On the approach to the courthouse after we park, he seems to shift emotional gears. He straightens up, squares his shoulders. A steely look of confidence comes into his eyes. He carves out his most telegenic smile. He pauses patiently on the sidewalk so a TV news camera can get a good shot, even directing the cameraman for the best angle. At the security desk, he greets the guards as if they were old drinking buddies, then holds the elevator door open for reporters, his attorneys, court personnel. For a moment he's back in his element, the center of attention, all jokes and platitudes. Apologizing to reporters for his lateness, he commends Channel 10's Michael Putney on his Sunday morning news program: "I always like to watch your show, Michael, you're one of my favorites." Everyone defers to him. For the first time since I encountered him, Daoud actually looks like a politician.
But the sentencing is banal and brief, and it takes place in the same small, sterile courtroom that housed last year's trial. The attendance is only a dozen or so, a few of whom are court junkies, plus several bored members of the press whose editors need to plot the final trajectory of Daoud's hapless flight. Only two well-wishers -- a Baptist minister and an old friend -- are there to greet the defendant, who sits ramrod straight throughout the hearing, enduring his angst in virtual solitude, insignificant.
Judge James Lawrence King hands down a fine of $10,000 and a combination of sentences that, running concurrently, will put Daoud in jail for five years and two months, with no chance of parole. This is the maximum under the sentencing guidelines; he'll be eligible for a sentence reduction of about nine months for "good time." (The sentences will run concurrently with another 41-month sentence Daoud received this past April on the Willy Martinez bribery conviction; a separate $75,000 fine was levied at that time.) At the request of the prosecution and defense attorneys, King recommends that Daoud be jailed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in southwest Dade. (The facility's proximity to the federal courts would make Daoud more accessible, should he be called to testify in the pending David Paul trial, or if he were required to appear as a grand jury witness. Neither Daoud nor federal authorities will say why MCC was requested or whether Daoud is cooperating with the federal government. "The investigation that resulted in Alex Daoud's indictments and convictions is continuing," states Bruce Udolf, an assistant U.S. Attorney and co-prosecutor in the Daoud case. Udolf refuses to indicate any potential targets or areas of inquiry and won't comment about whether another grand jury is looking into these matters.) King releases Daoud under his own recognizance -- carrying over the $500,000 bond posted after his conviction -- with the demand that he surrender himself on October 13.
"So, do you think I cried?" Daoud asks me later, as we pull away from the courthouse. He didn't cry, I tell him. "Are you surprised I didn't cry? Was the media surprised? Hey, was I funny in the elevator?" We cruise through downtown in silence. "Icarus," Daoud blurts at one point. "Icarus."
We grab a sandwich at a deli -- no one indicates any recognition of Daoud, even though news of the sentencing has been on television for the past day -- then head back across the causeway to the Beach, down Fifth Street toward the ocean. "It really depresses me to come by here," he says. I think he's talking about South Beach, his old pastel kingdom, but then he slows the car and gestures toward a new parking lot, the asphalt expanse that occupies the site where the Fifth Street Gym once stood.
Moments later he leans forward over the steering wheel as if he has a pain in his stomach and murmurs something. "What's going to happen to me?" I hear him whisper. "What am I going to do now?
