Events subsequently unfolded thusly: Hastings, Florida's first black U.S. district judge, ultimately signed an order returning $845,000 in property seized from the Romanos. In 1983 a jury rejected bribery charges against Hastings. Six years later he was ousted from the bench when Congress impeached him. A federal judge later set aside the impeachment. Hastings is now a U.S. representative.
Serve It Where the Sun Don't Shine
When it comes to sidling up to the buffet table for a bit of covert deal cutting, politicians aren't about to be outdone by their judicial brethren. Check out the Grand Bay Hotel dining room any morning, or Monty Trainer's at lunch, or Joe's Stone Crab for dinner. Or Chico's Restaurant on Twelfth Street, a popular haunt among Hialeah officials. And for years the crummy Holiday Inn at the Miami end of the Rickenbacker Causeway (now a not-so-crummy Hampton Inn) was the hangout for elected officials and lobbyists. It was known as the "Conspiracy Inn."
Metro-Dade Commission Chairman Art Teele and fellow Commissioner Bruce Kaplan chose the darkened atmosphere of Mike's Pub, located in the Plaza Venetia condominium in downtown Miami, as their venue to break bread and break the law in 1994. There the two politicians discussed the upcoming vote for county manager, a blatant violation of the Sunshine Law, which prohibits private conversations between elected officials about issues they may vote on. Both men have since admitted their guilt and paid fines.
The Sunshine Law also appeared to have been violated at Wolfie's, the venerable Miami Beach deli/restaurant on Collins Avenue, where several members of the Miami Beach Housing Authority's board of commissioners and the authority's attorney gathered for lunch in the summer of 1993. Two of the commissioners told investigators that the group had discussed the appointment of the attorney, David Nevel, as the housing authority's executive director. While Assistant State Attorney Joseph Centorino was unable to prove that a Sunshine Law violation had occurred during that particular meeting, he did bust three of the commissioners for similar transgressions based on other evidence.
When it comes to the cheap, convenient get-together, politicians, like their doper confreres, know where to go: Denny's. Alberto "The Great Corrupter" San Pedro, a real estate developer, casually handed over $2000 to an undercover detective posing as an overcover detective in exchange for confidential police files in 1985. The transaction took place at a Denny's in Hialeah and emerged during San Pedro's 1988 trial, in which he faced 39 charges, ranging from bribery to murder conspiracy.
But San Pedro didn't do all of his business over the greasy terrain of a Super Slam. Sometimes a more upscale place was just the thing. Like the Holiday Inn in Miami Springs. There, in 1986, he introduced then-Hialeah councilman Silvio Cardoso to another undercover police officer, from whom San Pedro had purchased top-secret FBI files that related to an investigation of the councilman. Cardoso denied any wrongdoing as he studied the reports. The pair's conversation was secretly recorded and featured highly eloquent statements from Cardoso, including this one (as reported by the Miami Herald):
"I don't know what they [the FBI] can make up on this. What happens if a guy goes to somebody and says, you know [inaudible] he's a friend of yours, and he says, ah, I got friends on the council but you will have to give me some money to do this, and you know, he just asked me for the vote and I say, 'Okay, I'll vote for it.'"
And this one, wherein Cardosa tells the undercover cop about his relationship with San Pedro: "We used to fight together in junior high school and shit, so we've been together for a long time, and before then, before I was councilman, before any of that shit."
It was back to a Denny's in Hialeah for a meeting in 1986 between then-vice mayor of Opa-locka Brian Hooten and hotshot lobbyist Ron Book. Details of the meeting came to light during an investigation into charges that Book had bribed Hooten the previous year. Book's law firm had been hired by Southern Combustion Technologies to lobby the Opa-locka City Commission for approval of a ten-million-dollar hazardous-waste recycling plant. Cooperating with authorities, Hooten twice met with Book while wearing a wire.
Two weeks later, Donald Dugan, an alleged associate of Book's, dropped by Hooten's house and slipped him $4000. The money was supposedly intended for Hooten and a commissioner, as well as members of two city boards that would be reviewing the proposal. The next day the commission voted 5-0 on first reading to approve Southern Combustion's proposal. Dugan eventually admitted to paying the bribe; Book was never charged with a crime.
And in 1989 at a Denny's in West Dade, a businessman met with a Sweetwater city councilwoman to discuss a $10,000 zoning bribe. The councilwoman, Carmen Menendez, was later convicted of conspiring to extort Maurice Barakat, a shopping-center owner who was seeking a zoning variance for his property. A second council member and the city's mayor were also convicted of the same charges.
Too Many Cops in the Kitchen
The downfall of ex-Miami Police homicide detective Ted MacArthur arguably began in the Marine Bar, a once-seedy tavern on Miami's NW Seventeenth Avenue. That's where in 1988 MacArthur met Joan Kite, then a police reporter for the Miami Herald. The two plunged into a long love affair, which became public knowledge during MacArthur's 1993 trial on charges of murdering his wife. His motive, according to prosecutors: insurance money and the younger woman. MacArthur was convicted of first-degree murder.
