The last time attorney Michael Vivoli and client Ronald Charles Vinci chatted was about a month ago. Vinci was telling Vivoli about a home he had just purchased — a two-story, million-dollar mansion along Fort Lauderdale’s New River, in the well-to-do Tarpon Bend neighborhood.
Vinci, 70, a self-made multimillionaire from Southern California, wasn’t overly excited, Vivoli remembers. He talked as though he had just scored another good deal, with the money he had made from successful Honda dealerships in Southern California and Nevada.
The pair would not talk again.
Tuesday afternoon, Fort Lauderdale police went to the Tarpon Bend home after a 911 caller reported finding a body inside the mansion at 101 SW Coconut Dr.
Vinci’s body was wrapped in duct tape. Investigators on Wednesday released few details about his mysterious death, except to say it was suspicious.
His body was turned over to the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office to determine how he died.
“I was just in shock when I got the call this morning,” said Vivoli, Vinci’s business lawyer for the past 11 years. “It’s just devastating.”
Vivoli said Vinci started out in the San Diego area in the 1960s with some tools and $1,500. He started out with Honda motorcycles, then moved into selling cars.
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