Audio By Carbonatix
MEMO
Date: May 20, 1999
To: The Dade State Attorney’s Office, The Miami-Dade Police Department, The Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department, The Florida Division of Insurance, The Federal Bureau of Investigation (Miami Field Office), The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, and The Internal Revenue Service
From: Jim DeFede
Re: Bail Bondsman Jim Viola
I’m sure each of you saw the May 6 edition of New Times, which carried a cover story on Viola headlined, “Inside Job.” As you know it chronicled your efforts over the past four years to investigate allegations that Viola, in order to attract the most lucrative bonds, offered bribes and kickbacks to corrections officers.
I’m writing now because I want to make sure each of you saw the following week’s edition of New Times, in which Viola placed a full-page advertisement touting his service, calling himself “The King” of the bondsmen, and bragging to prospective clients: “I have the connections to get you out fast!”
In case you haven’t yet figured it out, Viola is mocking you. He’s laughing at each of you. He’s laughing at Norm Hale, Howard Rosen, Joe Centorino, and Kathy Rundle over at the State Attorney’s Office. He’s laughing at FBI agent Keith Bryars, and all of the other feds who worked on the case. He’s laughing at Sally Burt, who regulates the bail-bond industry for the state’s insurance commissioner. He’s laughing at new jail director Lois Spears and the folks who work for the public-corruption section of the county’s police department.
Apparently Jim Viola thinks you are all a bunch of blithering idiots and that you can do nothing to him. By taking out a full-page ad, he’s rubbing your noses in it. He’s telling the world that he’s the king and that you folks are no better than a pack of fumbling, bumbling Keystone Kops. The sad thing is, he’s not alone in his thinking. Since my story came out, I’ve spoken to a number of other bondsmen who believe nothing will ever be done about Viola and the only way to survive is to sink to his level.
I must admit, even I was a bit startled by Viola’s ad. I certainly recognize it mocked me as well. I even heard that one of Viola’s employees, Albert Scaletti, was autographing copies of my story for corrections officers in the jail lobby. Scaletti, as you may recall, was the person described as a “low-life hustler” who, according to one FBI report, allegedly tried to pay a woman to have sex with various corrections officers in order to help recruit them into Viola’s organization. I guess Scaletti is so proud of his new pimp persona that signing his name to the paper makes him happy.
Of course for Scaletti, being described as a “low-life hustler” and pimp, is probably a step up. The investigative reports I reviewed were littered with sickening descriptions and allegations about Scaletti’s personal life. Recently one of Viola’s current employees described Scaletti as a “disgusting individual” who verbally abuses women in the office. Another bondsman who works with Viola told me he once asked Viola why Scaletti is kept around. According to the bondsman, Viola replied: “Why should I get rid of the guy when he’s putting money in my pocket?”
Money in his pocket. That’s what it almost always comes down to with Viola. Apart from cash the thing Viola craves most is respect. He wants to be seen as an honest and respectable businessman. The walls of his office are lined with plaques that hail him as “Bondsman of the Year.” They’re meaningless props. He gave them to himself. They are tributes to his own vanity.
A few years ago he tried to run for president of the local bail-bond association. When he lost, he created his own trade group. No matter how hard he attempts to appear respectable, he continues to come off as a sleazy operator.
Here’s a good example: A few times a year, Viola sends a letter to the families of jail inmates who have not yet posted bond. Most have been detained for some time and their families have been unable to scrounge up enough money to spring them.
Viola’s letter could easily be mistaken as official Miami-Dade County stationery. It tells the family that, if they wish to post bail for their family member, they should “please contact the Miami-Dade Bail Coordinators Office” or report directly to the bail substation. The address, of course, is Viola’s office. A large sign in front of the building declares the place to be the “Miami-Dade Bail Bond Coordinators Office.”
Pretty slick, huh?
Viola has even hired a former attorney with the Statewide Prosecutor’s Office to represent him and his association. (This is the same lawyer who initially handled a criminal case against Viola. Hey, I hope you guys aren’t going soft on Viola hoping that some day he’ll give you jobs?) The former prosecutor’s name is Ramon de la Cabada and he’s the perfect mouthpiece for Viola. He jabbers incessantly, but never says anything.
At one point while I was researching the story about Viola, de la Cabada tried to convince me that the South Florida Bail Coordinators Association, the group Viola started, had actually taken a strong ethical stand against illegally soliciting clients. He said bondsmen who do that would not remain in the association.
Tell that, I said, to Eddie Delatorre, who is the main bondsman with Progressive Bail Bonds, and whose bail-bond license was suspended for three months this past year for soliciting clients in front of the jail. Delatorre and Progressive remain members of Viola’s association.
And who helped Delatorre get his license back from state regulators? You guessed it: Ramon de la Cabada.
So much for those high standards.
Delatorre and Viola were mentioned again recently in a rather revealing anecdote. On April 27 a prisoner by the name of Clemente Delgado was bonded out of the jail against his will by Progressive bondsman Lisa Hernandez. Delgado’s family had hired another bail-bond company, Gold Coast Bonding Agency, but when Gold Coast representative Lidia Garcia arrived at the jail, she was told Delgado was being released to another bondsman. Garcia, who was eight months pregnant, told me she was furious. She turned to a group of bondsmen waiting nearby and shouted, “Who put in for this bond?”
When Lisa Hernandez said she did, Garcia replied there must have been a mistake. She explained the family had hired her to bond out Delgado. In fact Delgado’s mother accompanied Garcia to the jail.
Hernandez, who works regularly for Viola, refused to back down, according to Garcia. Hernandez said Progressive wanted her to post the bond and take Delgado back to their office.
“Meanwhile Delgado’s mother is crying and becoming hysterical,” Garcia told me. “She’s saying, ‘Please don’t take my son.'”
When Delgado appeared in the lobby doorway, his mother began screaming, “Don’t come out! Don’t come out! That’s not your bondsman!” Delgado tried to retreat, but a corrections officer pushed him through the door.
According to Garcia, Hernandez walked up to Delgado and told him: “You need to come with me.” Garcia told him not to go anywhere. “Once they get you back to their office,” she says, “then they think they can hold you and force the family to pay them.”
As the argument between Hernandez and Garcia continued, good ol’ Eddie Delatorre showed up. “I’m fuming, I’m going nuts, I’m about to give birth right there in the jail I’m so angry,” Garcia recalls. “They didn’t expect this to backfire. They were hoping they would have gotten Delgado out of there before we showed up.”
This incident should sound familiar to you folks at the State Attorney’s Office. It was at this point that Garcia walked Delgado over to your place. “You can’t just grab a person in the jail,” she explains. “That’s kidnapping.” It’s also theft, she argues. “They were trying to steal my bond,” she says. Garcia says as soon as she mentioned the State Attorney’s Office, Lisa Hernandez left the jail.
By the way, Garcia, Delgado, and the folks at Gold Coast are still waiting to hear back from you guys at the State Attorney’s Office. They’re curious about why you’re not doing more. I told them to be patient and that you are really not the bumbling idiots that Viola and his crew think you are.
Anyway, get this. On April 28 Jim Viola unexpectedly showed up at Gold Coast’s office to talk to Garcia and the bond company’s owner, Clara Del-Mazo. “I didn’t even know what Viola looked like until he walked through the door,” Del-Mazo admits. Both Garcia and Del-Mazo say Viola feared he could be liable for a large sum of money if Delgado’s family sued. Viola is the general agent for Ranger Insurance, which guaranteed the bond written by Progressive and Delatorre.
Del-Mazo recalls: “He came to my office and told me, ‘Let’s fix this problem.’ He told me to keep the [commission on the bond] even though it was Progressive that wrote it.” In return Viola, according to Del-Mazo, wanted her to sign an agreement that would free Viola from liability.
“I told him I can’t keep the premium on a bond I didn’t write,” she says. “That would be illegal. And he says, ‘Well that’s just between you and me.'” She refused to sign any agreement with Viola.
Both Garcia and Del-Mazo say Viola continued to make disparaging remarks about Delatorre. “He was saying that Eddie was a piece of shit and that he didn’t care what happened to him, and that he didn’t want to get blamed for what Eddie was doing,” Garcia says.
How’s that for loyalty?
If Delatorre is such a horrible and unethical bondsman, then why does Viola do business with him? And more important, why does Viola, through his South Florida Bail Coordinators Association, promote and endorse Delatorre and his company?
I guess Eddie Delatorre must have been putting enough money in Viola’s pocket, as well.
In case you haven’t heard the latest news, Viola is now making a stab at taking over the bond business in all of Miami-Dade County. In addition to the ad he took out in New Times, he’s sending recruiting flyers to every bondsman in the area. “Jim Viola is offering all agents presently working under the liability of another bonding company the opportunity to open their own bail bond office,” the flyer announces. “Come work with us, we have The Connections to make you a success!”
They even tried to hire Lidia Garcia from Gold Coast. One of Viola’s assistants called Garcia and offered her a job. Garcia says she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I told her I wouldn’t be caught dead working for you or Jim Viola,” she recalls. “The way you operate is not right. What kind of games are you people playing?”
Well, there you have it, a quick update on Viola. A lot of folks are watching and waiting to see if there is anything you can do. I heard from the corrections department spokeswoman that the office has launched a new investigation, along with the county’s public corruption unit, into Sgt. Becky Luengas, the person identified in my story as allegedly being Viola’s main source of information from the jail. Maybe that’ll turn up something.
In the meantime don’t let it get you down that Viola doesn’t even consider you guys a threat. These things happen. Just make sure that he doesn’t have the last laugh.
