Well, it looks like Daisy Cabrera, the Hialeah boletera caught red-handed Wednesday by Miami-Dade public corruption detectives collecting 19 ballots in the City of Progress, is not coming out of her apartment just yet.
Her attorney, Eric Castillo, spent practically the whole morning there and slipped out with another woman, who everyone thought was Cabrera — but Daisy doesn’t drive. Castillo went back in just before 3 p.m. today, but wouldn’t make a statement to me or any other members of the media who were staking out Cabera’s apartment since Wednesday night, when she called Hialeah Police after El Nuevo Herald reporter extraordinaire Enrique Flor went knocking on her door close to midnight (yes, I’ve requested the police report). No estoy de acuerdo con tus metodos, Kike. Ha ha! Just kidding. But you don’t like it, eh?
Anyway, Castillo wouldn’t stop for a second as we walked alongside him and peppered him with questions. “Let the police and the State Attorney’s Office do their jobs. She doesn’t want to say anything at the moment and she has that right,” Castillo said, hurrying as fast as he could into apartment 205. Flor asked him how Cabrera was handling all the attention and notoriety: “Is she nervous?” Castillo nodded. “You know she’s up in age,” he said.
She’s also up in a big mess.
According to sources, Cabrera got a late night visit Wednesday from two men who could not be identified by those who saw them. She is likely getting all the advice she can from the political circles she has always been involved in, which include State Rep. Eddy Gonzalez — who admitted to me that she had helped him with campaigns — one-time candidate Ralph Perez, former Sen. Rudy Garcia, who she collected ballots for in the Hialeah mayoral race before she went with Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez in the runoff. She also has the signs up on her second floor balcony for State Rep. Jose Oliva and assistant principal Manny Diaz, Jr., who is running for a seat in state House district 103 against School Board Member Renier Diaz de la Portilla.
Oh, and presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. So even the presidential race may be affected by the AB machinery in Hialeah.
Wait, isn’t Al Lorenzo, who ran Garcia’s doomed campaign, part of the Gimenez team? Why, yes, he is. There’s yet another connection to the Golden Boy incumbent who just dirtied up his clean campaign with this unholy alliance to the Hialeah hoodlum political debauchery. Ladra is not sure Gimenez himself knew what they were up to, and believes that he is so clueless about the minutia of his campaign that he probably had no whiff of it at all. And I know they are reeling about this. It’s not what they wanted.
But someone knew. And Gimenez should have known. He is quite aware of the fact that the Hialeah power structure doesn’t play by the rules. Problem is he seems ready to accept it when it helps him win the game.
Bad move, Mr. Mayor. I think you may have just secured yourself a runoff.