John Bolaris

FORMER Lenny Dykstra business manager, Dan Herman , has filed a complaint against former Fox 29 weatherman John Bolaris , after a text-message battle between the two resulted in Herman going to the Pennsylvania State Police. The dispute began when Herman, the owner of Chinga Chang Records, pitched a documentary called "Race in the Ring," about the 1982 fight between boxers Larry Holmes and Gerry Cooney . On June 28, 2012, Herman says he entered into a contract with Bolaris to narrate the documentary, in exchange for a one-fifth ownership of the film.

THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA weeps. John Bolaris is moving back to New York City. The former TV weatherman announced Monday in his Metro column that he will be leaving Philly for New York. Bolaris told me he has a couple of irons in the fire. "Both have to do weather," Bolaris said, "but not totally. " Although he couldn't give me all the details, he teased that we might eventually see the fruits of his labor in Philadelphia as well. He'll make the official move in June, so we have a couple more months of Bolaris-y goodness.

THE GUY tossed restlessly in his bed, night after night, for the better part of a year. He couldn't sleep. He had nightmares whenever he did - bizarre, Kafkaesque snippets of dialogue involving the Russian mob, a pair of mysterious, dark-haired women, a goofy-looking painting and an incomprehensible credit-card bill. The shadowy characters and confusing plots from the bad dreams haunted John Bolaris in real life, too. Yeah, that John Bolaris. Few people know that the affable local weatherman's life was turned upside down during a visit to Miami Beach last spring that started out pleasantly and ended with his getting drugged - twice - while his credit card was used by Eastern European scam artists to rack up $43,000 worth of expenses in just two days, while he staggered around in a stupor.

THE FORECAST looks like unemployment for John Bolaris. The Fox 29 meteorologist, who two years ago survived an encounter with a Russian and Eastern European organized-crime group, could not survive the storm winds of office politics. Bolaris had been suspended since Dec. 22, but yesterday a Fox spokeswoman confirmed: "We mutually agreed that it was time to part ways. " She declined to comment further on the parting. As we reported on PhillyGossip.com on Dec. 23, Bolaris was suspended indefinitely just days after Playboy magazine published an article about his being drugged and scammed by two European hotties in Miami Beach in March 2010, a story first reported by the Daily News last May . In Playboy, Bolaris was quoted as saying that he had gone with the women because "I'm a guy. There was the thought I might get laid," and he discussed his reputation as a ladies' man. He also shared nude photos of women on his cellphone with writer Pat Jordan.

KATHY Orr, Doug Kammmerer, Hurricane Schwartz, Carol Erickson, Tom Lamaine, Sue Serio, Cecily Tynan, Dave Roberts, Henry from Channel 6, Karen Rogers, John Bolaris and about 35 others from the local channels can't predict their way out of a wet paper bag. Hey, I'll tell ya what the weather is in 10 minutes with the Mega-Doppler 1 Million. All these folks do is scare the heck out of people and, in Bolaris' case, got him, I think, kicked out of Philly for the "Storm of the Century" that wasn't.

Fox29 has suspended weatherguy John Bolaris , a station representative said Friday. The suspension Thursday followed a recent article in Playboy about Bolaris' misadventures in Florida in 2010 with a pair of young women who drugged him and made merry with his American Express card, to the tune of $43,000. The Playboy article wasn't the only reason Bolaris was suspended, a source said. It was merely the catalyst, capping a series of unpleasant newsroom incidents over the last year that included a dustup over Bolaris' desire to interview his bud Lenny Dykstra for the station.

SOME highlights - and low lights - of John Bolaris' career: 1990: Bolaris, young and handsome, begins working as a weatherman at Channel 10, at the time a CBS affiliate, and almost immediately sparks an endless series of stories about his ever-evolving love life. March 2001: Four words: Storm of the Century. Bolaris and NBC10 hyped a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm that never arrived, earning him years of infamy. November 2002: Bolaris leaves NBC10 for New York's WCBS-TV. May 2003: Bolaris reportedly is thrown over a table at the Denim Lounge, in Center City, by another patron after a confrontation over the weatherman's then-girlfriend, Tiffany McElroy.

DID YOU REALLY think John Bolaris would let the world end without getting justice? On the last full day of life as we know it - according to the Mayan calendar, at least - the headline-grabbing local ex-weatherman rejoiced in the convictions of the masterminds behind the Miami Beach "bar girls" scam that bilked him out of $43,000. "It's finally over. Justice has been served," J-Bo told the Daily News Thursday after the conviction of Stanislav Pavlenko, Albert Takhalov and Isaac Feldman on conspiracy, wire-fraud and money-laundering charges following an 11-week federal trial in Miami.

City Councilman Rick Mariano says the public has lost faith in weather forecasts blared over the TV airwaves. And hoping to jump-start his own faith-in-government movement, Mariano yesterday urged the Street administration to start putting "unfiltered weather" forecasts on the city's cable access station whenever a major weather event is threatening the region. "We don't trust what the channels are telling us," Mariano said after City Council approved his resolution. "They get involved in rating wars and they are forecasting severe storms that aren't coming.

LOCK UP your wives and girlfriends. It looks like former NBC-10 weatherhunk John Bolaris is angling to return to the Philadelphia airwaves in the fall. Bolaris, who's been with New York's WCBS since 2002, did not re-sign with the station, sources tell us. His contract is up toward the end of the year. The weather anchor was recently moved to weekends with newly hired meteorologist Lonnie Quinn replacing him on weeknights, as FTVLive.com reported. We're told Bolaris has put out feelers to CBS 3, NBC-10 and Fox 29, and there are casual, and somewhat secret, discussions going on. Friends of Bolaris, a Long Island native, say he misses Philadelphia and is very much hoping to return.

FORMER Lenny Dykstra business manager, Dan Herman , has filed a complaint against former Fox 29 weatherman John Bolaris , after a text-message battle between the two resulted in Herman going to the Pennsylvania State Police. The dispute began when Herman, the owner of Chinga Chang Records, pitched a documentary called "Race in the Ring," about the 1982 fight between boxers Larry Holmes and Gerry Cooney . On June 28, 2012, Herman says he entered into a contract with Bolaris to narrate the documentary, in exchange for a one-fifth ownership of the film.

THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA weeps. John Bolaris is moving back to New York City. The former TV weatherman announced Monday in his Metro column that he will be leaving Philly for New York. Bolaris told me he has a couple of irons in the fire. "Both have to do weather," Bolaris said, "but not totally. " Although he couldn't give me all the details, he teased that we might eventually see the fruits of his labor in Philadelphia as well. He'll make the official move in June, so we have a couple more months of Bolaris-y goodness.

DID YOU REALLY think John Bolaris would let the world end without getting justice? On the last full day of life as we know it - according to the Mayan calendar, at least - the headline-grabbing local ex-weatherman rejoiced in the convictions of the masterminds behind the Miami Beach "bar girls" scam that bilked him out of $43,000. "It's finally over. Justice has been served," J-Bo told the Daily News Thursday after the conviction of Stanislav Pavlenko, Albert Takhalov and Isaac Feldman on conspiracy, wire-fraud and money-laundering charges following an 11-week federal trial in Miami.

John Bolaris , bon vivant, boulevardier, and baron of barometrics, is bailing out on bachelorhood, thanks to the matchmaking skills of Howard Stern . Bolaris, 55, the former Philly weather guy whose romantic life has long been a bountiful source of material for "SideShow" and similar journalistic enterprises, proposed to gf Erica Smitheman , 33, at Stern's urging during The Howard Stern Show on Sirius XM Radio Monday morning. Bolaris was there to do a weather special for Sirius and had brought Smitheman with him. The Stern show website, howardstern.com, recounts what happened next: "Before he left, John introduced his girlfriend, Erica, noting that she was 20 years his junior.

IT'S THE ENGAGEMENT of the century. Meteorologist John Bolaris and Erica Smitheman , his girlfriend of a year-and-a-half, were engaged on Monday's Howard Stern Show. Bolaris, 55, and Smitheman, 33, who works in flooring sales, were in-studio on Stern's SiriusXM satellite-radio program, on which Bolaris serves this week as the official meteorologist covering Hurricane Sandy. After interviewing Smitheman about her relationship with Bolaris, including how long it took her to sleep with him after they met (her reply: "three hours")

JOHN BOLARIS HAS GIVEN UP on Philadelphia. Or at least on finding a job here. The former Fox 29 meteorologist is moving at the end of September to Long Island, N.Y., where he owns a vacation home. "I've exhausted all avenues. I still have some hope, though it's dim, that I can be here," said Bolaris, who hoped to work in town as his daughter Reina Sofia , 8, lives here with mom, Tiffany McElroy , former NBC 10 anchor. "I'm not going to continue paying a mortgage in New York and paying rent here," said Bolaris, who is working with producers of a potential reality show about a group of TV weatherpeople.

TURNS OUT Alec Simchuk, the Miami club owner the FBI just arrested for his alleged involvement in a criminal organization that scammed tourists like former Fox 29 meteorologist John Bolaris, has a criminal history in Montgomery County.   In 2002, Simchuk was sentenced to five years' probation for defrauding State Farm Insurance and was ordered to pay $138,000 in restitution after a Mercedes that Simchuk had reported stolen turned up in Russia. Simchuk told jurors that he had shipped as many as 10 luxury cars to Russia in a scheme involving his ex-wife, Kristina Farber, and her father, Anatoly Farber, and a Los Angeles lawyer named Alex Van Kovn, according to an Inquirer report.

ALEC SIMCHUK was arrested Thursday at Miami International Airport, and no one is happier about it than John Bolaris.   Simchuk is the Florida nightclub owner with alleged ties to an Eastern European crime ring that used attractive women to run up credit-card charges of unsuspecting male tourists at Miami hotspots. In May 2010, Bolaris' American Express card was charged more than $43,000 after, he says, he was urged to "do shot" by two foreign women he met in Miami, which led to his being drugged and scammed.

SOME highlights - and low lights - of John Bolaris' career: 1990: Bolaris, young and handsome, begins working as a weatherman at Channel 10, at the time a CBS affiliate, and almost immediately sparks an endless series of stories about his ever-evolving love life. March 2001: Four words: Storm of the Century. Bolaris and NBC10 hyped a once-in-a-lifetime snowstorm that never arrived, earning him years of infamy. November 2002: Bolaris leaves NBC10 for New York's WCBS-TV. May 2003: Bolaris reportedly is thrown over a table at the Denim Lounge, in Center City, by another patron after a confrontation over the weatherman's then-girlfriend, Tiffany McElroy.