New and improved Corrupt Carlos Gimenez video exposes ‘family ties’

The video ad about the shady deals that have benefited Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s family — principally his two lobbyist sons — has been updated with more precise information after an attorney for Grimenez complained of inaccuracies, threatening legal action.

The first video came out the night of the primary, where Gimenez won with 59% of the vote to Omar Blanco‘s 41%. It was paid for by Debbie for Congress for incumbent Democrat Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. The second video was posted on YouTube over the weekend, with one main edit: CJ Gimenez, “el favorito,” was the one who lobbied for Munilla Construction Management as well as the red light camera companies (maybe not at the county, but the arm of palanca is long), not Julio Gimenez, “el ninito,” who simply worked for MCM at one time as a project manager.

Ooooh. Big distinction, right? The detail is minimal because the point is that they still made money off government business thanks to good ol’ dad. But ‘Okay,’ said the DMP campaign, which pulled the video, but only to fix it. ‘We will change it — and add the $4.9 million steel mill deal in South Dade that Julio Gimenez lobbied for and is in on. We kinda wanted that in there anyway. Thanks.’

They coulda shoulda also added Barby Rodriguez-Gimenez, Julito’s wife, whose cushy job doing “outreach” for the water and sewer department was also a palanca special.

Alas, maybe they wanted to keep it about the boys’ club.

Apparently, the Gimenez family was not happy. In one of those “politics make strange bedfellows” things, they hired activist attorney David Winker — who has sued Gimenez as county mayor twice — to send Mucarsel-Powell a cease and desist letter Wednesday, one day after the primary.

“This Firm represents the Carlos Gimenez for Congress Campaign.

The above-referenced ad contains false information, and demand is hereby made that you CEASE AND DESIST the broadcast of this advertisement.

Specifically, the ad makes a false and defamatory statement against the son of the candidate that states: ‘Lobbyist for the Company that built the Bridge.’

In addition, the ad makes the false statement ‘Papi Gimenez still gave them another contract.’

Both these statements are demonstrably false, and contrary to the information concerning the facts surrounding the referenced incident in the Miami-Dade County public records.

What is particularly insidious about this disinformation is that you are making these false and abusive statements in order to falsely imply that Mayor Gimenez and/or his family were somehow involved in this tragic event that killed six people and attempting to use the tragedy for political gain.

For these reasons, we have requested that Youtube take this ad offline for abuse, defamation, and any violations of Youtube’s applicable terms of use and Florida and Federal law.

You are potentially liable for promulgating this false information. Should you fail to comply with this demand, my client will seek all remedies available to it, including, but not limited to injunctive relief and/or monetary damages.”

Yeah. Ladra was dumbfounded, too. Winker? Oh God, not Winker! Mr. White Hat working for Corrupt Carlos? But, at the same time, it does make him more credible. Winker was convinced that it was just wrong (that’s his interpretation) and decided to act on it because, like Ladra, he knows it’s the process that needs to be protected, regardless of the person.

“Anyone that has worked with me knows I am passionate about truth and transparency,” Winker told Ladra over the weekend.

“Mayor Gimenez approached me to help him set the record straight on an attack ad by Debbie Mucarsel-Powell that implied his family was involved in the FIU bridge collapse. Trying to turn that tragic event into political gain is distasteful, and then to accompany that with demonstrably false statements is what made it something I wanted to do,” Winker said.

“The first thing the Mayor said to me was, ‘I’m not sure you can help me because you have two active lawsuits against me,'” Winker said, referring to lawsuits on the Coconut Grove Playhouse and the misuse of the half-penny sales tax for operations and maintenance.

“Facts are stubborn things even in a post-truth world and the fact that the Congresswoman’s campaign took down the ad as I requested demonstrates that we did the right thing,” he said. “We are in an unprecedented crisis and we need our elected leaders to focus on solving problems, not sending out attack ads.”

Maybe he doesn’t know about the new and improved version.

Also, this is exactly the time to remind people of the family and friends plan that Gimenez has always supported in office. One of his sons could start lobbying the federal government for COVID-19 tests or personal protection equipment. There’s a pattern already established.

It was a mistake of the Gimenez camp to bring attention to it. Had Ladra been the mayor’s media consultant, she would have told him to ignore the ad. Sure, it made a little splash in the newspaper and a website or two. But it’s super early in the campaign and voters are very forgetful. By making a stink about the “accuracy” of the first video, they not only got a better — well, worse for them — video out of it, but more press about the context of the video: Family enrichment through access to the second most powerful politician in the state of Florida and what that might spell in Washington D.C.

“The bottom line is that getting wealthy off taxpayers is a family affair for Carlos and his kids, and exactly why we don’t need him in Congress,” the video ends.

The DMP camp didn’t really have to make any changes at all. Any lawsuit would not have been resolved before election day and the case would have made it a longer news story with legs. And Julio Gimenez could have lobbied on behalf of MCM at the Gimenez pay-for-play kitchen table. We don’t know. In fact, the Munillas are related to the Gimenez family through the mayor’s wife. So maybe the whole family “lobbies” for them over cafe con leche on Sunday mornings.

But Ladra likes the new video better, because it includes the $4.9 million gift that Papi Gimenez gave Julito — better known as the black sheep bad boy arrested in 2006 for drug possession and 2009 for disorderly intoxication after a bar brawl — who not only lobbied but owns 23% of the company proposing the steel mill project, which has changed names at least three times in two years. Papi says he recused himself from the negotiations for the grant from some jobs incentive program — the biggest ever of its kind — and put Deputy Mayor Jack Osterholt in charge. But does that really matter? Isn’t that just a smokescreen? Osterholt is going to say no to his boss’ son?

And maybe Julio Gimenez didn’t work at Munilla when they built the FIU pedestrian bridge that collapsed in 2018 and killed six people. But he was working at Fucina Construction when the company got a no-bid $5 million contract to fix the roof at the Adriene Arscht Performing Arts Center. The DMP people should have put that in their video, too.

Maybe they ran out of room. Or maybe there will be a third episode?

This is the second Corrupt Carlos video on the YouTube channel by the same name with 11 subscribers, including moi. It was paid for by the Debbie for Congress campaign. The first one, paid by the Florida Democratic Party, was posted way back in January, which just shows that the DMP people knew they would be facing Grimenez. And at least this time it was his campaign or family that fought back, not county staffers, who scrambled to manage the PR fallout after the first video was released.

That first episode only skimmed the Grimenez family benefits among other shady deals, including his 67% raise, and touched on other issues, such as police salary cuts, the closing of libraries, support of Donald Trump’s policy of putting immigrant kids in cages and the secret deal he reached with Trump, before he ran for president, to sell him the public Crandon Golf Course (luckily, it never happened). It also mentioned the MCM connection to the FIU pedestrian bridge and the fact that the county gave a contract extension to the company after the bridge collapse. Winker can mince words if he wants about the commission being the one that awarded that 18-month extension on MCM’s $130 contract, but Gimenez recommended and lobbied hard for it. And they all have each other’s backs.