Richard W. Martin II, a self-described real estate entrepreneur who ran for Coral Gables City Commission and lost twice, was arrested Monday on an outstanding warrant from New Jersey.
Martin turned himself in Monday morning and is sitting in the Miami-Dade jail right now awaiting extradition, according to Miami-Dade County Corrections.
But it gets way better than that.
Coral Gables Police learned of the outstanding 2006 warrant after they traced Martin as the ghost author of anonymous and harassing emails sent to Gables Commissioner Ralph Cabrera, who Martin ran against in 2009, for the last year and a half. They start off ridiculously sophomoric from some sexy lady ranch in Nevada declining his membership application. College prank stuff. But it escalated to emails sent to citizens and the other commissioners, including one with a photo of him with his daughter at the city’s Father Daughter Dance with a quoted plea: “Commissioners, please stop my Daddy from whoring around.”
“This was out of control,” Cabrera told Ladra Tuesday. “I didn’t know who it was. I thought it was some knucklehead. I really just wanted the guy to stop.
“I don’t mind being told that I’m full of crap if you tell me who you are,” Cabrera told me. And, indeed, he has proved it throughout the year as he takes criticism for being the stand-out dissenting vote on many items.
The investigation into the emails may not have done that. While silly and cowardly because Martin sent them anonymously, the emails may be protected by first amendment rights. But the police snooping led to the discovery of the warrant — which, by the way, never came up in the 2009 campaign or when Martin ran again for an open seat in 2011.
Gables Police detectives would not discuss the case and the PIO was unavailable early Tuesday but Cabrera said that police told him the warrant was for a forgery charge of some kind. Regardless, it had the desired effect: It does make the guy stop.
And just in time, too. The last thing Cabrera needs during this coming 4-month mayoral campaign against incumbent Mayor Jim Cason is the distraction of an anonymous heckler with off-color jokes about his family.
The first thing he needs will be background checks on anyone else who jumps into the April race.
Arrested: Two-time Gables candidate Richard Martin added by Ladra on
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