Grift and Run  Inside the palatial Palm Beach County Courthouse
on March 29, 2000, Melvin Donald Ruth pleaded for his freedom,
trying to convince the judge he wouldn't run if he were let go.
Ruth, who had been jailed on a probation violation stemming from
a 1996 fraud conviction, had reason to feel some confidence.
Most everyone who has ever met the tall and trim Ruth attests to
what a smooth, almost magical salesman he is. But Ruth is much
more than that; he's also a predatory swindler who, during the
past decade, has been charged with numerous crimes in Broward
and Palm Beach counties. And it was in courtrooms where Ruth
practiced his greatest trick: making justice disappear.  In an
amazing run of cons, the now-60-year-old Ruth slipped through
the system's sometimes faultlike cracks, leaving behind a trail
of angry, bitter victims. This time, however, the man who
sometimes calls himself "M.D." was destined to lose. The two
witnesses lined up against him were too convincing. A family man
named Randy Odom tol