Weather Man Bolaris' Hellish Trip to Miami
A beautiful Latvian rip-off duo operating at a posh hotel. A shot of booze laced with a roofie. A giant painting of a woman’s head, and an unexplained $43,000 credit card bill.
It sounds like the plot for Hangover II, but it’s actually what happened to WTXF Philly weather guy John Bolaris in Miami last spring, reports Philly Magazine.
Bolaris was preyed upon by an Eastern European crime syndicate at the Fontainebleau. ”I remember someone holding me up and making me sign something,” he said.
What’s most surprising is that Bolaris twice fell for the shady-shots trick. Here’s what he says about coming to after the first roofie.
“Then I woke up in a taxi. My shirt was stained with red wine, and I had this huge painting of a woman’s head.”
He tracked down Marina and Anna, who said he had bid for the painting at the fundraiser. They met him at his hotel - ostensibly to return his sunglasses, which they had taken by accident - and promised to straighten the whole thing out, if only Bolaris would share a cab with them to the Caviar Bar, where one of the women said she left her purse.
Bolaris obliged. Then he was drugged again, according to the FBI.
“They got me twice,” he said. “I couldn’t put anything together. I had no idea what happened.”
I’m sorry. Even in my compromised state–no, especially in my compromised state–I am not leaving my hotel and hitting a bar with a pair of sketchy Latvian ladies. I’m not doing another shot with them either.
Bolaris helped testify against the crime ring, but it sounds as though he’s still on the hook with American Express.
[image: Philebrity.com]
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Michael Malone is content director at B+C and Multichannel News. He joined B+C in 2005 and has covered network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television, including writing the "Local News Close-Up" market profiles. He also hosted the podcasts "Busted Pilot" and "Series Business." His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The L.A. Times, The Boston Globe and New York magazine.