drew more than 18,000 votes.

On May 6, in a special section of Business Monday, we will profile the winners — the judges’ top three selections in each track plus the People’s Pick winners. Along the way, we will unveil semifinalists and finalists to keep the suspense building.

Today, though, we are looking back on the entrepreneurial journeys of our 2012 winners. Funding was a nearly universal challenge, and many faced setbacks in developing their platforms. Throughout the entry period, we’ll also look back on other winners from the past 14 years.

Show us what you’ve got. Let’s make this the best Challenge yet.

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Brush fire breaks out in Southwest Miami-Dade

Firefighters were battling Sunday a brush fire in Southwest Miami-Dade, with crews working to keep the flames from spreading to nearby homes.

The fire broke out at 1:07 p.m. in the area of 112th Avenue and 224th Street. As of late Sunday, no homes were being threatened, fire department officials said.

Streets in the area were blocked off while firefighters worked to contain the blaze, according to CBS4.

While the fire department did not called for mandatory evacuations of nearby homes, the Florida Department of Forestry said several homeowners were voluntarily leaving the area.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Phil Osava said around 21 fire units were on the scene to monitor the flames as they wind down.

The fire might have been caused by dry conditions, Osava said.

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As world of gadgets grows, online industry tunes in to video ads

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Internet video ads, long a sideshow in the online advertising market, are gaining in importance to marketers and Web publishers as they look to capitalize on consumers’ changing viewing habits and tap a $ 70 billion television market.

The ever-expanding array of gadgets that display online video, from tablets to Internet-connected TVs and DVD players, along with technology such as social media that facilitates distribution, has spurred new interest.

The growing trend means websites like Google Inc’s YouTube, Yahoo , AOL and Hulu have a better shot at tapping the mother lode of television advertising budgets, though video ads have a long way to go before they become as dominant a part of the marketing landscape as TV ads.

Research firm eMarketer says video is the fastest growing form of online advertising, with spending increasing 46 percent last year, and outpacing popular formats such as search ads and display ads.

Google does not break out financial results for its YouTube business, but CEO Larry Page said on Tuesday that spending among YouTube’s top 100 advertisers increased by more than 50 percent in 2012 compared with the year before.

There have been media reports that Facebook is developing a video ad service, and analysts will likely be looking for answers on that avenue when the social networking giant delivers its quarterly results on Wednesday.

At Yahoo, “one of our highest priorities was to create more online video experiences, because that’s where the demand is for advertising,” said Tim Morse, the former Yahoo finance chief who became CFO of video advertising technology company Adap.TV this month.

Advertisers are increasingly fond of video ads, Morse said, because of the similarities to TV.

“It’s the closest to what they’ve had offline. They’re looking for the same kind of medium where they can connect with consumers,” he told Reuters.

TURNING POINT

Chevrolet has been running online video ads for several years, but significantly ramped up its activities and investment in 2012, said Carolin Probst-Iyer, the manager of digital consumer engagement for the General Motors division.

“Last year was a bit of a turning point,” she said, as Chevrolet put greater emphasis on creating original video ads and looking for new ways to distribute spots, rather than simply running existing TV ads on YouTube and TV network websites.

One recent ad for the buzz-worthy new Corvette Stingray was viewed more times on mobile devices than it was on PCs, she said.

For Web publishers, video ads are good business. While typical banner ad rates can generate a few dollars per thousand views, video ad rates can reach $ 20 per thousand views, said eMarketer’s David Hallerman.

“All of the Internet advertising to date has come from print sources,” such as newspapers, magazines and yellow pages, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney.

“We’re are at a point where television ad budgets are likely to come online.”

The explosion of new screens such as smartphones and tablets greatly increases the venues where consumers can watch video, whether they’re at their desks or on a bus. And social networking, which makes it easy for users to share favorite videos, has given marketers added incentive to produce video ads that can gain additional exposure by tapping into the social slipstream.

YouTube’s head of industry development, Suzie Reider, said marketers are increasingly developing ads that are tailored for specific audiences, making it more likely that Web surfers will actually watch them.

“We’re living in a day and age where nobody has to watch an ad that they don’t want to watch,” said Reider. “You can skip them on the Web, you can skip them on TV.”

To make its website more appealing to advertisers, YouTube has helped create hundreds of “premium channels” featuring professionally produced video as opposed to the amateur clips YouTube is famous for. And it’s developed a type of video ad that users can skip after five seconds – advertisers only pay if the ad is watched all the way through.

PRICE DEFLATION?

Despite the growth in Web video ad spending, which eMarketer estimates reached $ 2.93 billion in the United States last year, the firm said the spending still represents only about 10 percent of the broader online advertising market.

And that is a mere drop in the bucket compared with the $ 68 billion that Kantar Media estimates was spent on television advertising in 2011.

One potential constraint is the way big brands and agencies organize their marketing budgets, says Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser. Online video ads are typically funded from Web ad budgets rather than a much larger pool set aside for TV.

Analysts also note that the rich rates websites collect for video ads will decrease as more Internet sites open to ads – something that’s already happening thanks to technology that automatically pairs ads with videos on websites.

Still, many analysts and industry executives are optimistic about what they see as the bigger picture.

“The number of people watching TV seems to be stagnating or declining, and the number of people turning to the Internet for entertainment is surging,” said RBC’s Mahaney. “It almost inevitably drives these TV budgets online”

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; additional reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Silver Linings Playbook's Road to the Oscars

ET takes an inside look at critical darling, Silver Linings Playbook, which is up for a whopping eight Oscars, and is the first film in 31 years to receive Oscar nominees in all four acting categories.

Directed by David O. Russell (The Fighter, Flirting with Disaster), Silver Linings Playbook casts Bradley as Pat Solitano, a grown man living with his mother (Jacki Weaver) and father (Robert De Niro) after losing his house, job and wife -- and spending eight months in a state mental institution on a plea bargain.

Determined to rebuild his life and reunite with his wife, Pat meets a mysterious girl named Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) who has her own set of issues. She offers to help him reconnect with his wife if he'll do something very important for her in return, and as their deal plays out, silver linings begin to appear in their lives.

Watch the video to hear Bradley Cooper, who also executive produced the film, discuss his character, and to find out the unusual way that Jennifer Lawrence auditioned for her role. Silver Linings Playbook is in theaters now.

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