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Profile: Murder on Miami Road
It's the perfect road if you want to be a few dozen cars ahead of the rest of the world -- if you know how to push in life. Gus Boulis knew how to push. On the night of Feb. 6, 2001, he looked to buy himself a few minutes and steered his BMW down Miami Road.
Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, 51, was born and raised in Kavala in Macedonia in northern Greece. He stayed in school only until the sixth grade and then trained as a mechanic. He went to sea at 16 and jumped ship two years later in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Mechanic or dishwasher, he knew how to hustle.
"That's what I learned the day I was born ... working, you know, 100, 200 hours, whatever. I don't know how to work normal," he said in a deposition.
It paid off. In Toronto he became a cook and then a partner in a Mr. Submarine. He met a 16-year-old Kavala girl, Efronsini "Frances," a Canadian citizen. She found Boulis "very young, and he was good-looking. He had all his hair."
It wasn't a storybook romance. Boulis was about to be deported. "We were discussing of getting married in the time, you know, for the immigration reason," he once said in his broken English. Frances was pregnant "and her mother was making a big thing out of it, so we went to the city hall" and got married. He cheated on her while traveling on business, but, he added, "not very often."
Nine years after he started as a cook, Mr. Submarine had 190 stores, Frances was on her way to Greece to raise their children and Boulis, with an ulcer, looked to retire before 30. But after a brief time in Greece, he moved to Florida. He and Frances never lived together again for any extended period.
In 1980 in Florida, Boulis struck up a relationship -- "not romantic," he would claim later -- with a woman named Margaret Hren, who went to work for him. It lasted 18 years. She had two children by him.
Meanwhile, Boulis bought property -- restaurants, motels -- mostly in the Keys. "Anywhere there is water and it's available and they want no down payment, lease option and good heart and good credit," he said. Stories abound of workdays stretching into the wee hours. Boulis wasn't adverse to doing the dishes if one of his restaurants was busy. "Gus led by example," says Steve Rinaldi, who worked for Boulis in marketing. "He was a very hard worker."
Trickery
Boulis also was known for handshake deals -- and for reneging on terms. Litigation and enemies were plentiful. Boulis' seat-of-the-pants style showed up in other ways: For all his business savvy, he was weak on names and dates. In one daylong deposition in which he was represented by attorney Glenn Waldman, he was asked how much he had paid Waldman.
"Who's Mr. Waldman?" he responded.
"That would be me, Gus," his lawyer said.
Explained Boulis: "I know the first name. I know him the first name."
In 1990, he founded Miami Subs, defying fast-food convention by selling beer and champagne along with burgers. He took the company public and pushed it to 192 stores. For investors, management turnover and shifting strategies made it a loser. In 1998, he sold his stake for $4.2 million -- 52 cents a share.
By then, Boulis had a new interest -- his cruise-to-nowhere gambling company, SunCruz Casinos. He built it -- not without trickery. To obtain Coast Guard clearance, corporate owners of such vessels must be majority-owned by U.S. citizens. Boulis wasn't yet an American citizen. He had colleagues file for the required permissions.
SunCruz grew to 11 vessels. Along the way, Boulis rode over or ignored civil regulations that got in his business's way. The state complained SunCruz vessels did environmental damage. Boulis was accused of opening his casinos before reaching the three-mile territorial limit. Bob Butterworth, then Florida's Attorney General, and Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne went after him. Federal investigators opened a criminal investigation, and Boulis found himself taking the Fifth.
"He could care less about the environment and the three-mile limit, could care less about having an honest business," says Butterworth, now dean of the St. Thomas University law school in Miami. From "everything I learned about him, his word was worth absolutely nothing."
Troubles mounted. The city of Hollywood wanted out of a deal Boulis struck with developer Donahue Peebles to build the Diamond on The Beach hotel project on city-owned land.
Hren had a restraining order against him. She said he beat her and threatened to kill her. She sued Boulis for child support. Frances, meanwhile, had filed for divorce after learning of his affair with Hren. "I don't like to live in -- in lies anymore. I don't like to feel like people are laughing behind my back," she said.
In 2000, the federal government fined him and his companies $1 million and required him to reimburse the government for $1 million in litigation expenses over the citizenship ruse. Two Boulis companies pleaded guilty to lying to the U.S. Coast Guard, a federal crime.
And he had to agree to sell SunCruz. The government kept the sale agreement secret so that he could get a fair price. Enter Adam Kidan, a disbarred lawyer who made his name with the Dial-A-Mattress chain in Washington, D.C.
Kidan and two partners agreed in 2000 to pay Boulis $147 million for SunCruz. Boulis kept a 10% share. The deal went bad. Kidan took ownership but feuded with Boulis over the condition of the business.
Kidan said Boulis threatened to kill him and at one meeting stabbed at him with a pen. He got a restraining order against Boulis. Government lawyers, meanwhile, mad at what they saw as Boulis breaking his word on his promise to divest completely, wanted him held in contempt.
Fatal turn
Boulis spent Feb. 6, 2001, in meetings in his 17th Street office that lasted until 9:15 p.m. The next day, he was to be deposed by his wife's attorney, Karen Coolman Amlong. He headed south toward his Hollywood home.
Approaching the busy, well-lighted intersection of Federal Highway and 17th Street in his 700-series Beemer, Boulis took the shortcut down dark Miami Road. Waiting for him, a couple of blocks in, was a dark-colored car that pulled in front of him and halted.
Boulis stopped. A black Mustang coming from the opposite direction pulled up next to him, with the drivers' doors of the two cars almost touching. The driver of the Mustang opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon, striking Boulis three times in the upper body. Newspaper reports said graze marks on Boulis' head and shoulder and gunpowder residue on his hands indicate he tried to fend off the gunman, described as a dark-haired man with a mustache. After the shooting, the Mustang sped away, as did the car blocking Boulis.
Wounded, Boulis pushed south, turned east past a laundry onto Federal Highway and then turned north, circling back toward 17th Street. He didn't make it. He swerved across the southbound lanes and hit a light pole in front of a Burger King. Reporters preferred noting he crashed across the street from a Miami Subs. He died at Broward General Hospital within an hour after leaving his office.
Two days later, hundreds of mourners gathered at St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Hollywood. Boulis was remembered for his generosity to Greek immigrants and for his success. His body was taken to Greece for burial.
A tangled estate
Boulis' legacy included a legal Gordian Knot. Two wills emerged. Claimants galore, from the state of Florida to people allegedly wronged in business deals, filed millions in claims against the estate. Hren claimed half, saying she was Boulis' 50-50 business partner.
In 1998, Boulis pegged his worth at $90 million; a year later he said it was under $50 million. So far, $4 million has been paid from it to 13 law firms, accounting firms and others working on the estate.
The fight between Kidan and Boulis' estate for control of SunCruz turned ugly for Kidan. The Boulis faction said Kidan used company funds to pay the daughter of a friend of mobster John Gotti. Kidan told newspapers the payments were for food and beverage consulting and that the Boulis faction was out to tar him with Boulis' murder. SunCruz wound up under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Boulis' killing remains unsolved. "If you had to say who the suspects would be, it would have been anyone who had done business with him," says Butterworth, the former attorney general. "He was just not a good person."
