The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - #BecauseMiami: Say Goodnight to the Bad Guy

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

Because Miami closes out its 2023 by showcasing the Miami Herald and a bombshell series of stories called "Shakedown City." This is a devasting report that could very well take down multiple mayors in the county of Miami Dade. We have two of the writers who contributed to this investigative report. Sarah Blaskey, who discusses just how complicit Miami mayor Francis Suarez is in all of this, and Jay Weaver, who talks about the role of real estate developer Rishi Kapoor. Plus, its the 40th anniversary of Scarface, and with us today is Manny Ribera himself...Steven Bauer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your listening to Giraffe King's Network. There is a culture of corruption that has gone unchecked in Miami City Hall for too long. They're into free vacations, attaxping your expense, abusing our resources For political revenge They're in to racketeering And audacious pay for play We are not their constituents Instead we are their prey Because people say the dumbest shit that you have ever heard Vote for shady grifters and we get what we deserve And it's apparently absurd

Come on, it's more as moralist And the Miami Mafia A rollo and man dead In the Miami Mafia Against and hard of men In yellow laveen cover The corov-teevo clown Takes the Miami Mafia

Over the nori-a-ga In the mine Rather Miami Mafia Yeah, my mind, rather than I am in my fear Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Miami Mafia, back on their bullshit and the Miami Herald, back with a bombshell me herald back with a bombshell investigative series called i love this title shakedown city all about my amie the city of my amie which is a uh...

racketeering organization masquerading as a local government it seems that my mere france is war as is also back on his bullshit exploiting his public position for private profit, but now apparently working as a secret unregistered foreign agent for Saudi Arabia, asking the kingdom, how can I help? And the Miami Herald has the story coming up later though, Stephen the beast power, manny from Scarface to celebrate the 40th anniversary.

But first we start with the Miami Herald and this uh, that man, oh baby with the brain of a mosquito Pulitzer prize winner Sarah Blaski is a friend of the show and she is also the lead investigative reporter on the Miami Herald's latest sensational bombshell investigative series Shake Down City, which has been rolling out all week long, starting with the one two punch of these stories that Sarah had the lead by line on Sarah. How did you discover the Saudi connection here and what is the mayor's relationship to

the kingdom? I mean, people have had this question for a long time. Where is Francis Suarez? Where is the mayor of Miami at one point he was all over City Hall and then he kind of stopped going as I think other guests on your show have noted. And so we started looking into that and we got these police records that showed that he had spent a considerable amount of time in the Middle East. And so we started doing a little bit of research into

that and talking to sources. And it became very clear very quickly that most of that time, at least far more than half of that time, he had spent in Saudi Arabia. And so sort of fast forward, we get some emails from the city, not a ton, but a handful or so, that start showing that not only did he spend time in Riyadh, and you know, go to these conferences, you probably heard of Davos in the desert, which is Saudi Arabia's attempt at, you know, sort of an international trade summit. He had gone to those, he had parlaed with various Saudi royals. He had been on stage talking at various events put on

by the sovereign wealth fund there. And then we realized through these cities, emails that he had brought one of these events back to Miami. And so that's kind of where it starts, right? You have all these strange connections, all of these trips that Seamod for a Cuban-American mayor of Miami who has always said that he's very against authoritarian regimes going over to Saudi Arabia. But then he does something, he brings one of their conferences to Miami and March.

And I think that's when it became a more serious investigation is when we realized that that had happened because there, of course, far more legal implications to that. What are those legal implications? Because it, let's be real about this for, I mean, I'm not casting aspersions on the Saudi royals, far be it for me, but these events are effectively infomercials. These are produced, basically, scripted events to kind of reputation-laundry, kind of part of the sports washing that Saudi Arabia has taken part in through soccer, through live golf, et cetera.

So what are these events and what was Francis Suarez's involvement in them and was his involvement as the mayor of Miami or was it in one of his 19 side hustles that you have revealed over the course of your reporting this year? Well, there's a lot of questions, how much time do you have? But to start with the first one, you are absolutely right. This is exactly what the live golf thing is. This is part of the same campaign.

Saudi Arabia has recently sort recently developed this master plan, Vision 2030. And the idea is to become quite literally one of the global superpowers. This is spelled out in a plan you can Google. And part of this plan, a pillar, is how they are using their Sovereign Wealth Fund, the public investment fund, to basically break into new markets

across the world. They want to build it into a trillion-dollar fund that has more power than any other sovereign wealth fund in the world. And it has a lot of money. It can break into markets, but the thing that's been limiting it, of course, is this long history of human rights, violations, and ties to the 9-11 terrorists,

and all kinds of other very bad for business headlines that have been limiting The public investment funds ability to break into these markets and so part of the murder and alleged dismemberment of an American Journalist from the Washington Post Jamal Kashoggi. I mean, there's yeah problems human rights Problems. Yes. Yes, and and murder, of course, started a fairly widespread boy government. And so part of the kingdom's effort to overcome that and to keep building itself towards being a global super power is or was to establish this conference series, the

future investment initiative. It was established through the fund. It is a government-sponsored government run. The board of trustees are royal appointees. It's that kind of conference. And it's been traveling around the world, trying to have different international summits in addition to the one in Riyadh. And so while Francis Mariswara is in Riyadh in October of 2022. He gets a call from a representative of this initiative who is a royal appointee of the Saudi government and this person says, we're going to do this in March and

Mayor Suarez says March 2024, they're talking about bringing a summit to Miami and the man says no no, March 2023. And Mayor Suarez seems surprised at the quick turnaround of bringing an international summit to Miami, but he says, OK. And then the emails that the Miami Herald was able to obtain show that city staff and also his private political fundraiser helped make this happen. And when I say help

make this happen, bring this summit that is by royal decree a PR campaign for the Saudi government. I mean, these representatives for the Saudi initiative gave talking points to the mayor for his opening remarks. They asked the mayor's staff and associates to make introductions to power players around Miami. Celebrity is business tycoons, that kind of thing. And some of those introductions got made. They told the mayor went to show up and who he might want to meet. They introduced him to VIP guests and asked him to be a special guest at VIP events,

trying to entice others to be there. Effectively, they were trading connections like currency in this effort to effectively try to gloss over a very questionable human rights history and instead project the regime and project the kingdom as a leader in sustainability, in humanity. This summit was called priority humanity. That was like one of the slogans for this summit. And so it was, it's a very intentional public relations effort to the extent that going to your original point about what about golf?

How does golf have anything to do with a summit like this? Well, it's quite literally part of the same campaign Live Golf was established by the public investment fund and has now been moving to acquire the PGA tour There's been a huge battle over the future of golf whether golfers going over to live golf or taking blood money from Saudi Arabia. But when you read the fine print of Saudi Arabia's plans, when you talk to experts from the region, what they'll tell you is this is an effort to get people to say good things about the kingdom and effectively drown out the bad headlock. And you do that not just with their own good headlines but by also recruiting celebrities and influencers

to say nice things about the kingdom as well. And mayors as it turns out and I want to be clear Saudi Arabia is a client of mayor Francis Suarez's law firm. So with one hat on, he is effectively being paid by Saudi Arabia to lobby in the interests of Saudi Arabia and its reputation, a propaganda campaign, but he is also using the office of the mayor of Miami with his staff, with a fundraiser who seems to be way too involved with the mayor's office and his staff. This may have overlapped to some extent with his presidential run, which may raise issues

of national security. I mean, this is just a minefield of not only conflicts of interest, but potential violations of federal law. I don't really think there was a question there, but I'm slowly making my way to it. What was he doing? Was he working for his law firm for the Saudis, or was he working as a mayor, as the president of the U.S. conference of mayors, which hat was he wearing in when here? That's the question.

And what he has said is he switches his hats frequently and sometimes wears one, sometimes wears another, but he has not provided specifics about which hat he is wearing at which time with a few exceptions. He has said he has only worn his mayoral hat any time he participated in these Saudi summits. So he was doing this in his official capacity as mayor. He says, but that doesn't mean he traveled to re-ad as mayor. That doesn't mean that any of these other things outside

of those moments he spent on stage were in his official capacity as mayor. He has not been clear about who paid his way to Saudi Arabia on any given day. What we do know is that he has made trips to the kingdom on behalf of his law firm, the law firm that pays him over a million dollars a year according to his federal disclosures, to basically introduce them to new clients to help them grow their business. So your question here, I think, and you ask it the first time, and there are so many things here, it's hard to keep it straight. But the real question is legally what what could be the problems. And there are several kind of distinct issues here.

One is certainly a question about conflict of interest. There are multiple different conflict of interest laws in Florida that would govern him. So one at the state level, one at the county level, the state level being more narrow, the county level being a bit broader. And the real question is, did he use his public office in a way that benefited a private client? There's a lot of room to sort of split hairs here over, is the public investment fund his client? The firm says no.

They said it's, he has nothing to do with any cases involving the public investment fund. They said it's he has nothing to do with any cases involving the public investment fund, but he certainly attended their conferences representing himself as both the mayor of Miami and an attorney of Quinn Emmanuel, the law firm. So these lines get blurry as he's switching these hats back and forth, right? That's the question of conflicts of interest. There's also a national security question here. And that question, we talked to multiple experts. Basically, there are laws in the United States that require transparency if anyone is promoting the interests of a foreign government

here in the United States. And if they're doing it, basically the words are, if you are working at the direction of and on behalf of a foreign government or predominantly on behalf of the foreign government, then you have to register as an agent of that government. It doesn't matter if you get paid, it doesn't matter if you're a politician and your agenda is goodwill amongst nations, that doesn't matter. If you are working under the direction of and on behalf of a foreign government

then you have to register as an agent. And the experts that we spoke with said that the emails that show the mayor's staff sort of taking these unilateral directives from representatives of the Saudi government do raise questions as to whether or not the mayor of Miami was predominantly working on behalf of the residents of Miami when he brought this summit, or if he was predominantly working on behalf of the Saudi government, which again is also a client

of the law firm that pays him. And I just want to make one final point here. The summit that he endorsed with his mayoral office using the city of Miami seal was actually held in Miami Beach, a completely distinct municipality that he has absolutely no jurisdiction ever. Right, so he was working for the people of the city of Miami, but in the city of Miami Beach on behalf of Saudi Arabia, who are paying clients of his law firm, the aristocrats. So Sarah, I want to be clear about this event, which I referred to earlier as a, as a piece of propaganda, as you called it PR, I called it an infomercial. Again, everybody's entitled to put on their own dog and pony show if they want to pay

for it, if they want to pay the mayor for it, in response to your reporting this week, journalist Mark Caputo, formerly of the Miami Herald of Politico of NBC News now at the messenger.com, he tweeted this specific event that you were reporting on. He was invited by a PR rep. This is the tweet. And it's as a screen cap of a text message from March 22nd of this year. Caputo writes a PR rep offered me a chance to interview Liv Golf's Greg Norman at this event involving Miami Mayor Suarez as Saudi Arabia

paid his firm. Despite a good money offer, I couldn't do it because they wouldn't let me ask R911 and Jerno Jamal Kashoggi's murder integrity matters. I say that not to give Mark Caputo a pat in the back, although I guess he deserves one, but to show that this was in fact an infomercial. This was a bought and paid for event. They were paying journalists, whether it was celebrities, influencers,

interviewers, in this case, the mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez. This appears as though the exactly the kind of thing that the Foreign Agents Registration Act also known as FARA, was created for. Is that what your experts are telling you? Yes, I mean, the point is to have transparency. If there is covert influence happening in the US, citizens of the United States have

the right to know that. That's what FARA law is about. And for a long time, it wasn't really enforced. But we've seen a ramping up of enforcement against folks who are lobbying on behalf of foreign governments, primarily after the 2016 election. So all of these rumors that foreign influence had affected the election and suddenly federal authorities are starting to very much crack down on unregistered lobbying and you've seen a massive increase in the amount of cases being brought under this law including of course

Senator Bob Menendez who was accused of being a foreign agent in October He was charged with being a foreign agent of Egypt and in that case, of course, there's gold bars I do just want to clarify case, of course, there's gold bars. I do just want to clarify right now, we have no indication that Mayor Suarez was paid for his work on these conferences. He says anytime he does a speaking gig as mayor, that he is not paid, but he also has not addressed the rest of the work. He has not addressed, you know, the fact that, of course, his law firm is paid by this group and has and we don't know i'm sorry to nobody has said that

he has traveled to south arabia on behalf of his law firm so he is being paid through his law firm as an attorney working for southe arabia and then also wants to be able to say but when i'm doing their propaganda and their infomercials, I'm working for the city of Miami. I mean, that doesn't pass the smell test. That dog don't hunt. I mean, you've reported that since his starting his second term as mayor, so far as his spent at least one out of every five days traveling and has been out of state, if not out

of the country, for one third of the city commission meetings. And these Saudi Arabia trips, this is a guy who lives his life on social media. And for a lot of these Saudi Arabia trips, where the Saudis themselves have promoted his visits on social media, the mayor has been strangely silent. So there was a level of secrecy to these trips that further muddies the waters here, right, about whether he's acting as a mayor or the attorney for the Saudis, no?

It is interesting that he has said he's participating in these conferences as mayor, but has not promoted his participation on any platforms, any of his social media platforms. He says he gives these speeches to promote Miami on the global stage again, but doesn't post about them. In one case, during one of these excursions abroad, he actually went to Dubai where he signed a memorandum of understanding with the government there, and it was kind of like a sister-city agreement between Miami and Dubai. And, and well, the Dubai government was tweeting and posting on Instagram about this signing. Mayor Suarez had mentioned that he was out of

town. There are no posts mentioning he was out of town. And instead, he, he had actually posted about a different proclamation. He signed that day, making it the city of Miami's making it the city of Miami's flon day. Yes, dessert, flon. And then put up a video showing himself eating flon sort of placed into some local coverage of this. So that that was actually the proclamation that he promoted, you know, over this memorandum of understanding. It's not clear why. He said he was doing that as mayor. He was doing that as mayor. He was signing that as mayor, but this law firm that he works for, Quinn Emmanuel,

does represent a lot of clients who he tends to run into in these trips abroad. So they represent a number of sovereign wealth funds in the United Arab Emirates. They represent government entities in Qatar. They represent several Saudi royals and the Sovereign World Fund of Saudi Arabia. And they also represent other clients like FIFA,

which we'll be bringing the World Cup to Miami in 2026. And of course, Mayor Suarez also spent some time overseas with FIFA officials. It's unclear if that was in his capacity as mayor or some other capacity. And he's also been pictured at the World Cup in Qatar with soccer star David Beckham, who we all know is a city of Miami lobbyists. We've talked about this before. I think on the show, you know, they went to the World Cup together. And that's an interesting question, because of course, Mayor Su helped to push a no-bed deal that Mr. Beckham brought before the city to use City Land for a stadium

deal, MLS stadium deal. And just to bring this full circle and show you how many potential pitfalls there are here, MLS is also a client of Quinn Emmanuel, the law firm. Sarah Blaski, find, shake down city, the full investigative series at mimeherald.com. Murray Christmas, thank you for being here. Thank you.

The The Pulitzer Prize winner, J Weaver, has been writing about federal crime and federal courts in the most exciting town probably in the world to write about such things at the Miami Herald where he has been for nearly a quarter century. He is part of the investigative team responsible for the series Shake Down City along with Sarah Blaski, who we just spoke with.

Jay's story, The Drops, is an extraordinary one. It is about real estate developer, Rishi Kapoor, very Miami character. Sky is a Atlanta transplant of Indian descent, attended the University of Miami, and hustled his way into the multi-billion dollar real estate business. I should say multi-trillion dollar real estate business here in Miami and lived large. We're talking about yachts, McLaren's six figure watches. I think you had a house in Cocoa Plum, which the DEA used to call Cocaine Plum, which was actually, it was the model for Vertone Montenna's house, which they shot mostly in

Los Angeles, but it was supposed to be, for Tony Montana's house, which they shot mostly in Los Angeles, but it was supposed to be in that neighborhood of Cocoa Plum. And I gotta tell you, the Rishi Kapoor story is like Scarface, but with real estate instead of cocaine. Jay, we had you on earlier this year to talk about this story because this really was the first domino to fall. In Francis War as is terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year because the hubris of

Rishi Kapoor could very well bring down the mayor, could very well bring down multiple mayors, which we'll talk about now, outstanding reporting as always, Jay. What is it that we learn here in this story that you told us about earlier this year in terms of the investigations going on in terms of the secret payments that Kapoor was making to the mayor in order to allegedly curry favor with the city and city policy. What are we learning now that's new? Well, before I answer that question, I want to give a quick shout out to my colleague,

Tess Risky, who did a great job, you know, on a lot of the stuff about Kapoor and Coral Gables and Vince Lago and also to Sarah Blaski who also was the lead reporter on the other story on Suarez. But basically, what have we learned is this. It's become very clear over the years and decades in Miami political culture that it doesn't take a lot to buy your way in. You can be an outsider, it's very transactional. You come in, you start buying things here, you start buying things there, it could be a dinner tab,

or a tab, it could be any kind of tab. And the next thing you know, the mayor's your best friend, you're giving money to his campaign, then all of a sudden you put them on the payroll. And so what it shows is, is it is so easy to buy your way into, and I'm not gonna use the word on your program, because it's really not suitable for family listening, but it's basically buying your way into a, it's like buying your way

into a house of ill-reputed. The reality is, you got a guy like Mayor Suarez and even Vince Lugman for that matter. Let's not leave him out. Let's not. And, you know, but for the fact that Rishi purports, you know, trying to curry favor with these guys, like Mayor Suarez and even Vince Lago for that matter. Let's not leave him out. Let's not. But for the fact that Rishi Kropor is trying to curry favor with these guys, he wouldn't have caused them so much trouble. He insinuates his way into their lives. He's an outsider.

He's from Atlanta. He's a UM grad. He'd gone to law school. He'd Mickey Mouse in marketing and sales for a few years and then detoured into the rough tumble world of Glen Gary Glen Ross, you know, and that would be Miami's real estate market, right? And it's just remarkable to me how he was able to create this little empire, bamboozle, so many people, get the mayor on board, get investors on board, get lenders on board, and even get condo buyers to buy into his whole thing, and to get political officials as well. He gets favors in return, he gets zoning approvals in return. All this stuff happens. Meanwhile, he's living, you know, living large as they always do to make everybody think

that they're, you know, richer than they actually are. It oppresses people, it makes them want to invest more with them and do more things with them. And if there's one thing that Swares us loves to do he loves to be close to people with money forget about the poor forget about the middle class his best friends are people with money and deep pockets those are his constituents and so it was a match made in heaven with reshaped or i'm not sure if this guy was a fake it to make it guy because it did seem for a minute that he was making it.

He had these major duty developments. He was, it looked like he was breaking some ground. He raised a ton of money. It wasn't like there was no money there. So I guess my question is, was this guy a con man in an out like shit in, shit out, or was this guy like, he meant well at the beginning, and he just flew too close to the sun. What is the story of the rise and fall of Rishi Kapoor in that way?

It's the latter. His intentions were good in the beginning. He hired a lot of good people, some from his UM days, some from the marketing and real estate world, and they formed a company, and they started developing projects. A lot of them were on paper, but some of them, they got done, and they started, you know, developing projects, a lot of more on paper, but some of them, they got done. And the one that he really completed that was a signature project was the V of Alencia, 39 units in Coral Gables near downtown. And, you know, he got that done

with the exception of three penthouse units, which are costing him dearly. Everything else is sold and occupied, but he kind of used that as a beacon. And then he had done some previous to that, but smaller ones, smaller projects. But the one that Viva Valencia is, the one that sort of jumped, started him into the real world of Miami's real estate industry,

and started getting more and more investors to loan him money. But they were always private investors and private lenders. He doesn't go to conventional sources. So all of this was costing a lot of money. His problem was he was in over his head. He juggled too much. He did not estimate these costs very well. He was always running into overruns.

He was always moving money between projects and legal documents explain all of this. He's been sued left and right. This isn't just discreet sourcing. He's been accused of all these things and lawsuits. And he moved money around. He even took condo buyers money and moved it between projects.

He took investors' monies and moved it between projects. He took private lenders' money and moved it between projects. And he also advanced monies to himself, which is clear from lawsuits, emails, and records and text messages. And he did all this in a way. And basically, the whole House of Cards collapsed. And now, we have a situation where he might have finished a couple of projects.

He might have had four or five good ones on the horizon, but they couldn't get done. And the whole thing collapsed at the end of July. What's really striking about this guy is that he knew the proverbial shit was going to hit the fan a year ago. And he was still buying the new yacht to replace the old yacht. You know, he was still, you know, buying all these things to make himself look like he was just sitting pretty and he was so wealthy. And it was absurd.

He knew it was all about to end. And you know, this is the mind of, I guess, somebody who just doesn't either think clearly or is desperate or is just so concerned about his image. I don't know what it is because he wouldn't tell us. He wouldn't talk to us. But in the end, in July, he loses his job. He's forced out as the CEO of his own company, and a liquidation manager has to take over.

What does he start doing? Selling off whatever assets they have to pay off creditors. A lot of people got hurt, a lot of condo buyers got hurt. And even the private investors and lenders got hurt. I mean, they were hoping to make a lot of money off these projects, you know, their legitimate projects in pretty good locations. You know, he just wasn't a very good steward. He wasn't George Perez. He wanted to be the next condo king,

as he told everybody, he wanted to develop a trillion dollar business, and he bragged about it. But the reality is, it was never going to be a trillion dollar business, and it was never going to be the next George Perez, because he doesn't really have George Perez's knowledge, know how brains or connections to pull it off. In the immortal words of Francis Suarez, if you put garbage in, you're going to get garbage out.

Now, let me tell you what I am most fascinated about here. I am most fascinated about Rosa commercial real estate. This is a brokerage firm out of the city of Coral Gables, which at its peak, if you will, had only about five licensed realtors who hung their shingle there or whatever the term of art is. And this is what I was getting at earlier, like at least one mayor could fall down with this house of cards, but there seems to be

a direct connection by way of this real estate firm to no less than three mayors of three different municipalities in Miami, Dade County, the five licensed real estate brokers in this firm were former Hylia city councilman, Oscar, Delarosa. His, I believe, stepfather, Ilya mayor Esteban Steve Bovo. Coral Gables mayor Vince Lago. Coral Gables mayor Vince Lago's chief of staff, Chelsea Grinnell Lindsey. And the last one was Bill Riley,

the attorney and lobbyist, who was just arrested, along with Miami City Commissioner Alex Diaz-Laportia on charges ranging from bribery, money laundering, campaign finance violations, and through business dealings and real estate transactions with Bill Riley's clients, lobbying clients are the centrenors of the anti-vax private academy in the city of Miami. So you have these connections out. Let's be clear. 20% of the people in this brokerage had been arrested. Okay, that's one out of five of them. And you have these connections between Riley and Alexey

Islaportia and County Commissioner Keon Hardiman and between Rishika Pore and Vince Lago and Francis Suarez. What I always refer to is this incestuous cesspool of corruption here, but I'm fascinated by this brokerage firm which could be alleged people are saying, you know, could very well be nothing more than kind of a real estate money laundering factory for bribes to public officials. Right. Well, that's a very good question, Billy, because this broker-trump, you speak of in detail, is associated with Coral Gables Mayor, Vince Lago.

He's part of that team, but he did not receive any piece of that commission, the $640,000 commission, on Rishi Kapoor's purchase of that land, for the purposes of building a condo project there. This would be at $5505 Ponstillion, his next big project. But what about the office space, Jay? Oh, well, that's another situation. Let's separate this out. Let's unpack this first. So the reason why I said that was a very good question is because when they got the $640,000, what did they do with it? We don't know if they kicked back

any money to Vince Lago. We don't know if they kicked back any money from that big commission to anybody. You know, we have no idea. And I can assure you that if I were an FBI investigator or an IRS forensic analyst, I'd be looking at those bank accounts, I'd be looking at the money moving between those people, and I'd be looking at what they make in salaries, and I'd be looking to see how inflated it is from this particular transaction. Now you asked separately about a little karate storefront office next door to this site. It was rented by the mayor, you know, for half a year to a year, to Kapoor for the purposes of putting in a sales office for the new condo project.

It was going to be built next door, which was months away from breaking ground. The reality is, it never sold a single condo in this particular project. The project for now is dead, although it might be revitalized through the new investors. But my point is, why was he doing deals with Vince Lago on the rental of the storefront next door to the new development? Why was he doing deals with the brokerage firm that was involved in the sale of the land for Wyshukupor's next new condo development? These are all really good questions. We couldn't

get to the bottom because they're not part of any public record. But the reality is I am certain investigators will be following that money trail. I want to be clear about this. What happened was is that Rishi Capore bought this piece of land for this major duty development in Coral Gables. And then the mayor of Coral Gables, along with a cousin of Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami, bought a building across the street, which Rishi Kapoor could have himself bought, considering he was spending tens of billions of dollars on these other properties. Then, about a month after Vince Lago and Francis Suarez's cousin bought this building, Rishi then rents it from them for

upwards of about $12,000 a month for over a year. And the building as we sit here and talk today is still empty. It was never occupied. Rishi Kapoor paid a five figure rent every month to the mayor of Coral Gables and to the cousin of the mayor of Miami to rent an empty building, an empty office space that he never occupied a single day, never so much as put a desk or a chair, and the building still on the outside, if I'm not mistaken, has a sign that says karate on the building. I mean, I don't even know how else you explain like in a movie that would be an obvious front for some kind of a kickback payment bribe and involves once

again two separate mayors. I want to know so much more about this. This is so so interesting to me, Jay. Let me leave you on one final note. I don't know what Kapoor is up to. He is refused to talk to us. He thinks he's been given a raw deal. He said so to me in an email a few weeks ago when I was doing a story about his yacht being seized by US Marshalls after the lender of that, you know, for that lot, went after him for it. And they US Marshalls with a court order went and seized it for him. It was like $4.5 million loan he had out on it. But I wonder when he's going to be talking with federal and state authorities because he's got a lot to gain by pointing fingers and providing a little direction to these investigators about who he knew, what he did, how much money he gave them, if he gave them money, how much,

and what was the purpose of it, because he knows better than anybody else. The question is, if he will flip and when that will happen, because he's the key to this whole thing, they need him to get to the politicians. We'll see if that happens. Exciting times in which we live, and exciting journalism, you could find J. Weaver, Sarah Blaski, Tess Riski, Joy Fletches, all their work in the Shake Down City investigative series online now at mimieherald.com. J. Weaver, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, thanks for being here. Yeah, same to you guys, thanks a lot. You want to see something funny? Hey, thank you, thanks a lot. Hey! You know how about using a nice guy? Come on, I'll take two pay for you.

Come on. Come on, come on. What I tried to tell you? Less beer. What I tried to tell you? He's country, you've got to make the money for it. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the world. That legendary scene from Scarface was shot here in Miami Beach at the world famous

fountain blue hotel Scarface was unleashed on the world 40 years ago this month. I think the movie changed the world. It certainly changed my life. I saw it for the first time many years later on VHS. And about 20 plus years after it came out, it inspired my producing partners and I to make a documentary called Cooking Cowboys, our second feature documentary,

which was kind of marketed as the true story of Scarface, because Scarface was, you know, kind of notoriously ripped for being operatic and over the top and unrealistic. Scarface was a documentary. Let me be perfectly clear. What Oliver Stone and Brian DePaul and their team were able to put into two and a half hours of that movie

really captured Miami and changed Miami forever because that was started to worry the cycle of like art imitating life, imitating art imitating life. The one, two punch of Scarface and then Miami Vice solidified Miami's reputation is like this sexy, dangerous, cool place that everybody wanted to be and come to it was America's Riviera. It was Casablanca. It was Dodge City.

It was lawless. You could do anything, say anything, and get away with it. And people loved that. And that has been a big part of Miami's branding and reputation for all of these decades and now to celebrate the Ruby anniversary of Scarface and Tony Montana. You know him from Kepasa USA, Ray Donovan, Queen of the South, Breaking Bad, Better Call Salt, Traffic to my favorites, running scared with Gregory Hines and a really crystal and primal fear with Richard Geer.

The guy's got a million credits, but most significantly Manolo Rivera, the right-hand man to Al Pacino's Tony Montana in Scarface, Stephen F***ing Bower, Stephen, what does it feel like to be a part of something so iconic that four decades later strangers come up to you on the street, yell dialogue, wiggle their tongue at you like a lizard? Is it cool? Is it annoying? Are you tired of hearing about it and talking about it already?

It's wonderful. After so long, and after the trials and tribulations of the status of the film in society and it's a challenging relationship with the media over the years. But the tremendous acceptance of the hip-hop generation, I think, brought Scarface back from that disastrous launch, not with people. The people always got the movie, but the media, the press, the film press, the film critics just savage the film.

And Hollywood would not crazy about it either. But even before that, Steven, this movie was controversial from the jump. And I'm curious how attuned you were to that because here in Miami, one particular city commissioner at the time, Demetriol Perez, was on a public campaign against this movie, thought that it cultivated negative stereotypes about Cuban Americans and Marriolitos in particular. He basically threw you guys at a town. I was wondering how attuned you as a Cuban American as a Miami and how aware were you of

that at the time back in 82 and 83 and how, what, how did you feel about it? How disruptive was it? Did you have to move the whole show? It was very disruptive and I was very attuned to it because of my quick movement through the casting process. I was seen on the first day by the casting director before she saw anybody else. I was recommended because somebody else

that's, remember, a lot of people were seeing me in New York City where I was studying with cell adler. And they recommended me to her to see me first. And I did. And then she sent me on that same day to Bryan Department's office in the village. And then I sent me on that same day to Brian department's office in the village. And then I got on a plane and went to L.A. and he called Marty Breggman, it's told him to see me and that I was perfect. So I rose very quickly through the casting process,

but then I had to wait three months for Al to see me because he was busy. And the fact that I went through that and I was talking to it about what was happening to me to my people in Miami and they were quite aware that the material pettis was on this savage campaign of like no scar face. They're not gonna be a Hollywood movie that portrays Cubans as clowns, as criminals. And he was told he were wrong.

He didn't think he read the script, but it did cause enough of a nervous reaction to universal and to the bosses over there, to the producers, that they didn't want any protests and they said, you know, we're moving to, can I say that on the ship? We're moving the film to Los Angeles till further notice. So they built the pets famously at Universal. So proportionally, maybe not a lot of people realize this because it's such a Miami movie,

how much of it did you shoot in Miami? I mean, obviously, Ocean Drive, you know, the chainsaw scene. So how much of it was in Miami compared to Out West? That's it. That's it, Billy. Literally, we went there for the drive up on Ocean Drive to the interior where the shootout is, right? We shot the interiors in the apartment in a studio in LA in November.

And then in April in Miami, we shot the drive up and the leaving of the apartment and the shooting on the street where he shoots the guy, the Columbia. Well, you were in Kibisgane and Park for Frank's house. Hi, for Frank's house, we were there and we were at the at the found blue and that's about it. That's about it. But that day that we shot on Ocean Drive, you were a little kid where you born in 83. I was at his five. So you were a little kid, but you couldn't ask somebody to bring you a bed of scar face. But by then, they cleared all the obstacles. And so we were welcome, but it was still like one horse town Miami Beach was and it was

a really retirement row on the on ocean. And so they cordoned off the street and I had all my family and all my friends with there to see me shoot a Hollywood movie without a genome. By then everybody had swallowed their pride and eat and crow and whatever. But I sailed through it. But I did take a lot of heat when nobody knew about it, when they were just rumors. Oh, you're going to play. You're going to play this role. You're going to play a Cuban and you're criminal. And I was

like, just mind you a business, you know, I know what I'm doing. So Pacino, Loja, Master Antonio, even F. Marie Abraham, half Syrian, half Italian, a lot of Italians playing Cubans in this movie. Who had the best accent, Stephen? Oh, so so. Paul Chanar, the late Paul Chanar. Paul Chanar in the Bolivian scenes in Santa Barbara, we shot in Santa Barbara. He had a great accent, you know. But the Cuban accents vary, as you know.

It depends on when you got here. And how good is your ear? Because I have friends who grew up here who are my peers, and they grew up in a Cuban household like I did. But maybe I watched more TV than they did. I was determined to learn English right away at three years old, four years old. I was learning how it sounded because I didn't want to stand out in school. I had a very complex, you know, I was very, very, very insecure about being a foreigner when I was a child in school. And so I made a point of sounding like an American, but there are a lot of my peers who would never got that sound.

So they thought, they talked like this, like a little bit like this. So that's a Cuban accent, but the believed, you know, Pulsar, that's a very, you find Cubans who speak like this, you know, they have a very, a very pronounced accent like this. And then ow, what I tried to give him was the sound and the accent that my dad has, except in the movie, they sort of justify that his action is not fully fully Cuban sound, but because he said,

my dad, he was a Yankee. He teach me to talk, right? And the first in the interview, he says my dad was a Yankee. So he was able to have a very good Cuban accent for what he was. When I would hear after the film came out and I'd hear from my friends, go, come on, Pacino's accent, terrible. And I said, thank you. I mean, you just, like, what do you know?

I mean, how many humans do you know who speak shitty English and sound like that, or they sound worse, or they sound a little bit better? All right, Steven, let me ask you this though, which was more convincing, Pachino's Cuban accent in Scarface or P Pachitos Puerto Rican accent in Carlitos way. I think they're both great. Carlito, I've watched it a few times, obviously.

And that's a very subtle thing, the sort of Spanish Harlem Bronx Spanish speaking English with that accent that you learn from Puerto Rico. You know, and you have this sound like this and you have it's just slightly different than the Cuban but it's also very street, very New York street and they retain a little bit of the Puerto Rican lilt. So his accent was very good because he makes a point of it. He makes a point, he wants it to be perfect. And so the great thing about his accent in Scarface is that it's iconic.

That's how consistent it was in and of itself. I mean, how many movies do you know that you can cite, that you quote more than one line because you enjoy saying it. People enjoy learning how to say say hello to my little friend. Stephen, I'm going to do a very quick pivot here. You went to Miami-Dade Community College right here in downtown Miami now, Miami-Dade College. The South, okay, you went to the South campus and then you went to the South Campus, and then you went to the University of Miami where you studied theater and I happened to know that you were in a production of of Mison Men that you co-starred in with Ray fucking Leota.

The late, great Ray Leota. Is that true? I remember this story vaguely, and I was wondering if you could talk about that a little bit. Well, the thing is that, you know that you have certain productions that are scheduled for the year. And already that year, by then I was in my second year and the great acting coach and director Bob Lowry, Bucket's, Bob Bucket's Lowry. So he was going to direct of my son, man. And we all read it and we all seeing ourselves in it, right?

And I thought, well, I'm not a play-lending, because I understand it. I think I understand and I have the size. Well, lo and behold, Ray read it, and he was like the hot shot at the University of Miami. He was a year ahead of me or two. And he was already playing Stanley Kowalski and he did all these things. He also opened West Side Story. The first production I did there was West Side Story and we're the first two jets dancing on stage in the beginning, but he didn't really know me then. so we weren't friends because I was kind of competitive I was he was competitive he didn't like the competition that I

Presented and so he wanted to play Lenny and Buckets just said to him, right? you're playing George Rocky's playing Lenny and that's it get to know each other and work on it and that was it and that's it. Get to know each other and work on it. And that was it. He had to just accept me and we became good friends and we had that strong bond of those two characters. And that's why it converted, it transferred, it translated onto the production because we were those two, when we imagined ourselves out into dust bowl and trying to look for a job. And, you know, and I'm a liability to football George,

but he's loyal and it's ruining his life. And so that was a beautiful production that Bucket's directed and that really cemented my place here because we got a great review from the great by the critic at the time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for

a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for

a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long time. I've been in the office for a long. I've been in the office for a long. I've been in the office for

a long. I've been in the office for a long. I've been in the office for a long. I've been in the office for a long. I've been in the office for a long. I've been in the office for parts, you see the whole thing. How cool do you have to be to walk around wearing a shirt of yourself? I'm not cool enough to do that. You can do that, but I can't self-promote like that. I only wear it in the house. Is this part of the new swag? Yes, this is called shoe palace, and it's out and store, mostly it's the online store, shoe palace.com, and just online store, shoepalers.com. And just look for the Scarface line.

I mean, there's beautiful stuff, jackets, leather jackets, and shirts like this, and colors, beautiful colors. I'm telling you, this is the second time I've done a second year that I've done it. And the quality just went up from last year and last year they scrolled out. For people doing last minute Christmas shopping, the book. The book is called, say hello to my little friend, a century of Scarface, which begins at the beginning with that, right? And it's a great writer, Nancy Galoff, he's written many books on movies.

And he loved my input so much, he asked the publishers if I could do the forward. So he helped me a little bit to just structure it and I wrote the forward to the book and there I am in a published literary work. Fine. One more thing, I have a great role and a comedic role in a movie called Beautiful Wedding that opens January 24 and theaters all over. Finally, I'm in a theatrical release and I finally let me do comedy. So I play a role that you've never seen me in and in a movie and it stars Dylan Sprouse,

who's this kid who is great. It's a trilogy, beautiful disaster, beautiful wedding, beautiful baby. And this is the second one. And I have a prominent role. It comes out January 24th, all over the country. Check it out, check out the trailer at an access Hollywood, it's all over. You'll see the trailer. Look for beautiful wedding, Billy, you'll get a kick out of it, you'll see me in the trailer. Merry Christmas, happy new year. All right, you guys, you two, everybody over there and my regards to Dan Lovatari.