“Hitman Kills Local Developer.” That should have been the headline in April 1977 after Hertz Rotenstein’s business partners conspired to kill him. They hired a self-described “apartment building owner” who then offered to pay someone who turned out to be a professional FBI informant $6,500 to kill Rotenstein.

Instead of taking the money, the informant offered to wear a wire while reporting to the middleman that he had driven Rotenstein to a secluded spot west of Daytona Beach, Fla., shot him in the head, and taken a ring and Rotenstein’s wallet as proof of death. Meanwhile, as newspapers around Florida reported at the time, our family was “at an undisclosed location, apparently not in Volusia County.”

What do they say about the best laid plans?

Rotenstein got to live another 43 years. He died of congestive heart failure July 22 , 2023.

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