Glenn Rice PAC funds Mayor Carlos Hernandez mailers

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Last month, Hialeah Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez said he didn’t have very much to do with Glenn “The Goon” Rice, who harasses and intimidates people for the mayor and who should be charged with filing a false police report for his little staged near-scuffle last month at a restaurant with former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez.

We’ve always known Rice worked for the mayor, since he was first seen hanging around Hernandez in the 2011 elections harassing opponents and fulfilling other goon duties, like responding to boletera Emelina Llanes’ hysterical calls when she was caught red-handed collecting absentee ballots for the mayor in his wife’s SUV.

But he isn’t a city employee and nobody knew his title, other than goon or enforcer and obsolete bodyguard. Hernandez certainly wasn’t saying. All his campaign manager would say in defense of Rice when she went on TV was that the former cop and the mayor were longtime friends, even though nobody buys that line.

But now we know: Rice is chairman and treasurer of the mayor’s PAC. You’re going to tell me he doesn’t answer to the man?

Citizens for Efficient Government has almost $160,000 still, having raised $197,000 since March. One of the biggest contributors is Williams Paving, which has a no-bid contract from the city, having donated $23,000 to Hernandez’s re-election cause.

In fact, one of his mailers talks about 17 miles of roads fixed, when he really means re-paved, by Williams.

Rice’s PAC — which Ladra suggests is just his in name only and is actually run by Castro’s campaign coordinator, Absentee Ballot Queen Sasha Tirador — also scored $20,000 from La Estrella de Oro pawn show owner Carlos Corderi and $15,000 from EZ 2 Rent Homes, a company registered to Alexander Ruiz, a business partner of former Mayor Julio Robaina. Another $10,000 came from James Tundidor. He got $10,000 from Jorge Gonzalez and at leat $5,000 each from Benjamin Leon, not from the medical center but from the PR firm, and Pinecrest Councilman Joseph Corradino.

At least another $22,500 came from companies that do waste management and recycling, as Hialeah is rumored to be looking into privatizing its service. Of that, $15,000 came from Eco Logical Paper Recycling.

The $197,000 in Rice’s PAC is in addition to nearly $200,000 that Hernandez has in his own campaign coffers. If you count another $100K or so hidden in other PACs, either run by the housing authority chief or Tirador herself, because she has her few, I’m willing to bet Hernandez spends close to half a million on this election.

And he says he isn’t afraid at all of former Mayor Julio Martinez, who is running against him.

“This guy is getting all his money from people who do business with the city. And he claims he doesn’t know what Glenn Rice is doing when the guy is raising about a quarter of a million dollars for him,” said Martinez, who has raised about $15,000 for his own campaign. He says he may raise a total of twice that, but not more.

That will be less than half of what Tirador alone will make from this race, judging by payments so far.

In the $40,700 of expenditures reported by the Rice PAC through Sept. 30, the bulk of it has gone to G&R Strategies, the company owned by AB fraud queen Tirador. She has gotten $32,250 just since April and just for “consulting,” which is an absurdly extreme amount by any measure and could be monies really used for absentee ballot operations in the city’s myriad public housing units. God, I hope the feds are watching. They should ask, for instance, why she gets three separate checks for $2,500 each on the same day Sept. 2. Why not one $7,500 check if it is all for “consulting” work. Looks like internal accounting strategies. This money is for that, this money is for this. The feds can subpoena her bank records, too. Why haven’t they? See what money goes out when this money goes in.

Tirador’s fees also include a $10,000 payment on Sept. 13, which is incidently the week that Rice got into that argument with Martinez at Maruch. The fee is either for damage control or, conversely, for her role in the staged publicity scheme. After all, she is the one who disseminated the video tape that Rice took during his poking and harassing of Martinez to the media.

Rice — who also has a criminal consulting firm, which some might say “same thing” — got paid, too. But not much. He got his $300 he used to open the account reimbursed and then got $800 more for “research.” That could very well be the payoff for his harassment of Martinez and of mayoral candidate Juan Santana, in front of the candidate’s house, as captured on this YouTube video.

But boy does Rice come cheap. Unless, he gets paid in the next report.

  2013 Hialeah elections, Carlos Hernandez, Glenn Rice, Raul Martinez