The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - #BecauseMiami: Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes
Episode Date: March 1, 2024Gold medals were handed out in the Olympics of Stupidity that is The Florida Man Games. Billy Corben talks to Josh Robinson, a.k.a. OMG It's Wicks, about the most Florida of athletic competitions. The... state of Florida wants to eliminate all police oversight committees ran by civilians. Rodney Jacobs, who is currently running for Florida state senator out of west Broward, joins the show to explain what these panels are about. Joe Carollo is desperately trying to save his home from being seized. Jeff Gutchess, the attorney for the owners of Ball and Chain, gives us an update on that. Plus...the return of the Wheel of Despair. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network.
Surrounding a large field in St. Augustine, Florida, people wait to pile in by the hundreds.
Fight!
What do you want?
Anticipation growing.
For the first Florida Man competition, that's one part gladiators, one part cops.
One part mullet mania.
Last weekend was the inaugural Florida Man Games in beautiful St. Augustine. Roy, were you out there?
No.
Why not?
I got better things to do than fake run from the cops.
I don't know about that.
I gotta tell you, there was several teams that were vying to be the Florida man of all Florida men and
OMG, it's wicks. Josh Robinson is joining us. He was the emcee of the event
He is an actor, podcaster, sketch comic influencer. You can find him at OMG
It's wicks on everywhere on everything
Sir, how did you get involved in this? Oh?
Well just making Florida content once they post it they were gonna have the Florida man games
I pretty much got over a thousand tags
For me to be a part of the games after that Pete reached out
We talked for a few months and that's the magic to happen after that. I love it.
So it was the will of the people.
I love it.
You are the mayor of the Florida men now.
You were duly elected by social media and tags.
Josh, let me ask you,
I've been watching some of this footage.
It is just absolutely amazing.
So were you part of the,
I know you brought on as MC,
but were you part at all of the development of this
or any of these ideas or these competitions?
Oh no, most of them were kind of surprised to me.
When I, I believe when it first started,
there was like four or five events.
And then by the time, you know, it happened,
that had been other events added.
So I think it's just got bigger and bigger
as time went on.
And so we're gonna do a top five Roy coming up
of the best events at the Florida Man Games.
But Wix, tell me, how did this work?
There was not, obviously it wasn't a Florida Man,
but there were like teams of Florida men, right?
Competing?
Yeah.
So there were teams basically competing
and each member did different competitions so they had like
I guess specialists so the person that specialist yeah I suppose I suppose they
trained specifically for these events so Roy we're gonna do a top five events at the first ever Florida Man Games.
Are you ready?
What you mean, anticipation?
Okay, so I'm gonna, Wigs, I'll shout out the names
of these events and if you could give us a little bit
of a rundown about how they went.
Okay.
We will start with number five, cash grab.
Now, this is a hurricane situation, right?
We have some hurricane force wins involved.
What happens?
So basically you get in the machine,
each team has their specialist,
they get in the machine and the cash grab machine.
And I guess whoever grabbed the most money,
they were able to keep that amount of money.
So it was fake money that was in the machine, but they were able to, you know, turn it in for real money of
that same amount.
I will tell you, anybody watching the YouTube version of this podcast is being treated to
some prime b-roll right now. I mean, just choice, choice b-roll. You're going to want
to watch the video version of this number for
Florida sumo
Oh, yeah Oh, yeah, that was fantastic
What I had in my mind was way different than what had we know what happened in person
They had a beer a pitcher of beer and they had a pool
and or two.
I mean, basically they were,
they got to get some on against each other until,
you know, one person's beer went out
or somebody failed or went into the cage.
So it was a lot of fun.
Oh, so you had to keep the beer from spilling?
Yeah, yeah, very Florida activity.
You got to keep your beer from spilling
while doing the sumo wrestling.
Well, let me ask you though, what was your vision?
What was in your head before you saw what the competition actually was?
I thought it was just going to be the inner tube, you know, the inner tube, and they kind
of just, you know, sumo against each other to one person, went off the ring.
But then I believe a cage became involved and that's how I know it was going to go to
the next level.
So, yeah, then the beard, like I said, so my vision was just the inner tube and
two people just kind of doing sumo against each other.
But this was Florida Man innovative here.
Yeah, absolutely.
It went next level.
All right.
The number three event at the Florida Man Games.
Sorry, I'm laughing.
I'm looking at him.
Yeah, it's a stupid name.
It's it's it's not a stupid name. It's great. Are you kidding? I'm laughing. I'm looking at him. It's a stupid name. It's not a stupid name.
It's great. Are you kidding? I love this.
Number three is weaponized pool noodle.
Weaponized in a pool noodle.
What?
That one was fantastic.
We can weaponize anything in Florida, Roy.
You already know.
Yeah, like an alligator.
Well, they are weapons.
So what is weaponized pool noodle?
So basically, it was a take on, because they
weren't the American gladiators, but they're nitro and ice.
They were the judges.
So basically like the American gladiators,
where they were able to joust in a mud pool
to knock each other out or knock each other down.
So with a pool noodle, and yeah, I didn't expect this at all.
So basically this was the joust in American Gladys Poole.
Yeah, yeah, this was like,
it was the Florida Man Games Coliseum,
which was a massive above ground pool because Florida.
I love ice, by the way.
I had a crush on her.
Did you have a crush on ice?
I did.
Who didn't?
She's very nice, by the way.
She's cool.
Oh, yeah.
The number two event at the Florida Man Games this year,
this is, they get better.
They get better.
This is one of the best top fives ever
because they actually do get, sometimes we just
put them in random orders, but these legit get better.
I'm gonna say this out loud
and I'm never gonna live this down.
It's gonna haunt me for the rest of my life.
The Eat the Butt Challenge.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Roy, what was that last event called again?
I believe it's called the Eat the Butt Challenge.
It is.
It is in fact, the Eat the Butt Challenge is what it called. It is. It is in fact the Eat the Butt Challenge.
Yeah.
What is it?
I got a, I got, this is my, this is my job.
I've got to ask you, what the hell is the Florida Man Games Eat the Butt Challenge event?
By the way, that was one of the ones that was added that I wasn't expecting.
But yeah, so basically it was an eating contest
but the contestants had to eat three pounds of pork
but whoever ate it, you know, the quickest.
And at some point everybody was kind of just chanting
eat the butt, very loud.
So it was a lot of fun though.
Should we do it?
Roy, should we chant? The cut of meat I use is called the Boston Butt. So it was a lot of fun though. Should we do it? Roy, should we eat?
I use is called the Boston butt.
So it's the delicacy.
I eat but all the time.
Should we chant Roy?
Should we start the chant?
Eat the butt.
Eat the butt.
The butt.
Eat the butt.
Wix, was this a bait and switch?
Did would you not have participated as the emcee of the
Florida man games?
Had you known there was an event called the eat the Butt Challenge or were you cool with it?
No, I was cool with everything.
I wasn't in there either way.
I've seen your social media.
You're cool with everything.
I know, I know.
Yeah, I used to butt all the time.
And Roy, we have reached the pinnacle of Florida Mandom.
Mullets, Black Bears, Oh My, the number one event at the first ever
Florida Man Games in St. Augustine last weekend,
the Evading Arrest Obstacle Course.
Yes.
This is the most Florida man of things.
Wicks, tell us about it.
That was my favorite event,
because they mixed the throwing the alligator through the window. tell us about it that that was my favorite event uh... today makes the
run the alligator to the window
uh... they got to
right you know to the wind is right through uh... they were to the window
uh... they don't know where the police
uh... yeah they got a runaway from the police
they got to write an alligator down a muddy uh... slip and slide and jump in
the water and save the agon. So yeah, it was fantastic
Yeah, there is no part of that that I don't love which who were the three teams and
Who won well, there are more than three. I believe they're like eight I'll be there eight teams, but okay winners were hanky spanky. Well, which were the names
Hanky spanky. Where's a spank? Hanky Spanky. Where's it?
Should we have done a top five
of the best Florida man games team names as well?
What were some of the other great team names?
I eat butt all the time.
So it's Hanky Spanky.
There were Cougar Commanders, Scream Eagles.
There were Biro Boys, which there were some normal ones. But for
the most part, they were kind of wild. But I know Hankie Spankie was the one that stood
out to me at the beginning and then they ended up winning.
Now, was it like a clean sweep? Did they win like every challenge or just the they came
the highest rated? I don't know how did the scoring work?
Well, it was actually them and they, them and storm surge, it came down to, I guess the evading police obstacle course and they ended up losing.
I'm like, can't remember a storm surge.
I believe storm surge was a team that the guy actually won the obstacle course,
but he forgot to save the iguana.
So he ended up losing by a lot.
So it kind of put them behind,
but I believe they could have won him.
They would have grabbed the iguana,
they would have won it basically.
Can you imagine, it's like getting the answer right
on Jeopardy, but not doing it in the form of a question.
It's like he got right there and then just like,
forgot the last rule of the game,
which is to save the iguana.
And he had a good celebration of everything.
Like he did the whole celebration, he threw his glasses
and everyone on his team is yelling for him to get
the iguana, but he was too busy celebrating to get
the iguana, so.
I love that, and I'm guessing that the competitors
that they chose from each team for the evading arrest
obstacle course challenge,
had a lot of practice and a lot of training
in that department.
I'm thinking.
Well, you would think that only three of them
actually got away from the police.
Everyone else got tagged.
But only three got away.
In real life or just in the game?
In the game, in the game.
All right.
In the game.
Josh Robinson at OMG, it's Wix.
Thank you so much for being here. We cannot wait for next year will be, this is a pet
peeve of mine Roy, whenever someone says the first annual something, you can't be first
annual. That is grammatically incorrect. You have to be the first ever or the inaugural.
But next year will be the second annual Florida man Games. And I think we ought to make a because Miami trip up there.
Maybe we need to have a live correspondent or something.
What do you think, Roy?
Sure.
I was trying to I was trying to get you to volunteer yourself, Roy.
So oh, you're not going.
So you goddamn right, meatball.
But there you go.
OMG, it's Wix.
Thanks so much for being here.
Please come back and visit us.
Of course. Of course.
Thank you all so much.
I have a great one. I eat but all the time. Hey folks, it's Mike Ryan. Now, you've had the distinct privilege of knowing me for close
18 years and you know that I've changed. A lot of my personal life has changed. I've
changed as a professional. I am a parent now. My level of involvement in my favorite college
football program has also changed.
But one thing that hasn't changed for me is my favorite beer.
You know when it's real with me.
I think you do anyways.
And you know how much I love Miller Lite.
I've loved it forever.
Really.
It's my favorite beer of all time.
And it made all the great moments in my life all that much better.
And when Miller Lite came aboard on our show,
I was super stoked
about it because I believed in the product because every time I take a sip of Miller
Lite I look around and I think yeah this was the right call.
Times change.
People like me can change but you can always enjoy the great taste of Miller Lite.
Tastes like Miller time.
To get Miller Lite delivered right to your door visit MillerLite.com slash Dan.
We can try to find it pretty much anywhere that sells beer. Celebrate responsibly Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 the Florida legislature back on their bullshit. Doing their worst in the 60 days they have to do the work of the people of the state
of Florida.
One of the great ideas that has come up is to eliminate local civilian oversight boards
of police departments here in the city of Miami, for example, and in fact, at the county
level as well.
We have something called a civilian investigative panel.
It has a different name at the county, but it's a similar idea.
There's 21 of these, I think, throughout the state.
Rodney Jacobs is the executive director of the City of Miami's police oversight board.
He is also running for Florida State Senate to represent West Broward in District 35.
Rodney, you have been a part of the so-called CIP,
Civilian Investigative Panel in the City of Miami
for a lot of years now.
Tell me, what is it that you do?
Why is it important and why should the State of Florida
not get rid of it?
Well, thanks, Billy, for having me on.
I think one of the biggest reasons
why our department is necessary,
well, first and foremost,
just as a background to our department,
it's been in the city of Miami since the early 2000s.
We were tasked with taking in complaints from community members or
just from any visitor that has an unfavorable interaction with the city Miami
police officer.
We take those investigations in as professional staff.
We investigate those cases and we take those cases then to our selected panel
members and based on the facts that are presented we create a recommendation to
send over to the police chief to hold the police officers accountable for
misconduct or in some cases change departmental policies. So we've been
here for quite some time doing really great work over the last few years to
help innovate the police department. I think one of the biggest reasons of the
work that we do is this notion that we call procedural justice is the idea that when participating
within a process, you perceive that as fair. And so if you perceive the system as operating
with fair components and with equal amount of due diligence, you are more inclined to
then trust the police department.
So I really feel like one of the biggest things
that civilian oversight brings to any community
is trust within law enforcement.
In many cases or in fact most cases,
you do clear the officers of wrongdoing.
Yeah, I mean, so there's a good percentage
of the cases that we have
that we do exonerate officers of wrongdoing.
In the cases that we don't,
obviously those are egregious situations.
And obviously in cases that are criminal in nature,
those go to the state attorney.
But by and large, a lot of the cases
that we do get are discurricies and improper procedures,
a lot of which are exonerated,
but there's a lot of sustains as well.
And I think in doing that,
we create a collaborative effort between us
and the police department
to really be the best police department that they can be.
So really those two functions, both the trust and innovation, that civilian oversight is
all about.
The Florida legislature and its infinite wisdom has been working to destroy labor unions and
public unions.
One of the unions they didn't touch, of course, was the police union, which is obviously very
much against the existence of these civilian
panels. They're a proponent for this bill at the Florida legislature. And let me pose
one of their arguments, which is that why should civilians be providing oversight? Don't
you want professionals and law enforcement or the law to provide oversight? Obviously,
at this point, we just have sort of the police policing the police, which I think we've we've learned
in the case of South Florida Miami Dade in particular, where the state attorney Catherine
Fernandez Rundle has not prosecuted a law enforcement officer for an on duty killing
during her entire 30 years in office. That is, since Janet Reno left to be attorney general
for President Bill Clinton.
Kathy Rundle has been in power and not prosecuted a police officer or any law enforcement officer,
I should say, for an on-duty killing. So, but they would say, don't we need professionals?
What was the example that one of the union bosses made was, you know, we don't have plumbers disciplining
dentists or, you know, or doctors, for example. What do you say to that argument?
Well, I think there's two positions to be here.
First and foremost, obviously, if you're a police officer,
you're operating within a public capacity.
Therefore, anyone that's in a public space,
whether it be myself as a city director,
a police officer, an elected official,
we're held accountable by the people, right?
But what's more is this, last time I checked Billy Corbyn,
juries were still a real thing, right?
And juries hear cases of malpractice all the time.
And usually on those juries are members of your peers, right?
So on those juries that hear malpractice cases all the time,
they make findings of fact to make
determinations on people's careers.
I think it's really important when we look at that procedure,
the jury system in America, it's not only a bedrock
of democracy, but it's something more when we look at that procedure, the jury system in America, is not only a bedrock of democracy, but it's something more when we look at accountability.
And I think for police departments, when they're operating in male practice, whether that be
criminal or whether that be to be held accountable for lower issues of civil natures or of discurricy,
they need members of their peers that operate within these communities to hold them accountable.
Because the last time I checked, most people don't commit crimes directly in front of police officers. So for police
officers to do their actual jobs they need community participation to come forward with
information and evidence but the community won't be able to do that if they don't trust the police
officers. So I really push back at this notion that you know no other industry is held accountable
by other people when we have juries in America and usually in public capacities, you're held in check
by we the people.
Yeah, and those juries have to usually analyze.
I've been on a jury before, analyze some pretty intense legal matters and interpret
the law.
And I will go one step further for the sake of intellectual and legislative honesty and
consistency.
And going back to the point I was making,
or similar point I was making earlier
about how the legislature has gone after labor unions
and particularly teachers unions,
but left police unions alone.
Not a lot of teachers unions are defending teachers
who are responsible for maiming, killing, permanently
injuring civilians or citizens.
But let me do this.
The legislature wants all kinds of involvement of lay people and parents in the educational
process.
What the hell do parents know about teaching, about libraries?
We have professional educators,
very well educated and trained librarians
who do this as a professional for a living.
But yet they want parents to be able to come in
and tell these folks, these professionals,
these well trained, well educated professionals,
tell them how to do their jobs.
Why is it that suddenly there's this firewall here
where civilians cannot get involved
in a very important public-facing job in our communities? People who have the ability to
deprive us of life, liberty, and property, who are out there on the streets interacting
with our children and our families and who could deprive any of us of life, liberty,
and property. So I just don't think there's a lot of intellectual and legislative consistency and honesty there.
What say you on that?
Yeah, I think it's slightly intellectually irresponsible.
You know, when we look at how police departments and police unions have navigated over the years,
police unions have always taken the position of defending police officers, no matter their conduct,
which I think is a part of the major issue.
I think, you know, and I've spoken is a part of the major issue. I think,
you know, and I've spoken to a number of police union members over the years, I think they're
their own worst enemy. I mean, when you look at policing in and of itself, it is a job.
Now we can talk about the whole existential piece of your jobs, a part of you and things
that nature. But at the end of the day, there's just certain jobs certain people aren't good
at like Rodney Jacobs will not be a good open heart surgeon. So I'm not doing that profession.
And so when you really bull it down to that,
there's just a lot of good,
there's a lot of good people that just aren't good cops.
So therefore they need to be invited
to another place of business.
And I think when we look at that,
and if the union took that posture,
they would be a lot more beneficial because of it.
And I don't think there's anything more dangerous
for good cops than bad cops.
It makes the entire profession more dangerous
It makes the relationship with the community more dangerous when there's that lack of of trust as you were describing earlier
And I want to say this I have seen
Justifiable use as a force I've even seen examples of justifiable use of deadly force. The problem with the police union is they've never seen
an unjustifiable use of force,
or an unjustifiable use of deadly force.
That's the problem.
They defend the good and the bad,
and they wind up looking like mob lawyers,
which again is to me a danger to all police officers.
Yeah, and I don't know how they are going to change that behavior. And once again,
like I said earlier, I think in some cases, in a lot of cases, they're their own worst enemies.
Every now and then, you'll see the tides kind of change. And we saw that with Derek Chauvin.
After the George Floyd situation, you kind of saw then that the fix was in when the police
chief was being deposed and everything else. But outside of a few situations like that, it's,
you know, just denying defend. And really, it's just a nine to 10.
And really, it doesn't have to be this way.
Like no one's requiring this to be the standard here.
Police officers would have still great pain,
John, with individuals that want to sign up
and do the right thing without this kind of mentality
to tackle unqualified immunity.
So I'm not sure why we've turned this corner here
with the police profession,
but I think it does a huge disservice to it.
Like you said, a lot of the police officers that want to do the right thing,
a lot of police chiefs that want to have more influence within the ranks
and things of that nature.
And I think it just puts us in a really tight space from the legislature on down.
Before we go, you are running for state senate.
That is jacobs4senate.com.
I think I got that website right.
I wanna ask about a couple of the bills
working their way through,
not working their way through the legislature.
We just have kind of 30 seconds for each.
But let me ask you,
social media ban for teens under the age of 16
past the legislature is headed
for the governor's desk, thoughts?
Yeah, listen, I think this one is gonna be be a conundrum of sorts. As you said, it passes the legislator. It seems to have bipartisan support as quietly as it's
been kept. And I think right now, really, what you're going to find is that, you
mentioned this earlier, you see that the legislator wants to give a lot of rights
to parents and how they run their families. And yet, here we are
legislating another issue
that seems that it will fall into the hands of parents.
I think really I can't.
What happened to parental choice, right?
Parental choice.
Parental choice.
So I think once again, this is one of those situations
where in Florida, we legislate issues that aren't real issues.
And I think that's one of the reasons why I decided to run
is because I wanted to get back to legislating the issues.
The things that really ensure that we kept food on people's tables.
You know, one of my major positions is what I'm calling economics for the dinner table,
where we talk about not only the table that's in your house, but the roof over your head.
I can say in the Jacobs family, when we sit down to eat dinner, my wife and I talk about
how we're going to pay daycare this month, right?
Real issues that affect people where they are.
So I think this is just another situation where we've created an issue where no real issue exists and then
we legislate it, which therein lies the rub that now we're probably going to get a lot
of constitutional challenges moving forward when we talk about First Amendment rights
for individuals. So, you know, when we create issues where no issues exist, we tend to have
a snowballing effect thereafter. And I think that's unfortunate for everyone
that calls for a home.
Well, that is the problem.
We legislate and then we litigate.
So we pay these legislators money to go and create
these issues, these problems where there are no problems.
Although I will say maybe kids shouldn't be on social media,
but I think that's up to parents to police that.
Not big brother, not big government.
But then I should say a lot of these legislators
are lawyers.
They know better. They know this is unconst lot of these legislators are lawyers, they know better.
They know this is unconstitutional.
They know it's gonna be challenged
and they know we're gonna spend $800 an hour
to hire their friends as outside counsel
to defend this nonsense.
Well, I think what the most confusing thing is,
and I don't know if people are really speaking
about this much, but what is social media anymore, right?
Because last time I checked, Meta owns WhatsApp.
There's a whole host of other things
that we do on our phones that are considered social media adjacent. So at what point do you draw the line? And
I think a lot of these big social media companies are going to fight it using that vantage point,
not only from a constitutional perspective, but where do you draw the line? And I think
there's where there's no clear line and you throw it to the courts. A lot of times you
get decisions and opinions that aren't good for public policy.
And can we just mention again, in terms of intellectual and legislative consistency,
that they're passing all of these child labor laws, opening, making this while where kids
can go and work on school nights and for eight plus hours a night and all this nonsense,
when a lot of young people make a living at home on social media as influencers on safely
in the comfort of their home with
their parents supervision.
Like, so why is it OK for some kid to go work at McDonald's or out in a field or
somewhere when they could be at home safely on social media?
What am I?
I'm just getting myself worked up, Rodney.
Rodney Jacobs, thank you so much for being here.
Please come back again and visit us on Because Miami.
Absolutely.
Thanks for having me, Billy.
Appreciate your time.
Please come back again and visit us on Because Miami. Absolutely.
Thanks for having me, Billy.
Appreciate your time.
Joe Corroyo's home could be yours for the right price.
The Miami City Commissioner's house is going up for auction to help pay for the $63 million
judgment against him.
But the Miami Commissioner is saying not so fast.
He's fighting this.
Corroyo insists he can keep the home. The law says that I have homestead.
Jeff Guchas is the attorney for the plaintiffs, the owners of Ball and Chain,
property owners in Little Havana, who won last year a 63 and a half million
dollar corruption judgment in federal civil
court against Miami Commissioner Joe Correio, and now they are trying to collect. Jeff Guchis
is with us now. Jeff, is that true what Commissioner Correio says there, that his house in Coconut
Grove is homesteaded and as a result under Florida law, the state constitution, you cannot seize that and sell
that out from under him at an auction on the courthouse steps next month.
So I think what's undisputed is the house has not been homesteaded since October 2016.
And Corroyo's claim that it is now, once again homesteaded, is that after the trial started in this case
and he saw the testimony against him, he moved out of his home in Little Havana and moved back
to Coconut Grove, all of a sudden claiming that that was his permanent residence and protected
by homestead. So this is basically a litigation tactic. Because Florida's famous for this. O.J. Simpson moved here so that when he lost the civil case, the wrongful death case in
California against the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown that they could not take
his house in West Kendall.
The Enron executives, of course, fled Texas and moved to Florida to be protected by this
law.
You have filed a response to this Homestead claim that is pretty
devastating, not only in that Joe Corrillo seems to have like almost defrauded or is attempting
to defraud the state with this Homestead claim, but also this matter has been previously litigated
where he swore to a court that he did not live in this house and now he's trying to have his like
pastalitos and eat them too. Absolutely and he in fact in April when the trial started he paid his rent
in April and it was only after the trial started that he gave notice he was
moving out and moving back and coconut grove. So that's how well the trial was
going. I remember that break in the trial and there was some pretty devastating
testimony that clearly I mean if you had to score the thing, it was clearly
going the plaintiff's way at that point.
So that was obviously why he got desperate.
But also there's a further allegation in your motion, which is absolutely stunning.
And I tried to bring this to people's attention in real time back in 2022.
But as Roy would say, nobody's listening.
So the redistricting process in the city of Miami,
really the redistricting process anywhere is a pretty sacred process.
Drawing the lines of where your house is or where your house isn't,
who's going to represent you, who you get to vote for,
who you don't get to vote for.
This is the ultimate work that the government does to either franchise or
disenfranchise. And it seems here you're alleging almost the entire redistricting process in the city
of Miami, which has already been found by a federal judge to have been racially gerrymandered
and it's now waiting another decision from a federal judge about that.
But you claim that that entire process, much like your claim in the trial last year that
Joe Corroyio weaponized
and corrupted almost the entirety of these government agencies, but you're saying he also
corrupted the redistricting process, not for the good of the community or the city or the
constituents, but for his own personal financial gain. Right. He manipulated the maps, had the
maps drawn specifically so that his house in Coconut Grove would be taken out
of District 2 and moved into District 3
through a little weird triangle in the map
that came down just to get his house.
It was literally the last house in the map
and pulled him into D3 specifically
so he could move back in to claim Homestead
if he needed to when the case went to trial.
And in fact what Joe Corroyo did was he split up Coconut Grove, which Roy is the oldest
neighborhood in Miami. Not just the oldest neighborhood, it is older than the city itself. It existed pre-incorporation.
And that's what he did just for his benefit. Suddenly a line that cruised perfectly along US 1
all of a sudden jumps down a few blocks to net his house in there
Also disenfranchising his neighbors who have forever lived in coconut grove and been represented by district two
It's just an amazing amazing piece of corruption and speaking of which I saw this reported you
Jeff Guchis you said that you were compensated about $2.6 million in this case
to win $63.5 million.
But the city of Miami spent somewhere upwards of $15 million to lose $63.5 million.
What is going on with the disparity in these attorney's fees here?
So, I don't know the exact figures.
My understanding is that $15 million figure encompasses two cases, the second madrum
case with the ball and chain.
My understanding was the Corio case is somewhere around $8 million, which is still a lot of
money.
But obviously, there are a lot of law firms and lawyers in town that are making a very nice living out of defending what a federal
judge is called an abusive process, shocking to the conscience, reprehensible behavior. And it's
amazing that these, you know, that the city is still paying all these lawyers to defend this
conduct that's already been found to shock the conscience. And now it seems you're going to litigate it all over again.
There is a new complaint, not only against the city itself
and Joe Corollo, but against another 10 individual city
employees who, in their various capacities,
city attorney Victoria Mendez, city manager Art Noriega,
assistant city attorney Rachel Dooley,
you have the zoning director Dan Goldberg, the building director Ace Marrero and various
others who according to the evidence that came out in the trial last year, all of these
people were part of this weaponization and this apparent conspiracy to target these specific
property owners in a political vendetta that Joe Corroyo targeted them for. Now, this is
a hundred and twenty four page complaint that reads like a Rico indictment against the city.
There is some bombshell evidence. I mean, smoking gun evidence emails from former police chiefs
and email from the building director himself talking about meetings and specific
targeting of your clients and these property owners. Tell me a little bit about this new
complaint. It also seems like all of this evidence has already been litigated. Is that
what happened here? This is all born out of what you learned from that last trial?
Yeah. So, so really what's amazing is the first case was filed in 2018 by Bill and Martin,
and they just sued Corroyo individually. And they didn't sue on behalf of any of their
companies. And they were just saying, look, this conduct is outrageous. It needs to stop.
We asked a federal judge to stop it, and we didn't get that order. And then they moved to dismiss our complaint.
That was denied.
And they appealed it and moved to stay the case.
And they did that twice.
And so we were under a stay for literally four years
until right before trial, a month before trial,
the stay was lifted.
And I said, fine, we'll go to trial without any discovery
and just call these witnesses.
And that's what we did.
And what was amazing is once we started calling the witnesses,
we learned all this other stuff,
all this other evidence about all this other wrongdoing
and how it had become after Emilio Gonzalez
was forced to resign by Corroyo for refusing to weaponize
the government against Bill Fuller and Martin Pena.
A new city manager came in, Art Noriega, and Art within months
literally had the meeting you referenced with the building director where they and the entire
city attorney's office and the director of code and they brainstorm ways to tighten their
policies to go after Fuller's properties and shut them down. And that's literally in the
text message. The next day you start seeing official city emails
go around with the lists of the properties.
Within months, they had changed the ordinances
and they had shut down ball and chain.
They eventually shut down Takarias.
The testimony from the police chief, Asaveda,
was he was shocked when he came to Miami
for the first time and met with the city manager himself
who was hiding around the corner from Takarias
when there was a full-fledged police raid going on.
He had never seen that before.
And that all came out at trial.
And so during the trial, I was saying, holy cow.
Not only are we gonna win this case,
but we need to sue the city
because the city became not only involved, but you have to prove us an official policy
of the city to target somebody. And we had testimony from the chief Kalina that it became
an official policy. Corroyo admitted that it became an official policy. It was in the
text messages saying it was an official policy. And then we had evidence of widespread and
pervasive customer practice. So once we had that evidence from the trial, we had to file
a new lawsuit on behalf of all the entities.
What's extraordinary about this is if you read this complaint, also if you read your
reply to the Homestead claim, it appears as though over the last four, five, six years,
I guess it's about 2017, 2018, the entirety of Miami government, whether it was hiring
a new city manager or building director or zoning director or promoting people internally
or forcing people out of the government, or
redistricting the city.
This all seems to be in furtherance of this personal political vendetta that Joe Corroyo
has against these particular property owners and business owners who just made the terrible
mistake of exercising their First Amendment rights in supporting his opponent in the 2017 election.
But it appears that all of the Miami government was corrupted, almost part and parcel of this
conspiracy.
Is that accurate?
Yeah.
If you didn't play along, you were forced out.
And I think there's a lot of city employees who did not play along and have been demoted
or pushed aside while others who willingly joined in have been promoted.
Which is why we call it a Miami Mafia.
You of course identify it as the Corollo Cabal
with a very helpful Rico-like exhibit,
a family tree that kind of shows exactly
how the corruption plays out in the city of Miami,
which is incredibly helpful for any of you playing
the Because Miami home game. This is a really simple guide, an easy guide for you to understand how the
Miami Mafia really works. And Jeff Guchis, thanks so much for being here. Thanks so much
for what you're doing. I know you'd probably rather not be doing this, both this show and
having to prosecute these kinds of cases, but it seems inevitable in this town that we need this kind of help.
So Jeff got just access law firm.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mm.
You thought I was gonna do a spit take there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I did.
A lot of luck trying to stop it.
I think I heard the sound of the Because Miami Wheel of Despair.
Yeah, we dusted it off.
Literally had dust on it.
What are the categories there, the topics today on the Wheel of Despair?
Okay.
I don't have paper, so I can't do the rustling thing,
but on my phone.
I want all of that butt.
Great.
Oh, I should have used that one for the first segment
with OMG, it's wicks, I forgot about that.
I eat butt all the time.
So we have, it's the marijuana, it's spring break.
Okay.
Blink, checks, and the measles. Oh. Blank checks. Mm.
And the measles.
Oh, the measles are back.
Much like the Wheel of Despair,
we brought the, Florida has brought the,
we're making America great again
by bringing back the measles,
which we eradicated in 2000.
Unbelievable.
So let's spin the Wheel Rive.
It's back.
The measles.
Since I was already all fired up about it, let's run the clip.
Breaking news on the Measles outbreak in Broward County. There are now nine confirmed cases right here in our community.
We can tell you another confirmed in Polk
General Joseph Ledapo of
it's up to the parents to
children continue attendi
say this advice is danger
Debbie Wasserman Schultz is
top position to do better
to declare a public health
to leave all of the burden of deciding whether to send
their children to school if they are unvaccinated on parents is grossly irresponsible.
Wasserman Schultz is also calling for the termination of Dr. Ladoppo.
I just, I don't, I don't know what to say about this. So there's, there's nine kids
in an elementary school. The Florida Health Department is not answering any questions about it.
Like, you know, is it spreading because they're siblings
of the infected kids?
Also, how did this 10th case pop up somewhere else?
You know, in Polk County, like how?
And Ladopo, the Surgeon General of the state of Florida
is telling parents, like, you make a decision
about whether or not your kids go to school.
But the truth is that if someone's not vaccinated and has no immunity,
nine times out of 10, they get exposed. They're going to get the measles. This is highly contagious
and very dangerous. And thanks to modern medicine and science, we eradicated this back at the turn
of the century 24 years ago. And it is back here in Florida and the state of Florida
is not giving anybody information, is giving advice that is in direct contravention to
science and all medical experts. And for a legislature that represents right to life
and children and their rights, like, kids are gonna die because of this science denial and this irresponsibility.
Kind of a gross dereliction of duty
by the surgeon general here in the state, right?
I mean, it's homicidal, Roy.
It's homicidal.
So I'm glad we kicked off the Wheel of Despair
on the most despairing note.
So let's just roll roll it please.
You would think you're again better with this topic but it's actually not it's
spring break. By the way it's not even spring break yet but this is a winter yeah
but the city of Miami Beach is already back on their Jim Crow bullshit. They just don't
know how to govern. They're so bad at it that they just immediately resort to like, you know,
demagoguery and stereotyping and racism and scapegoating and finger pointing. So they've got
all sorts of crazy ideas. They want to shut down for like two weekends in March. They want to like
shut down most of the public parking lots. The ones that they keep open, the garages,
they want to charge $100 a car for. And of course, they want, I don't even know what
to say, but here's the thing, it's February and Miami Beach is already out of control.
You can hear audio of what sounds like several gunshots fired after 8 p.m. Sunday night.
Ninth Street between Ocean Drive and Collins Ave.
It was all part of an especially violent weekend as spring break approaches.
An off-duty cop had to take down Christian Gutierrez Sunday morning. When police say he drunkenly fired his gun on 14th and Washington, then they say he spit
on a cop in a separate incident.
19-year-old Brian Rodriguez was arrested Sunday for attempted murder in the shooting
of a 14-year-old boy.
Two things that I notice here as my phone is going off on vibrate
Nobody's running the gunshots
But people are standing turning around and watching what's going on knows no running second of all It sounded like the most egregious thing there was the spitting on the cop corner to whoever was the anchor there
It was pretty disgusting. Well two things about that first of all bad boys for is in town filming
So it's all this by the way Well, but it's possible that people,
they were in downtown Miami in Brickle,
they were in Fort Lauderdale.
So it's possible that folks just thought
that this was Will Smith running around South Beach.
And so that's why.
Hey, it's Joey Pants.
Let me see what's going on.
In the surveillance, no.
Spoiler alert.
Spoiler alert.
Spoiler alert.
Yeah, he's not a part of the franchise anymore.
But yeah.
But anybody watching the video, surveillance video
that Roy's talking about, you can see people just kind of casually
looking around as these rat-tat-tat-tat gunshots are going off.
But here's the thing, it's not a particular weekend.
Now, does it get more crowded on certain weekends?
Is it tougher to police?
Absolutely.
But they're not doing anything to actually address the ongoing problem
that is Ocean Drive, that is the entertainment district.
We've talked on this show before, Roy.
I got a plan on how to fix Ocean Drive.
They've had ideas for 20 years
and they haven't done a damn thing about it.
This is not a particular weekend.
This is not a particular demographic.
This is an ongoing problem that they refuse.
They have no political will or leadership skills to deal with.
Let's spin the wheel, Roy.
It's the marijuana.
Finally! Finally we have landed on the actual culprit here in Miami Beach.
It is the devil's lettuce, Roy.
That's what it is.
I woke up today as a Christian.
So, I wouldn't label such as that.
It's weed.
I will tell you, this is,
we fought so hard for progress in Miami Beach
and now they are turning back the clock.
We've got the measles back,
we are recriminalizing marijuana.
In the city of Miami Beach,
what police officers were doing
for small personal quantities of marijuana,
not for dealers with big quantities
or people who were selling on the streets,
that's still illegal.
But if you have less than 20 ounces of marijuana on you,
you would get a civil citation.
They would write you a ticket.
In no small part because the state attorney's office said,
we do not have the man or woman power or the ability to prosecute simple marijuana possession cases so
don't even bother making those arrests and wasting our time so I went Roy to
the city of Miami Beach Commission meeting last week to try to talk some
reason into them. Good morning Billy Corbin business owner in Miami Beach for
20 years. In 2013 over 64% of Miami Beach voters supported a straw ballot
to decriminalize possession of small personal quantities of marijuana.
In 2016, over 71% of Floridians overwhelmingly passed a state constitutional amendment
to legalize medical marijuana statewide, but in Miami Beach it passed with 80% of the vote.
Commissioner Dominguez, you were elected with 80% of the vote. Commissioner Dominguez, you were elected
with 61% of the vote.
Commissioner Fernandez, 59% of the vote.
Mayor Minor, 54%, Commissioner Suarez, 52.5%.
That means that marijuana is more popular
with your constituents than everybody sitting up there today.
That was nice music, by the way.
I just wanted to remind, thank you.
It's my ringtone.
I just wanted to remind them of that, that their constituents like marijuana more than
they like them and will vote and support marijuana more so than they will vote and support them.
Naturally, this thing passed 4-2.
One of the commissioners was absent, but she would have voted against it as well, but it still would have passed four or three.
But here's the bottom line.
This is just a license to harass.
We have 60 years of data,
and we know that black Americans and white Americans
use marijuana at almost the exact same rate,
but that black people are almost four times more likely
to be arrested for basic marijuana possession than white people are almost four times more likely to be arrested for basic marijuana possession
than white people are. So there's no question that this is going to be abused. The police have
plenty of tools already in their arsenal. There's no reason to basically use this as an excuse to
just harass a very particular demographic. And more so, we know, and we talked about it on this
show in years past, the city of Miami Beach has past Jim Crow laws like this before,
like against filming police, okay?
And basically, they only got to use
that unconstitutional law 13 times,
and I'm gonna give you three guesses, Roy,
what the color was of all 13 of the people they arrested
on that bullshit unconstitutional contempt of cop charge.
Proof-o-bull.
You got it, Roy.
Actually, I should say,
you goddamn right, Meatball.
I eat butt all the time.
I want all of that butt.
Cocanes.
Hey folks, it's Mike Ryan.
Now, you've had the distinct privilege
of knowing me for close to 18 years,
and you know that I've changed.
A lot of my personal life has changed. I've changed as a professional. I am a parent now. My level of involvement in my
favorite college football program has also changed. But one thing that hasn't changed for me is my
favorite beer. You know when it's real with me. I think you do anyways. And you know how much I love
Miller Lite. I've loved it forever. Really. It's my favorite beer of all time, and it made all the great moments in my life
all that much better.
And when Miller Lite came aboard on our show,
I was super stoked about it because I believed
in the product because every time I take a sip
of Miller Lite, I look around and I think, yeah,
this was the right call.
Times change, people like me can change,
but you can always enjoy the great taste of Miller Lite.
Tastes like Miller Time. To get Miller Lite delivered right to your door visit
MillerLite.com slash Dan.
Or you can try to find it pretty much anywhere that sells beer.
Celebrate responsibly Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96
Galleries per 12 ounces.