Today, buried in the Herald, it was reported that Corruption trial depends on 'Prince of Darkness' witness.
Randy Hilliard is the most feared political consultant. Most people say: “I hired him for my campaign so he wouldn’t work against me.” He is the brains behind some of the nastiest campaigns and the most vile campaign literature. He is especially well known on Miami Beach.
I have spoken to Randy on the phone a couple of times.
He is polite and witty over the phone. While I was talking to Randy I pictured Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars on the other end. I just figured Randy was controlling things from a fixed station and he was hooked up to phones and other apparatus all around him. I figured he never went out. I pictured him as portly – like Jabba – unable to move well, like a slug. I have never seen him but I knew the real “Prince of Darkness” does not venture into the light of day, right? I figured Randy did his best work between midnight and dawn.
Imagine my surprise, when I read the Herald article today.
Not only was Randy running all over town collecting money and meeting people -- outside his house, he was testifying in the daylight! Boy, did my myth bubble burst on him. He is a real person not the slug-like creature I imagined. Is that more scary? Maybe. It does say a lot about campaigning in South Florida.
How much do you want to bet he loves the title bestowed upon him: “Prince of Darkness” or are the rumors true that he nicknamed himself!
46 comments:
Glinda,
The Anti-Prince of Darkness
I read with interest today's blog posting and wondered: What kingdom does this Randy Hilliard rein over?
Could it be the one of corrupt politics? The one of dirty electioneering? The one of influence peddling? The one of Union muck-raking? The one of bribery of public officials for his own financial gain?
Today's Miami Herald article, describes Randy as someone who turned state's witness.
Readers might wonder why? Was he going to get busted if he didn't cooperate?
Or was Randy just doing the right thing? I'm sure the defense attorneys are doing there level best to prove the former.
Some time before hell freezes over, people (candidates and businesses) might realize there are ways to win elections and business without cheating and by playing fair.
Unfortunately for local candidates, Ric Katz retired from political campaigns to concentrate on other more lucrative business.
So what and who does that leave candidates in Miami Beach and similarly located municipalities to do and to hire?
Just witness Miami Beach where Randy's work has helped many commissioners win elections. If you have observed Beach politics over the past fifteen years or so, you have seen the man's work.
I guess we will wait to see what the jury and judge think of him as a witness in the Keys.
In the meantime, local residents should..stay tuned...same station...same network...same time...next Miami Beach election season:
Starring the Prince of Darkness and his merry band of candidates.
I hear he listed himself in the phone book as the prince of darkness.
Randy Hilliard, like Arthur Carl Weinstein, came from the North looking for work. They both tried to become 'players for hire' in Key West by attacking people. Hilliard succeeded in engratiating himself with developers and politicians while Weinstein only got support from the odd Key West restaurant owners who were interested in having Key West taxes paid to the Monroe County Government re-directly in large amounts to Key West.
The economic miracle on Miami Beach drove them there. First Hilliard, then Weinstein became the political columnist for the SUN POST, owned by South African Jews who got it thru a bankruptcy as South Africa passed into Black majority rule.
It is observable thru the years people who advertise got praised in Hilliard and Weinstein columns, people who did not, and developer Craig Robins at ACQUA on Allison Island is the best example recently, get attacked constantly.
Of course nearly every sitting Miami Beach Commissioner has paid off Randy Hilliard, as nearly everyone has admitted in private to me since 1994.
What is outrageous is as I write, he is continued to run a political consulting business from a subletted residential apartment and Code Compliance is so scared of his influence on the Fourth Floor they will not cite him!
But, remember, he just elected Michael Gongora Commissioner - and Gongora only was saved from lossing by Joe Centorino's last minute statement that he was a resident under the Florida State Law! Surprise, Surprise! Joe Centorino is reportedly a 10 year friend of Hilliard as well as a former colleague of his political allies Kent Harrision Robbins and David Dermer!
The circle is complete!
I first met Randy Hilliard perhaps 11 to 12 years ago. I see him very infrequently. I find him witty and charming.
Randy is friendly and quotable.
Let us see what path Randy takes from here...
Randy Hilliard's hype is used to sell himself as much as to sell his services.
In point of fact, he is a mediocre political consultant with mediocre ideas and mediocre ability, who survives by inflating all of the above with hype.
Let me put it another way. Any guy who is really good enough to be worth a commissioner's payoff would have been plucked away by a state or federal officeholder or party long ago.
If you would like to contradict my assertion, perhaps you might like to share with us a memorable slogan he created - for anyone, in any race.
Randy Hilliard is witty and quotable, sounds to me like one of the useless so-called reporters we have here in Miami-Dade County who can't write a story except as a hand-out from some retired or unemployed looney from Boston like Frank Del Vecchio, Charles Schaab, AC Weinstein or New York like Mike Burke! At various times people (who do NOT employ him or invest with him, by the way, themselves)have described his "expertise" and "foresight" in art movie houses (the one he was involved with disappeared), stripmalls in the Keys (I have yet to see any record of his ownership of one or being part of a development team there) and the Miami Herald article from some years ago describing him as an "early urban pioneer" , and I am doing this from memory, "..as an early owner of an historical house in the up and coming area either described as "off Biscayne Boulevard" or "that place where they have the Halloween Party".
I never did get a straight answer if he owned the house described, was renting it, or was a squatter! The reason I inquired was that an elderly relative while I was out of state, was constantly harassed by a "friend" of Randy Hilliard's to invest in a building Hilliard was going to buy. Neither I or my relative had any desire to invest in Florida real estate or with someone neither one of us knew.
I am sorry, I think only on Miami Beach where ignorant, stupid, un-educated children and grandchildren have suddenly found themselves with unbelieveably over priced real estate would a person like Hilliard be taken seriously. I blame the Miami Herald, which until 1996 or 1997 would NEVER quote or use material from the Sun Post, but, sometime in 1997 when David Dermer, Jose Smith, and Simon Cruz got elected to the Miami Beach City Commission abandoned Miami Beach (literally they closed their office on Lincoln Road, and Tony Ridder moved to California from Miami Beach) to the great unwashed - mentally and physically.
I happen to like Randy. Regarding political slogans; we should remember politicians not their ads. A good political consultant will stay in the background out of sight. After all, it is the politicians being promoted not the consultants.
Many of you might not even be aware of the winning campaigns that benefitted from Randy's quiet help.
Any of you remember Steve Marin? He was Miami Mayor Manny Diaz's first campaign consultant? He later benefitted from $40 Mil in no-bid contracts he got for his lobbying clients from the City of Miami. Those no-bid contracts have since been increased by $12 Mil with "change orders". Write about him, it is a much bigger story.
'Many of you might not...." you MEAN RANDY HILLIARD and HIS CLIENT BROKE THE CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAWS BY NOT DISCLOSING HIS INVOLVEMENT! Randy's "Allies" show their sleaze every time they open their mouths! Suddenly ANOTHER CONSULTANT IS ATTACKED? That's a DEFENSE? Come on, give me a break! What "good candidate" has Randy Hilliard ever supposed to have "helped?". He blackmailed EVERYONE ON THE BEACH WHO HAS RUN FOR OFFICE THAT I EVER HEARD TALK ABOUT HIM, BUT, NO, I NEVER TALKED TO RICHARD STEINBERG and MICHAEL GONGORA, but to describe those two lawyers on the make looking to make a buck off what used to be called "public service" NOT PRIVATE PROFIT, as "good candidates" is to do more harm to the English language than it ever deserved.
Did R. Hilliard ever pay the guy whose apartment on Prince Steet in New York City he sublet the un-paid rent? I mean if this guy is so successful why did he skip out on rent for a shitty Village apartment last year? And why were police looking for him in the building a couple of weeks ago?
I don't know about you guys down there, but up here he is not only bad news, and a deadbeat!
Good wordsmiths are just not appreciated. Randy should have become a hedge fund manager. Then he would have retired by now.
'Good wordsmiths are not appreciated!? What good words? He gets money from people who want to run for public office or buy or lease public land BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO STUPID, TOO CORRUPT, TOO GREEDY to be able to get elected or "do the deal" on the merits! For this money he attacks the HONEST, INTELLIGENT, or THOSE THAT RESPECT THE LAW who stand in the way of the people who employ him.
WHERE IN THE ABOVE DOES LITERACY COME INTO IT? WE ARE TALKING ETHICS, MORALITY, and for the 'person' WHO I AM SURE IS ANOTHER ASSOCIATE OF HILLIARD's TRYING TO JUSTIFY the LOW LIFE he is associated with, AND ALWAYS FOR FINANCIAL GAIN PLEASE NOTE, CROOKED HEDGE FUND MANAGERS ARE MUCH MORE LIKELY TO GO TO JAIL THAN CROOKED POLITICAL CONSULTANTS IN MIAMI DADE COUNTY as long as SLEEPIN' JOE CENTORINO is in charge of public corruption.
I don't know what Randy is doing for money these days. He is avoiding New York because of the unpaid rent on the Prince Street apartment, and he is not listed as a registered lobbyist in Miami Beach. I can't imagine Gwen Margolis as she runs around talking about all the corruption on the Miami-Dade County Commission SHE CHAIRED is going to do him any favours like she did with the Gleason Theatre production several years ago after the Miami Beach City Commission told Hilliard he could take a hike after collecting a big fee from its sponsor to get City funding - Can you imagine the current commission of Dermer, Bower, Cruz, Gongora, Gross, Steinberg, and Libbin telling any lobbyist to "take a hike... the city treasury isn't a lush fund for political consultants"???
Since he's no longer a registered lobbyist here on the Beach, it will be interesting to see which of the clowns running for the Mayor's chair or the unbelieveably unqualifited jerks running for the five Commission seats will have the nerve or the low classness (it this a word, it should be if you ever spent five minutes on the fourth floor of Miami Beach City Hall since 1997) to hire him for his usual lying, lowlife, gutter politics work.
I wish I hadn't slept thru American History I, because then I might remember what Thomas Jefferson said about the Freedom of the Press. Washington also defended it, although reportedly putting his fingers squeezing his nose!
The reason this comes to me is that the Sun Post did a "history" of how Felix Stark and his wife with the worse dry job in US hair products history, took over the local free papers in the Beach communities in a bankruptcy about 1985 and turned it into the successful extortion and ads for overdevelopment and excessive personal debt vehicle it became under the obnoxious and illiterate son, known in political circles as "the thing". It relates that Randy Hilliard was their POLITICAL COLUMNIST from 1990 until 1994, then they hired Arthur Carl (A.C.) Weinstein until Andrew Stark fired all the gays on the paper to become more "upmarket", and Mayor Dermer put Weinstein on the public payroll has his "senior advisor".
Now Jeff Donner worked for the Miami Daily Business Review, and he is managing the so-call Mayoral Campaign of Saul Gross, and, apparently former Sun Post Editor Michael Sasser is now a political consultant managing the campaign of a so-called real estate salesman living with someone else in Sunset Harbor named Rank Kruszewski in the building chinless Carl Zap--- something or other lives in. Carl Zap.... something or other is the publisher-editor-writer for the WIRE where Arthur Carl Weinstein got his "start" and where Michael Sasser is a columnist!
It's bad enough government officials become reporters or political consultants - BUT REPORTERS BECOMING POLITICAL CONSULTANTS? You have to question whether what we read is to inform or to get the reporter another job here in SOUTH FLORIDA!
Many of the comments about Hilliard bear a writing style similar to that of that alleged Polish Countess that runs around harrassing people. It is also part of his MO to attack people anonymously. Another part of his MO is to shake people down for his "expertise". The only expertise the Countess has is shaking down little old lady Holocaust survivors and then continuing to cash their social security checks after they die.
Well this column's comments really takes the cake!
I have never seen such a myriad of opinion as on Randy Hilliard. I guess you either love him or hate him is the norm. I don't think I want to know about Miami Beach politics...too sinister.
I met Sasser once and Weinstein but the Polish Countess never...sounds intriguing...
Having never met Randy and choosing Jabba to depict him -- do you think I might be a good judge of character?
Maybe I am dense, BUT HOW CAN SOMEONE SIGNING IN AS ANONYMOUS MAKE CRACKS, UNSUBSTANTIATED, ABOUT SOMEONE ELSE SIGNING IN "ANONYMOUS"? I MEAN, the comment about "Polish Countess" is obviously aimed at me, AND I SIGN WHAT I WRITE AS I HAVE FOR NEARLY FIFTY YEARS, and Randy Hilliard and Bob Healy are mad my late Cousine Margot Lesser would NOT lend them money! Hilliard sent Lew Todd to my 82 year old cousin WHILE I WAS IN EUROPE ON FAMILY BUSINESS trying to get her to lend Randy $5,000 to close on a three unit building he was buying from a retiring Fireman. Bob Healy, the source of this filth is NOT A NEW YORK LAWYER as he told my cousin and I went her will was written, but someone who was TURNED DOWN by the Bar because of an ethics issue.
I do not know for sure who, RANDY HILLIARD or BOB HEALY or both made unfounded accusations against me that WERE INVESTIGATED YEARS AGO AND NOTHING WAS WRONG! FURTHERMORE, ARTHUR CARL WEINSTEIN, that lying illegal lobbyist, published twice I owend taxes! CRAP! I had to spend a couple of hours over three days on the phone to Manhattan, and then Brooklyn, to discover there was some fuss years ago, but I OWE NOTHING, THERE IS NO JUDGEMENT AGAINST ME, it's all crap!"
My lawyers estimated a law suit againt Weinstein and company would have to included the Police Chief, the City Manager, and the City of Miami Beach and cost $38,500.00.
WHAT I AM GOING TO SPEND MONEY ON DURING THE FALL CAMPAIGN, is $27,000 to mail a newspaper to the voters of Miami Beach outlining the scumbag, rip-off careers of Weinstein, Robbins, Hilliard, Dermer, Kelsey, the whole lot of them.
AND, UNLIKE THE SCUMBAGS, who sign anonymous, my name is Count L F M.deW.R.e B. W. Chudzikiewicz herb. Chodkiewicz, who was ELECTED to Area Policy Board 4 in Manhattan by the voters in 1987, appointed a Commissioner of Deeds in 1991 by the New York City Council, served on the New York County Democratic Committee, 1985-1995, and, if you go to the Leo Baeck Institute website or the Center for Jewish History website, you will see that since 1971 I have written on Jewish history, donated major collections including art works to Jewish research institutions, and UNLIKE SWINESUCKS, HILLIARD, ROBBINS, KELSEY, DERMER, and company I am not a useless, unethical, immoral, parasitical gutter rat.
Now that she has exposed herself, the Polish Countessa (who definetly needs medication) reveals herself. In her litany of things she claims to have done in New York, she forgets to mention her attack on a defenseless woman much smaller than she, the result of which got banned from the McManus Club. This is similar to the counter-licking incident that got her banned from Miami Beach City Hall.
RANDY HILLIARD GOT "IMMUNITY" FROM PROSECUTION FROM THE FEDS. WHAT CRIMES DID HE GET "IMMUNITY" FROM?
Never having committed a Felony, Federal or State, I am not up on what FEDERAL CRIMES specifically Hilliard has committed. Maybe Kent Harrison Liar can tell us? since he got him off!
Count L F Chodkiewicz Chudzikiewicz
Count? In his dreams. I'm told that he was born in Baltimore and made all that stuff up. His own brother says he's deranged.
Countess, what do you call cashing someone's social security checks after that person has died? A love offering? This guy is like Howard K. Stern of Anna Nicole Smith fame: living off the dead.
I don't think that Jabba the Hut is a good characterization. I saw Hilliard recently. I couldn't believe what great shape he's in. Especially for a guy who just got done with a major trial. He told me he has been in the gym five days a week. He looks marvelous! Tanned, ready and rested.
Like I said, the Countess is off her medication again with vision of granduer and sugar plum fairies dancing through her head.
Sounds like the phony count is in Falcon's Lair.
It is typical of a madman or in this case, a madwoman, to justify their ravings with some alleged "public good". Seems to me, even Hitler, Stalin and Mao used the same methodology.
More like an attempt to defraud another senior or find one whose social security checks he can get his hands on.
NOTICE, RANDY HILLIARD AND HIS TRIBE DON'T HAVE THE BALLS TO SIGN THEIR NAMES! NOTICE NOTHING TO REFER HILLIARD; WINESUCKS, KELSEY, ROBBINS, VITA, and company are blood sucking parasites on the body politic and the taxpayer!
Count L F Chodkiewicz Chudzikiewicz
P.S. If you have an 80 year old Holocaust survivor in the family needing financial aid, who would you go to? That group or me?
That's because the Countess has an agenda. Her own. She is no doubt running around Munich in a cheap plastic and rhinestone tiarra doing dreaming of some future putsch against a Miami Beach that wants nothing to do with that psychotic.
What are you doing on this Blog? Enough already. As punishment Miami Beach people, you have to comment only on county politics. You pay more taxes to the county. Get more global.
You are acting like the cousins that marry -- too much inbreeding on the Beach.
In the future: Talk about Bruno or Sally, whomever is your County Commissioner. You have covered the local folk.
We don't care about your Tiaras or your fued, we are looking to broaden your view to helping the whole of the County. Take a ride to Overtown or go to Umoja Village in Liberty City, or go south to the Redlands. Get the hell off the beach! You will profit from the trip.
stay on topic...the topic is now county politics...
Well, aren't we the controlling one. Just say Sally.
Randy Hilliard is nothing but a corrupt individual that was to be indicted in Key West for bribery and to avoid spending 5 years in Federal Prison, turned Federal Witness against his own friends and got immunity from the goverment.
That does not make him less guilty of corruption, just that he won't be emprison for it. Anybody that is associated with this character, as far as I'm concerned is just as guilty as he is and is liable to wear a wire to tape his conversations like Randy Hilliard did to his friends in Key West.
He ran my race against Simon Cruz and all he did was steal my money, that's why I urge all of those candidates for the upcoming elections to stay away from him, for many reasons.
Anyone who really knows Hank Sopher knows that he does not get out of bed until at least noon. This blog is the kind of stuff that makes virtually anything one reads in here suspect...
Who cares what time Hank Sopher gets out of bed...Mr. Hilliard, just explained, deny or confirm that you were part of the corruption in Key West and that you turned Goverment Witness to avoid prosecution.
Until you do that, to me you are nothing more that an unconvicted felon.
This last blog sounds like that looney tune Fane Lozman. Off the medication again, Fane?
I have known "the Count" for more than 10 years now, and although some may say, with reason, he is not playing with a full deck, he certainly knows what he is talking/writing about. At first, when one reads his far out analysis of the goings on in Miami Beach City Hall, the thought is that he must be writing an intriguing novel. But my experience in and around City hall tells me there is truth to everything he says. Keep in mind that Randy Hilliard, the focus of the Count's current writings, orchestrated the bribery scheme in Key West. I know this is Miami, but one has to be a lowlife to be involved in something like that. Yes, the Count can be a little eccentric at times, but when City of Miami Beach officials are looking to appease him, it's obvious that he must know things they don't want him to repeat. There should be more people like the Count that write about the self serving deals made by the CMB Commissioners without spinning his comments for his gain.
The problem with people like the Count, is that they take some facts and then add their own facts which are lies and then become hysterical. Whether the lies are the result of their psychotic madness or are just calculated to damage people is not really relevant. It is still lies. Seems to me that this is the same technique people like Hitler used in attacking opponents.
Anyone who has been the focus of the Count's "lies" and has nothing to hide should ignore his ramblings. Once engaged in a debate, the Count is relentless. Only those people who are the object of the Count's ramblings AND who see the truth in them are the ones who feel compelled to respond.
This post has gotten more responses than any other. Thanks for all your input.
Who is the Geniusofdespair, anyway?
And who is anonymous, anyway?
I am a person who cares about Florida. Just your average joe. Not a writer. Someone you would pass on the street and say: "Did someone just pass me or was it my imagination."
And, like all the other ravings of Count Chocula and his gradiosity of doing a mailing (which, by the way, would be illegal under Florida campaign finance laws) -- it never happened.
Like anyone on Miami Beach even cares what Count Chocula thinks.
It is February 13, 2009 and Miami Beach Code Compliance Officer Robert Lee has visited Randy Hilliard's sub-let at 1-D, 16 Island Avenue Miami Beach to confirm he is running his illegal businesses Hilliard Consultants and Washington Square Partners there FIVE TIMES, but old Randy won't let him in! Of course Hilliard has collected tens of thousands in fees from Deede Weithorn and Ed Tobin, two Commissioners who seem to think paying an illegal business is how public officials should run their campaigns. Hilliard has even signed on Sherry Roberts for the 2009 Elections! How crooked is Miami Beach? Only Hilliard knows for sure!
I remember Randy Hilliard from his NY days. A fun guy to party with. A sharp tongue, with no compunction. How he, of all people, made it out of NY alive is a miracle. Proof of the devil.
Signed,
Count M.H. Razumovsky
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