plus 3, Tuckahoe's Kristine Elezaj's star is on the rise - LoHud.com

Tuckahoe's Kristine Elezaj's star is on the rise - LoHud.com
Give 'Em Hill: There he is, walking on air, the fairest of the fair ... - Contra Costa Times
Monday profile: Katherine Weber: Viterbo's classical star looks to ... - La Crosse Tribune
Kim Rothstein shopped so much that it's now all a blur - Palm Beach Interactive

Tuckahoe's Kristine Elezaj's star is on the rise - LoHud.com

Posted: 07 Mar 2010 11:21 PM PST

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Although Ashford and a few other entertainment connections she landed through her father (Maresh Elezaj runs a design business) proved helpful, Elezaj was unhappy with her first two managers. She founded her own company, Zaj Entertainment, in 2007, and surrounded herself with some heavy hitters in the music industry, including songwriter Frankie Storm (Rihanna's "Don't Stop the Music") and choreographer Kevin Maher (Britney Spears, New Kids on the Block).

It's an active business that keeps the young CEO replying to business e-mails at all hours and updating her Twitter account several times daily from her pink BlackBerry.

"I'm 24/7," she says. "It's all I do. My mother yells at me (because) this (BlackBerry) is attached to me," she says.

Elezaj says her mother, Susan, who often travels with her, keeps her grounded.

"For some people, it's more about the fame; that's what's frustrating," she adds. "I'm really passionate about what I do."

Her father agrees, citing more than her singing and dancing.

"She has a lot — a lot — to offer," Maresh Elezaj says. "Not just because she's mine. I think she's genuine; she's passionate; she's real; she cares."

Momentum picked up in the summer, when Kristine Elezaj performed her singles "Always" and "Let You Know" at WDRE's Mega Jam concert, which also featured Sean Kingston and LMFAO as headliners. In November, Elezaj performed at Manhattan's Tenjune with Red Café, who's featured on her song, "Living Dream."

But of all her songs, "Souvenirs" is likely her breakthrough.

Most of the "Souvenirs" video shows Elezaj popping and locking in a black criss-cross bikini, black knee-high boots and, at times, a black lace top. The chorus ("I keep finding/I keep finding/All of these souvenirs/They keep bringing back the tears") suggests a defeated lover lamenting a failed relationship, but the steamy video promotes an empowered Elezaj, who drops a toaster into the bathtub of an unfaithful ex.

That part of the video, she insists, never happened in real life. But you still might not want to get on her bad side.

"My dad just got me into long-distance target shooting with a Ruger," she says, grinning. "My sister and I went with him and we were hooked."

In her spare time, she's also a rally-car driver who's competed in celebrity events with auto racer Mario Andretti, track star Carl Lewis and socialite Paris Hilton. So, if you see a white car with a decal of her face on it, Elezaj just might be the driver leaving you in the dust.

Elezaj's music career also is shifting into second gear. In one week last month, she schmoozed with prospective partners at the Sundance Film Festival, performed in packed clubs in L.A., and posed in a black Giovanni gown for red-carpet photographers en route to the Grammys. Her publicist couldn't believe Elezaj appeared in so many pics the day after the ceremony.

"It was like Lady GaGa, Beyoncé and then me," Elezaj says. "The way it's looking, hopefully I'll be performing and nominated for something (soon)."

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Give 'Em Hill: There he is, walking on air, the fairest of the fair ... - Contra Costa Times

Posted: 07 Mar 2010 10:45 PM PST

IT IS DIFFICULT for an adult — especially one of my advanced years, somewhat logical mind and thoroughly female persuasion — to put myself in the place of a 21st-century teenage boy.

But if I could, I would imagine that the first thing I would have done in preparation for the annual "Mr. Foothill" talent contest Wednesday night at Foothill High School in Pleasanton would be to give my parents blindfolds.

Yes, folks, unless you've always hoped your wee-widdle bumpkins would be up on stage under bright lights wearing nothing but Speedos and smiles, jiggling what you and Mother Nature gave them in front of teachers, other parents and squealing teenage girls to a medley of James Brown's "I Feel Good," Tina Turner's "Proud Mary" and that ever-popular classic, "The Hokey Pokey," you'd surely appreciate some blissful ignorance.

Then again, knowledge is power, and if you possess the knowledge that your son is scampering around in public dressed as Britney Spears, smashing Taco Supremes in half with his head, or making astronaut-undergoing-G-force-test faces by aiming the business end of a leaf blower at his mouth, you can elicit your parental power to tell him not to do those things anymore. Really. Please. Command him. Take away his (driving/computer/Taco Supreme) privileges if you have to. For the sake of humanity.

And we wonder why public education's getting whacked.

Actually, it was all

pretty funny and fun. A little eyebrow-raising here and there — one kid got a bit "knotty" in an Eagle Scout skit, and another's leotard was a wee form-fitting during an interpretive dance to the theme of "Chariots of Fire" — but hilarious nonetheless, a combo of the Miss America pageant, "American Idol," various vaudeville routines, "Napoleon Dynamite" and SNL skits gone even wronger.

These days, you'd never be able to get away with such a show if the contestants were girls, but, well, apparently it's OK for boys because, well, boys will be boys. Unless, of course, they're being Britney Spears.

Now this was not an event I ordinarily would have attended. One, I do not live in the suburbs. Two, I do not have children, and if I did, I would not have teenagers. And three, I didn't have the five bucks for the ticket.

But I was a victim of my own vices, lured out of my comfortable urban chicness by a friend whose daughter goes to Foothill, tempted by the offer of a free ticket and the promise of a preshow dinner at a fine Pleasanton restaurant that serves six-cheese mac-n-cheese with crumbled potato chips on top, bottled Dr Pepper, sour-green-apple cotton candy for dessert and tubes of Pixy Stix instead of after-dinner mints, all of the above being favorite treats when I was a teen myself a couple of years ago, thereby putting me in the proper mood for the show.

As an extra bonus, my friend's younger daughter serenaded us with the "fart app" on her recently acquired iPod Touch. "It can do 20 different farts!" she said, and demonstrated.

Now that's entertainment.

After dinner, we arrived in the school's multipurpose room and joined a standing-room-only crowd of about 250 people to watch the 12 contestants — one per month, Playgirl-calendar style — in a bathing-suit competition (Mr. November experienced a brief wardrobe malfunction when the bra of his mermaid costume abandoned ship). Then the so-called talent portion got under way, followed by an evening-wear segment, with the whole event moderated by the class president and vice president, who threw in occasional shameless plugs for the school's upcoming blood drive and Sadie Hawkins dance.

Early in the show, my friend and I — able to spot talent far better than Simon Cowell, even if he used the Hubble telescope — recognized who would be the eventual Mr. Foothill.: Mr. June, a.k.a. student Matt Clark, the clear crowd favorite, receiving raucous cheers whenever he moved a little finger.

He was also the goofiest. Geek chic, if you will. As my friend noted, "If Beaker (from the Muppets) and Bill Nye the Science Guy had a baby, it would be that kid." Super tall and super skinny with glasses and brown hair, he was an elongated Bill Gates, his spindly arms flailing around in the air like one of those wavy-arm balloon guys that advertise mattress sales, but with a platinum-blond wig and cropped T-shirt. Mr. June had style, charisma and a bony rib cage that just wouldn't quit.

Soon, the judges had spoken and there he was, Mr. Foothill 2010 in all his glory, draped in flowers and a red-velvet crown. He did not cry. He fulfilled his duties with poise, strutting the stage with a backhanded royal wave, which I always thought was not so much of a wave as a gesture meaning, "It's good to be the king. Stay back 100 feet, you lowly, scabrous knaves." Bert Parks did not sing, probably because he's dead.

All in all, it was the best five bucks I never spent.

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Monday profile: Katherine Weber: Viterbo's classical star looks to ... - La Crosse Tribune

Posted: 07 Mar 2010 10:10 PM PST

Becky Weber often read a favorite Dr. Seuss book, "Oh! The Places You'll Go!" to her daughters.

The Holmen woman told her daughters to dream big and work hard to do their very best. One passage from the book: "You'll be on your way up! You'll be seeing great sights! You'll join the high flyers who soar to high heights."

Her 22-year-old daughter, Katherine, is ready to take off on her journey as a classical singer.

The Viterbo University senior is among the most honored college singers in Wisconsin and has set her sights on a career as a classical singer. She had her graduate school auditions Saturday at Indiana University, one of the top music colleges in the U.S.

Daniel Johnson-Wilmot, her Viterbo voice teacher, said a classical singer faces a long and arduous journey to a professional career, but Weber has the talent, persistence, fortitude and discipline to be successful.

Weber has an interesting timbre, and the size and color of her voice are easily produced, Johnson-Wilmot said. "Katherine continues to discover a deeper connection of her voice to the meaning and emotion of the music she is performing," he said.

A 2006 Holmen High School graduate, Weber has won her women's division the last three years at the state auditions of the National Association of Teachers in Singing. She twice has been a Liberace Scholar and winner of the Schubert Club auditions in the Twin Cities. She has received an encouragement award as well at the Metropolitan Opera auditions.

Weber also was invited to sing a mini-recital Jan. 17 as part of the 25th anniversary of the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul.

Patricia Weis, a voice teacher from Milwaukee who has judged the Viterbo student, said Weber is an extraordinary talent who has the voice and presence to light up a room.

"For her age, she has a remarkable mature voice and sings with a wonderful elegance," Weis said. "She knows how to communicate that radiant sound using her whole body as the instrument to capture the audience.

"That's unusual for a young singer to have. She has a tremendous future ahead of her."

Weber can't remember a time when she didn't sing. She was in the Coulee Region Gospel Choir, founded by her grandmother, Ruth Ann Granum, and had her first solo at age 3.

"But I never wanted to be a singer," she said. "I loved animals and wanted to be a veterinarian."

But as her voice grew in range and beauty, Weber developed a love for performance and classical music.

She never cared much for pop singers such as Britney Spears, but always loved classical repertoire and chose classical music for solo/ensemble contests in high school.

"I always found classical music challenging and beautiful," she said.

Her mother also is a good singer and had studied voice as well with Johnson-Wilmot. She sings in the La Crosse Chamber Chorale.

Weber said she didn't want to follow in her mother's footsteps at Viterbo, "but in the end it was the best choice. Viterbo has great teachers and I am where I am today because of them."

The former Miss Holmen also took dance classes for 10 years and won solo competitions as a member of Holmen High School's show choirs.

"Dance and show choir gave me the confidence to do anything," Weber said.

"I pray every time before I sing, and I take the stage with confidence," Weber said. "I love performing, it's a big adrenaline rush and so much fun."

Other singers sometimes mistake that confidence for arrogance or conceit, she said.

"It's a waste of energy to be nervous," she said.

Weber had the leading role in the Viterbo musical, "Plain and Fancy" and played Hansel in "Hansel and Gretel." But her biggest role came in Giacomo Puccini's one-act opera, "Suor Angelica" in October.

"It really was my debut as a dramatic soprano," she said. "It was fun and a challenge."

Her favorite opera sopranos are Beverly Sills and Leontyne Price. Weber will sing some of Price's songs at her senior recital May 8.

"I would like to see where opera takes me," Weber said. "Sure, some day I'd like to sing at La Scala and the Met - who wouldn't?"

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Kim Rothstein shopped so much that it's now all a blur - Palm Beach Interactive

Posted: 07 Mar 2010 10:31 PM PST

By Peter Franceschina

Sun-Sentinel Staff Writer

As her husband's billion-dollar fraud scheme was imploding last Halloween, Kim Rothstein went shopping for more shoes at Nordstrom.

She liked expensive shoes. And Louis Vuitton handbags. Gucci accessories. Evening dresses by Zola Keller. Shirts, sweaters and jeans from Cache Luxe. She could burn through thousands of dollars on a shopping outing, or drop nearly $5,000 buying from a chic Los Angeles boutique online.

"This happened to be a platform shoe that I liked and they had it in my size, which I can't get very often. I would just buy several at one time so that I would just have them," she said in sworn testimony two weeks ago, as lawyers grilled her about her spending habits and the torrents of Ponzi cash that powered her American Express account.

The 150-page deposition, a copy of which was obtained by the Sun Sentinel, provides Kim Rothstein's version of life during her husband's swindle, as it grew into the largest in South Florida history and then collapsed last fall. While she acknowledges her spendthrift ways in the document, it leaves many questions unanswered — she claims to have been in the dark about her husband's secretive dealings and his relations with his biggest investors.

Under oath, Kim Rothstein said she spent so much, collected so much jewelry, brought home so many shopping bags that she can't remember it all — it's now a blur.

But her life of luxury was lonely, hectic even, with all the social events, charity balls and public-appearance demands. She had her hands full just serving as one of her husband's many handlers — he was frenetic, unmanageable, a whirlwind.

Scott Rothstein, 47, pleaded guilty in January to five counts of racketeering, money laundering and fraud and faces up to 100 years in prison when he is sentenced May 6. There is a sweeping federal investigation under way that is expected to ensnare co-conspirators.

Kim Rothstein spent about three hours on Feb. 18 in a Fort Lauderdale conference room with an array of lawyers who are dissecting her husband's fraudulent scheme to sell non-existent legal settlements to investors. The attorneys are hunting for any assets they can claw back to repay Scott Rothstein's cheated investors.

She answered questions about her lifestyle, her finances, the many homes the couple owned, what she knew about her husband's business ventures, the enormous political contributions made in her name and her prolific shoe-buying. She said she had no inkling her husband was running a massive scam.

Kim Rothstein repeatedly referred to Scott Rothstein as "him" or "he," and to clarify, the attorneys had to ask several times if she meant her husband.

The lawyers were armed with her American Express charge card records dating to 2005, which they used to refresh her memory about her purchasing sprees that totaled nearly a quarter of a million dollars. The questioning began with some basics: She met Scott Rothstein at a barbecue in 2003 and started dating him two years later, she said. The couple married on Jan. 26, 2008, in a lavish weekend-long affair attended by Gov. Charlie Crist at the Versace mansion on South Beach.

Kim Rothstein, who turns 36 next month, said her education consisted of "almost an associate's degree from Broward Community College." She tended bar at Blue Martini, an upscale watering hole at The Galleria, and dabbled in real estate sales, but the sales were not highly lucrative for her. She said her personal savings, which she said she is now using to pay her living expenses, amounted to about $100,000 last fall.

The questioning about her spending began with Zola Keller, a high-end clothier on Las Olas Boulevard in downtown Fort Lauderdale. "She does custom dresses, gowns, gala clothing, that sort of thing," Kim Rothstein said, adding she shopped there "per his [her husband's] instructions." She spent $42,000 at the shop over the years, according to the American Express records cited by the attorneys.

The lawyers asked about her purchases at Shop 603, another Las Olas retailer, where she spent more than $12,000 on gifts for family and friends. Next up were the Louis Vuitton purchases at Neiman Marcus: $23,000 worth of handbags.

"I just went in there really when I was on a mission for gifts, that sort of thing," Kim Rothstein said. "Some of them were for me, personally."

As the questioning about the luxury leather goods went on, Scott Rothstein's criminal defense attorney, Marc Nurik, piped up: "All the women are salivating at this table," the transcript of the deposition relates.

Then she was asked about $21,000 in shoe purchases over the years, and the trip to Nordstrom on Halloween last year. Her husband had mysteriously fled to Morocco that week as investors clamored for their missing money, and she consoled herself with some new shoes.

The week before, the five-foot blonde spent $4,700 online buying footwear from XTC on Melrose, a Los Angeles store that advertises that its clients include Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears.

"I have very small feet; I have to special order," Kim Rothstein explained.

Apparently astonished at the volume of the purchases, Theresa Van Vliet, the former federal prosecutor asking the questions, remarked, "I like shoes — that's a lot of shoes."

While Kim Rothstein did not reveal her shoe size, the Sun Sentinel learned she wears a size 5, and that last Halloween she bought two pairs of shoes: Gucci platforms with zippers and Jimmy Choo open-toe platforms. Nordstrom's website shows the latter pair, named "Clue," retailing for $650.

She spent another $4,000 online buying shoes at Neiman Marcus in June 2009, in preparation for her husband's law firm's summer retreat at Atlantis in the Bahamas.

There was another $13,000 in handbag purchases, a number of them from Coach, and $2,200 in Gucci handbags and leather accessories.

"Those were probably gifts, too," Kim Rothstein told the lawyers. "For his sister — she likes Gucci."

On Jan. 9, 2008, she spent $2,600 on four handbags from Saks Fifth Avenue.

"Three of them are mine, one of the Tory Burch's was a gift," she said, adding she had gone into the store at first to return a bag. But "they were having a sale, so…"

Kim Rothstein spent nearly $14,000 on sunglasses and jewelry, $21,000 in electronics and home improvements, $8,000 in gym equipment, $36,000 in home décor and furnishings for their houses, and $7,600 in cutlery from Bloomingdales, according to the credit card records over the four-year period cited by the attorneys.

She said that she never had access to her husband's bank accounts and that he never discussed business around her. She said that she couldn't remember when her husband presented her with an 87-foot, $5 million yacht, the Princess Kimberly, and that she didn't know it was illegal for him to make $172,000 in political contributions in her name.

When asked to list the major jewelry purchases her husband had made for her as gifts, she said, "I couldn't begin to tell you that. Like specifically what?"

Of those gifts, she said, federal agents have seized everything except her wedding ring.

Scott Rothstein was so busy, his wife said, that she rarely saw him. At one point, an attorney misstated the length of the couple's two-year marriage. Kim Rothstein's response suggested a divorce may be in the offing.

"Let's not add more time to it than there needs to be," she said.

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