Earlier this week we reported the strange case of Richard Gamble, manager of the Captain's Seafood & Restaurant in Florida City. Gamble was arrested earlier this month for allegedly threatening to kill his employees. But when his fingerprints were taken, cops discovered that Gamble was actually Ronald Gerald Miranda: a fugitive wanted by the FBI for a murder 31 years ago in Los Banos, California.
When we first tried contacting other Captain's employees for our story, however, two of them demanded money for an interview.
Now waitress Ruth Di Pasqua is speaking out, alleging that Gamble's girlfriend and boss had to have known of his shady past. They deny it.
Di Pasqua says she began working at Captain's in late 2005, shortly before Gamble moved down and became manager. From his first day on the job, Gamble was trouble, she says.
"He was drunk, rude, and obnoxious," Di Pasqua says. Worse than his drinking problem, however, was his habit of pulling out his handgun at work. One time, she claims, he put it to the head of a bum who sat on the restaurant's back porch and told him to "fuck off."
When a customer at the restaurant complained, Gamble allegedly bragged out loud about how easy it is to kill someone.
"He said, 'It's so easy to get away with murder: you just clean up the blood, put the body in the dumpster, and drive it out to Everglades,'" Di Pasqua says.
Gamble's threats got so bad by 2007 that Di Pasqua even drove up to the restaurant's sister location -- the Captain's Tavern in Kendall -- to complain. She says she spoke to Audrey Bowers, wife of the restaurants' owner Bill Bowers, but Bowers did nothing. Gamble's threats grew worse until April 5 of this year, when Di Pasqua and other employees finally went to the police.
Di Pasqua doesn't see how Bill Bowers couldn't have known about Gamble's past. After all, she says, it was Bowers who promoted him.
"What I can't understand is, how are you going to give a manager an automobile to drive if he doesn't even have a driver's license?" she asks.
Gamble was pulled over by police in 2009. Despite not having a license and never showing for a court hearing, a judge later dismissed the charges.
"How could you have an employee for all those years and not realize something was wrong?" Di Pasqua says. "I figured it out because of the stories he would tell."
She says Gamble sometimes went by "Frank," alternately claimed he was from Minnesota and Missouri, and said his scars came from both Vietnam and a car accident. "His stories never came together," she says.
Gamble's boss denies he knew more than anyone else.
"I didn't know who Richard was until his new real name came out in the papers," Bowers told Riptide earlier this month. "Do I feel deceived by him? No. He wasn't deceptive to me. I think that's his own business."
Di Pasqua also claims that Bridget Hyman -- her fellow Captain's waitress and Gamble's girlfriend -- knows more than she's letting on
Di Pasqua says that when she took Hyman to the police station after cops arrested Gamble, her friend "played stupid" for the police.
"She told them, 'I would just like to know who I've been with all these years,'" Di Pasqua says. The cops told them that his real name was Ronald, but didn't give a middle or last name. Yet, as they left the station, Hyman said: "At least he kept two of his initials," meaning R (Ronald/Richard) and G (Gerald/Gamble).
"So there is no way that she didn't know who he really was," Di Pasqua claims. "Otherwise, where did she come up with the G?"
Hyman pleads ignorance of her longtime partner's previous life. "She's not correct," she says of Di Pasqua's claim.
But others in Florida City are equally suspicious of Hyman. Neighbor Jordan Hale says she continues to live in Gamble/Miranda's trailer and drive his white Jeep.
"If she claims she didn't know about it, she's a damn liar and needs to be investigated too," he says.
Follow Miami New Times on Facebook and Twitter @MiamiNewTimes.
