She’s baaaaaack.
After a long and strange absence (read: maternity leave) during all these AB fraud arrests and shenanigans in the past year, Absentee Ballot Queen Sasha Tirador has re-entered the political atmosphere — as a political pundit and AB expert.
And, possibly, as campaign manager again for Hialeah Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez, which may that she has forgiven him for endorsing Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez last year while she worked for former Commission Chairman Joe Martinez in that doomed-from-the-start race.
Sasha seems vindicated because she has not been implicated in any of the recent rash of ballot brokering bungles. And maybe that is why tiene la cara to be quoted in stories in the Miami Herald and to go on TV and talk about absentee ballot fraud as an outside observer or expert instead of an experienced veteran and opportunistic political strategist who wrote the book.
The theme from Twilight Zone played softly in my head as Tirador sat across from Ladra on Roberto Rodriguez-Tejera‘s La Diferencia show Wednesday night for a panel discussion on the recent absentee ballot fraud headlines, also with private investigator Joe Carrillo and journalist Nelson Rubio. She was cordial on the show but she had already taken it out on me in the greenroom. Let’s just say that tales of her softening up after becoming a mami are greatly exaggerated. But while she was her predictably profane, offensive and rude self, I found the exchange with her rather amusing and, er, strangely comforting. The more aggressive she gets with me, the more I know she knows I’m on to her. The more she hates Ladra, the more vindicated I feel.
Still, it was odd to find her on the show with the rest of us, since she is one of those who has perpetrated AB fraud in the past. Sure, she got away with it. They all do. A 2010 public corruption close-out memo from the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, which Ladra quotes often so people do not forget, stated in 2010 that there was a good probability she committed fraud in the 2008 Congressional race for former U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart — with investigators finding at least two changed ballots — but they couldn’t nail it. “While the circumstances prove amble basis for suspicion of illegal or improper activity in connection with the handling of absentee ballots by someone associated with the Diaz-Balart campaign, any chance of proving a crime is remote,” wrote then Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Joseph Centorino, after a two-year investigation.
And, yes, that means she can go on TV and say she has never worked with boleteras in her life.
Not because they are unethical, mind you. But because they are untrustworthy, she said. “Many of them lie to you,” she said, about the number of votes they can secure. “The only way to confirm it is that they bring the ballots to you.” And that would be too obviously illegal, right?
Judging from my own accounts and several sources, it is true. She doesn’t use the typical boleteras and boleteros.
But what she doesn’t say is that she doesn’t have to. What she doesn’t say is that her system is far more sophisticated than that. She hinted to it on the show when she talked about “runners” who visit homes. What she doesn’t say is that she has dozens of them — all conveniently named “Juan” and “Marta” — and they visit hundreds of homes and scare elderly people into voting for her candidates. What she doesn’t say is how her operation identifies voters for her candidates’ opponents and then collects those ballots, too — which are then changed (as in the ABs investigated by the SAO) or simply, oooops, lost.
It is true that she doesn’t use boleteras. Her campaigns are staffed by stealth professionals. While the boletera business uncovered in Hialeah is like a neighborhood ring of cat burglars, her operation is more like the mafia. That is why Tirador billed somewhere around $1.5 million for her “consulting” and “media placement” services in 2011, mostly on the recall, the failed county mayoral campaign for former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina , the Hernandez re-election campaign and the Esteban Bovo campaign for commission.
I almost reminded her of this when she went on and on and on about equally unproven allegations against former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez, but it was Roberto’s show, a live one at that, and I didn’t have enough time. But maybe Martinez can mention her methods when he goes on the show this coming week so the former Teflon King of Hialeah and Tirador face-off for the first time since that 2008 campaign and in which he promises to disprove all her allegations. You bet we’ll tune in. (More on that later).
In any case, when this week’s conversation turned to the pending loansharking and tax evasion trial of Robaina — another former client of hers whose questionable absentee ballot campaigns have been crucial — and the possible implication of Councilwoman Vivian “I’ll Notarize That” Casals-Muñoz and Hialeah Mayor “Castro” Hernandez, she said she couldn’t talk about Hernandez.
“I can’t share my opinion about that because he’s my client,” she said, seeming to speak in present tense. She didn’t say that she couldn’t talk about Robaina because he was a former client. And it leads Ladra to think that she is helping him again this year — like she did in 2011, when boletera Emelina Llanes was caught red-handed picking up ballots in elder housing units — with his so-far unopposed re-election bid (more on that later).
Maybe she’s getting paid to scare potential challengers away.
She did, however, talk about Casals-Muñoz. And talk. And talk. Tirador used the interview to bash her longtime nemesis, who she blames for losing potential clients. And the woman is an expert communicator. After all, she used to manipulate Cuban radio listeners. Before she suddenly became a campaign operative and AB queen, Tirador’s only claim to fame was as co-host of an AM radio show with the infamous el Col. Matias “Tres Lucas” Farias, whose nickname refers to his tendancy of taking $3,000 to bash a political candidate on your behalf. This is her pedigree. And she is good at using air time to her or, rather, her client’s advantage. During the mayoral election in 2011, Tirador was supposed to debate me on radio about questionable AB operations and the IHOP incident perpetrated by her client and it became, instead, a trial on Martinez, who was running against her alcaldito boy. And last night’s show became a trial on Casals-Muñoz.
Hialeah’s favorite notary public would not call me back. She never does. But “friends” of hers and people in the know say that Sasha hates La Vivian with a fervor. Mostly because Casals-Muñoz has cost the queen business, but there could be other reasons.
There’s also talk of a real hard split between Hernandez and Casals-Munoz, despite cushy post-election photos to the contrary, so Tirador’s televised attack could also be part of a political strategy to either minimize the councilwoman’s influence in her remaining two and a half years — since she was just re-elected in 2011 — or create the atmosphere for an ouster or a recall.
After losing every election except the Doral mayoral race, Tirador needs the business that a recall and subsequent election could bring. If Hernandez does not get a real challenge — this Juan Santana guy (a video blogger whose camera was taken away twice by the abusive Hialeah Goon Squad, er, I mean Police Department) looks like a longshot (more on that later) — it’s likely her bill won’t bulge as big.
AB Queen Sasha Tirador returns from her long silence added by Ladra on
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