Caesar Sayoc, lost and angry, found his tribe with Trump

Cesar Sayoc lived in the tiny suburbs of South Florida, in a van filled with sweaty sportswear, delivered pizzas in the cemetery, and worked as a maid in a gloomy and gloomy club where naked dancers gyrried. mechanically for dollars of boozy customers.

Sayoc has always had several echelons lower on the scale than he would have liked and exaggerated the caliber of roles that he has chosen. He said that he was a Chippendales dancer, a champion bodybuilder, a professional wrestler, a popular DJ, a dry-cleaning genius and a veterinary student who had previously played football for AC Milan in the Italian league.

Sayoc, who sometimes used Julus Cesar, the misspelled pseudonym, liked to boast of owning a strip club, the Caesar's Palace Royale. It only existed in his mind.

In South Florida, where the sun shines all year long, dreams and projects grow like greenhouse flowers. Sayoc finally found his true calling two years ago at a Donald Trump rally in West Palm Beach. He bought a Make America Great Again red cap, a poster that made fun of Trump's critics and joined the turbulent crowd by chanting "Lock it up!"

He stuck his van with stickers glorifying Trump and superimposing a line of sight to the rifle on the faces of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. He began to reprimand his bad boss at the pizzeria saying that she would burn in hell with blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Muslims and homobaduals who were ruining America.

At one point, the authorities stated that he had started to prepare a company that would finally make up for the shortcomings of his resume. Sayoc would have worked on it until the wee hours of the night in his van – nicknamed the MAGAmobile by people who saw him in town – which he often parked near a funeral home. # 39, Hollywood.

Last Friday, nearly two years after Clinton's defeat as president and less than two weeks before the mid-term elections on November 6, Sayoc was arrested in a Plantation auto area and charged with looting the property. sending incendiary bombs to a dozen prominent Democrats in the country, including President Obama. The Manila envelopes, filled with misspelled names and crammed with rough explosives, have pbaded through the Opa-locka postal center just a few miles from Sayoc, 56, who grew up in Aventura and graduated from North Miami Beach High School.

Sayoc, described as a "person", a "crazy" and an "outcast" by those who met him on social media or in person, unleashed a furious FBI manhunt when the parcels began to be discovered and plunged the country into a frenzy of fear of a domestic terrorist attack.

When the FBI used a fingerprint left awkwardly on an envelope to find it, Sayoc – bankrupt, seized, separated from his family – suddenly became something else: famous. He was the MAGAbomber, the mysterious man who took center stage in the global discourse about wicked partisan politics tearing the United States apart in blue and red shards.

His alleged bombing crime was soon eclipsed by a heinous hate crime committed in Pittsburgh. While Sayoc was waiting in a prison cell for his first appearance in federal court on Monday, a 46-year-old man shouting, "Kill all Jews!" Slaughtered 11 people and wounded six others who were attending a service in the synagogue.

"It's a terrible thing happening with hate in this country," said the president about mbad shooting, before heading to a rally in southern Illinois.

According to some accounts, Sayoc's behavior changed after attending a Trump rally on October 13, 2016. His social media posts have become dark and conspicuous, with images of Hillary and Bill Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama, from Nancy Pelosi, Al Sharpton and Eric Holder. , Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow and references to Benghazi, mail servers, media collusion and CNN under the words "Swamp to be drained!

He posted a video titled "Satan Sent Obama to Destroy America" ​​and wished that all Liberals leave the United States via the Mexican border.

"When he discovered that I was a bad, he told me that I should burn in hell and that I was a deformity, that God was wrong with me and that I should leave on an island with Hillary Clinton and Rachel Maddow, Ellen Degeneres and President Barack. Obama and all the fringe of the world, "said Debra Gureghian, executive director of New River Pizza & Fresh Kitchen in Fort Lauderdale, where Sayoc worked from January 2017 to January 2018.

She said that Sayoc proclaimed his love for Adolf Hitler and his ethnic cleansing.

For her part, Gureghian stated that Sayoc was a trustworthy, well-dressed employee who wore colognes and that she did not feel threatened by him despite the hunting knife that he wore . One rainy night, when he brought her home, she saw the inside of the van. It was filled with dirty clothes, crumpled fast food bags, bottles of beer and vodka, and bottles of vitamins.

"I can not believe he could do that," Gureghian said of the charges against Sayoc.

Ron Lowy, a Miami lawyer who had represented Sayoc on previous charges of shoplifting, possession of steroids and a threat to blow up Florida Power & Light "worse than September 11" because his electricity was cut off after he failed to pay a bill, Sayoc said. lived in an imaginary world for a long time.

"When he arrived in my office in 2001, he showed me an album with pictures of him as an exotic stripper bad, bodybuilder, wrestler, DJ, no matter what I wanted and what I wanted to see Lowy said. "He wanted to show that he was important. He has friends. He wanted something to be proud of.

Sayoc lived at the time in a different van covered with Native American stickers and tribes. Sayoc insisted that he was a member of the Florida Seminole tribe, although the tribe denies having any affiliation.

Sayoc was born in Brooklyn, New York. His father was Filipino and his mother, Madeline Giardiello, is of Italian descent. Lowy, a family friend, said that Sayoc's problems began when his father left the family and returned to the Philippines.

"It's natural that Cesar has problems with abandonment, problems of self-confidence, neglect. Am I a mistake, am I hated? Lowy, who concluded that "confused, immature and inarticulate," Sayoc was mentally ill.

"We put him on probation because we did not have a mental health court in Dade County at that time," Lowy said. "There were not enough signs that he would become a suicide bomber, but he needed some care. In all these incidents, foreigners like Nikolas Cruz and Cesar Sayoc have one thing in common: they have no one to communicate with. They feel excluded.

Sayoc was ripe for conversion to a political cause because of constant stalemates in his quest for identity, Lowy said.

"For the first time, Caesar heard someone he could follow, someone who blamed others and declared war on Democrats, the media and immigrants," Lowy said. "It was like a non-religious jihad, and although Trump did not want the violence to happen, there are sick people who will apply his words."

Sayoc has found a tribe he could join and a mission to pursue, Lowy said. Trump was like a surrogate father, he added.

"He wanted to please his adoptive father by doing this work on his behalf," said Lowy, saying that Sayoc had acted out of devotion to the president.

Sayoc's spiral actually began much earlier, according to his cousin, Lenny Altieri. That was in 2004, when Sayoc was driving in a wrestling school in Indiana, led by the professional Harley Race grab. He blew himself up with a trunk filled with steroids.

"It ended the dream," said Altieri. Sayoc never went to school. "He could not dance because he was too old. And he lost his dry cleaning business.

Sayoc was in his forties, and his striping career was over. He was relegated to work and overseeing the Tootsie's and Pure Platinum champagne rooms, Altieri said.

Sayoc's grandparents in Hollywood welcomed him a few years before ending up in the street, showering in Hollywood and living in his van, which will later double as his bomb-making lab, the authorities said.

"His life has been full of disappointments," said Altieri. "He continued to have obstacles in his way. He went from family member to family member. I feel bad for this kid. I really do. "

Sayoc's mother was in a convalescent hospital after surgery on Friday, when she had coverage of Sayoc's arrest on television. She has not seen or talked about it for years, said Enid Weisman, mayor of Aventura and friend of Giardiello, an ardent democrat who campaigned for local candidates. Giardiello is a retired beauty salon owner whose husband has served a prison sentence under the charge of RICO charges.

"This is devastating for her," said Weisman. "It's a good family who cares about the community. She is warm, friendly, impeccably neat and adorable, the first person to help anyone. "

Sayoc said that his mother's Aventura condo was his home address. His sisters and stepfather pleaded for years to obtain mental health treatment, but he refused with indignation and stopped communicating with them.

Madeline Giardiello would hardly recognize her son today, with her towering stature, her tree-sized arms and her sparse hair greased in a noodle-shaped ponytail.

In high school, football was his pbadion. In 1983, he played at the University of North Carolina, in Charlotte, where he was known for his suffering and his breath so strong that his coach shouted to him: "Sayoc, derail this train! UNC-C Sports Information Manager Mark Colone told Charlotte Observer. Colone also remembered an embarrbading moment when a referee ordered Sayoc to remove his heavy gold chain and Sayoc slammed it on the scorecard, triggering the horn.

Sayoc became a gym fan and wanted a career as a professional wrestler or mixed martial arts fighter. He posted pictures of himself in bodybuilding poses, oiled skin to a brilliant shine. Local gym owners and trainers say that Sayoc was only an aspirant.

Sayoc baderted in contradictory and contradictory answers to questions from an attorney regarding his origins during a 2014 testimony that his athletic talents had brought him to AC Milan during a party. of the season and the Arizona Rattlers of the Arena Football League, where he had been central linebacker in 1988..

Sayoc, who also claimed that his grandfather Balthazar had toppled the Communist Party in the Philippines before becoming a plastic surgeon in New York City, said that he had returned to High Point University to finish his studies and become a "horse doctor". recording of his presence.

Sayoc has had several trouble with the law since 1992, mainly charges of non-violent robbery.

He entered striptease clubs in the early 1980s and declared that he was performing all over the country and in local establishments as a muscular stripper, that he was wearing outfits tight white, long black curls and lacquer bronzes. He remained in the business as a choreographer, promoter, booking agent, manager, DJ and bouncer.

He added that he had shot with Chippendales and Chippendolls, "the No.1 name of entertainment," according to Sayoc. He also directed his own show, called All-American Male. He has held various jobs at local sites such as Solid Gold, The Doll House, Porky's and Stir Crazy. He said he helped Mr. Tootsie earn $ 13 million by increasing the number of home dance tricks.

Cheetah, in Hallandale Beach, refused to hire him because he had described the director as "weird".

"We have a bad feeling for him," said Joe Rodriguez, owner of Cheetah. "Thank God we did not hire him."

At the Ultra Gentlemen's Club in West Palm Beach, where he was working on a Thursday before his arrest, business was going as usual on Friday night. Women pole dancers worked for tips inside the dimly lit bar. Sayoc was "only one of the guys," said a dancer.

Another recalled that he would have taken her to her car until dawn to make sure she was safe.

Alex Harris, Charles Rabin, Carol Marbin Miller, Daniel Chang, Colleen Wright and Julie K. Brown, staff editors of the Miami Herald, contributed to this report.