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When Eddie Santana filed for a speedy trial earlier this year, he expected to quickly beat the rap against him and move on to a lawsuit against the restaurant owner he says stiffed him out of a $50 paycheck. Instead, Miami’s most notorious waiter is headed to jail for misdemeanor assault and disorderly conduct.
Last week, Judge Andrea Wolfson sentenced Santana to 120 days in jail, a year of probation, and psychological and drug evaluations for his part in a fight outside South Miami restaurant Barrio Latino.
New Times recently published a feature story about the litigious waiter, who in the past nine years has filed at least 30 lawsuits against local businesses, most of them restaurants where he was briefly employed. In the process, he won 20 settlements totaling $144,924.79.
But Santana was arrested last November after an altercation with Barrio Latino owner Edwin Scheer. Santana showed up in search of a check for waiter training, and the confrontation quickly spun out of control.
According to Scheer, Santana became violent when told there was no money for him. The waiter broke a chair on the sidewalk and tried to provoke a fight, Scheer says, before grabbing something from his car and sprinting back toward Barrio Latino.
“Everyone thought it was a gun,” Scheer told New Times. “I thought I was going to get shot.”
As Scheer turned to run into the restaurant, a loud bang sounded across Sunset Drive. Customers and servers hit the floor, fearing a shootout. But Santana hadn’t fired a gun; he had hurled a water bottle.
Santana screeched off in his car, and cops pulled him over a few blocks away.
In court, Santana claimed he was simply following a cop’s suggestion: Return to the eatery and ask for his check. He admitted to throwing the bottle but denied breaking the chair or trying to hurt anyone.
After a long string of legal victories, Santana’s luck finally seems to have run out. Scheer, for one, is relieved.
“It’s nothing personal,” he says. “He tried to harm us, and we wanted to seek justice. Sometimes justice is served.”
