Fractured Fortunes

When her colleague Leslie Bowe became a Lotto millionaire, Zibby Giardina had just one question: What happened to our lottery pool?

Comments (0) By Mike Clary Thursday, Dec 14 2000

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Leslie Bowe had arrived.

Zibby, of course, wasn't invited to the party.

Among those who also struck it rich was attorney Gary Gerrard

Steve Satterwhite

For fellow Pinecrest council member Cindie Blanck, Bowe's luck defied explanation

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Nor was she invited to take part in the filming of a commercial for the lottery commission. The 30-second spot, made by the Miami firm Cooper HMS Partners, was designed to trade on Leslie's megawatt smile and his prankster nature to entice others to gamble on the happiness that only money could bring. The fast-paced commercial opened with a burst of jazzy music and a flash of color. The theme was Leslie's reputation as a joker, a playful storyteller whom no one could quite believe when he first announced what had happened. Bowe was the star, and the supporting cast included his real friends. First, Marilyn Hernandez appeared, in the back yard of Leslie's Pinecrest home: "Les is not serious at all," she said. And then Julio Alvarez chimed in: "It could be a fake phone call. I totally ignored it because he's a prankster. [But] Les won $17 million."

At one point in the spot, the camera zoomed in on a set of plastic teeth clattering away in front of Bowe's desktop nameplate. And we saw Les in the background, arms folded, composed, smiling coyly. Next he was driving his new Mercedes down the Rickenbacker Causeway, then he was riding the Metromover, and then we were in his back yard with the others again at what looked like a cookout. Happy, pleased, maybe a little smug, Les faced the camera and declared, "What I would say to doubters is, “I won it once; watch me win it again.'"

How much psychic energy did Bowe invest in shaping his future? Hard to measure. But there is evidence that lottery jackpots and the fortunate metaphors they offer had long been on his mind. A search of the Miami Herald turns up this comment, made to the newspaper's Fan Hot Line in September 1988, after the University of Miami football team upset the mighty Florida State Seminoles: "Tonight's winning Lotto jackpot is the Miami Hurricanes." The caller: Leslie Bowe.

"How does one explain good luck?" says Bowe. "If you could define what causes it, more people would probably have it, right? I do believe, though, that positive thinking is a big part of it."

Bowe's parents were Bahamian immigrants who met in South Miami-Dade County, where Leslie and his brother and sister were born. His father, Freddy, made a living as a tour guide for visitors from his island homeland and spent his spare time at county commission meetings, lobbying for more neighborhood police and pressing for more affordable housing. "He lived to help others," Bowe said when his father died in August 1997. "He would give you the shirt off his back if he had to."

When Leslie decided to run for a seat on the first council of the newly formed Village of Pinecrest, he was following his father's example of involvement in community affairs. Although he did not have any political experience, he had something better: money and luck. With the money he bought signs and paid for mailings, and with luck he got as his chief opponent 65-year-old Richard Renick, a former state legislator with a well-known name who was assured by his backers that all he had to do to claim the District 3 seat was show up.

Renick admits now that he didn't give Bowe enough consideration. "I didn't know that much about the guy and only learned in the campaign that he was a lottery winner," says Renick. "All of a sudden his signs went up on every telephone pole."

Although Renick actually pulled more support in the April 1996 primary than Bowe or two other candidates, Bowe won a four-year term in the runoff with 55 percent of the vote.

While Bowe was preparing to run for office, Giardina was getting ready for trial. And if he didn't take her seriously, his attorney did. In February 1995 Bowe's attorney had sent Giardina an offer to settle the case. With it he included copies of the affidavits from other pool players, in which they had reasserted their belief that they had no right to share in the $17 million. The offer: If Zibby would sign the same waiver and drop the lawsuit, she would receive $1500. "It was insulting," she comments. "I didn't consider accepting it, even for a second."

By late September depositions were under way. Giardina recalls that she and Bowe were sitting in the Miami offices of Hardeman & Suarez, her original counsel, when Marilyn Hernandez walked in to be examined in a pretrial deposition. During a lull before the questioning began, Giardina says she watched Bowe scribble a note and slide it over to his supervisor. She read it, looked at Bowe, and they both laughed. And then he crumpled up the paper and tossed it into a nearby wastebasket.

When the proceedings ended, and Bowe and his attorney left the room, Giardina retrieved the balled-up note from the trash, and the wrinkled artifact is now included in her case file, which fills several drawers of her home-office filing cabinet. In the note Bowe had written: "This whole depo is a piece of shit and this lawyer and Zibby are out of the [sic] mind."