[ad_1]
WASHINGTON – Cesar Sayoc is an amateur body builder and former stripper, a loner with a long record arrest who showed little interest in politics until Donald Trump came along.
On Friday, he was identified by the Florida man who can pipe bombs in small manila envelopes, affixed six stamps and sent them to Trump's most prominent critics.
America's biggest names – Obama, Clinton, De Niro – may be responsible for them. The answer, authorities said, was Sayoc, a 56-year-old man from Aventura, Florida, who was devoted to Trump, had a history of financial problems and an extensive arrest record, including a stint on probation for making a bomb threat.
His attorney in that 2002 case, Ronald Lowy, described Sayoc as "a confused man who had trouble controlling his emotions."
A cousin of Sayoc, Lenny Altieri, used stronger terms.
"I know the guy is a lunatic," Altieri told The Associated Press. "He has been a loner."
Altieri confirmed that Sayoc had been a stripper. On an online resume, Sayoc describes himself as a booker and promoter for burlesque shows.
Stacy Saccal, the general manager of the Ultra Gentlemen's Club in West Palm Beach, said Sayoc had worked there for a couple of months. Friday morning arrest.
"I did not know this guy was crazy about this," she said Friday. "Never once did he speak politics. This is a bar. We do not talk politics or religion in a bar, you know? "
Florida vote records show Sayoc first registered in March 2016 as a Republican and cast a ballot in that November's presidential election.
He has been an active Trump supporter, tweeting and posting Facebook videos that appear to show him at the president's rallies.
Social media accounts are peppered with memes supporting Trump, and denigrating Democrats.
Sayoc lived in a white 2002 Dodge Ram van, which was plastered with supporting decoders and CNN, which was also targeted by mail bombs.
The van was often parked outside LA Fitness in Aventura, back in a parking space under the trees for shade. Bosses say they are constantly in the locker room.
"He'd just be walking straight to the shower and be in the shower forever," said Edgar Lopez, who often exercises at the gym. "I never saw him working out."
Other times before, with Sayoc stripping down to skin-tight shorts for an outdoor shower.
"I have a feeling of being a little off," said Marc Weiss, the superintendent of a building where Sayoc frequently parked. "I assumed that he was showering at the beach that he was homeless."
In 2015, he reported to the police in Oakland Park, Florida. He claimed that more than $ 40,000 worth of items were stolen, including $ 7,150 worth of Donald Trump-brand suits.
But often, Sayoc was on the other side of legal complaints.
In the 2002 bomb threat case, he had a look at a Florida utility representative because of his electricity service. The arrest report said Sayoc, "It would be worse than September 11th."
Sayoc was also convicted in 2014 for a large battery and in 2013 for battery. In 2004, he faced multiple felony charges for unlawful possession of a synthetic anabolic steroid often used to help build muscles. He also had several arrests going back to the 1990s for theft, with fraudulent refunds and tampering with evidence.
Lowy said that he also had a say in the practice of having a license to make a license.
Sayoc displayed no political leanings at the time of the bombing charge, Lowy said, except for plastering his vehicle with Native American emblems. Sayoc told his lawyer his father was Native American.
More recently, Sayoc describes itself as a member of the media and is affiliated with the Seminole Warriors and a member of the "Unconquered Seminole Tribe."
Gary Bitner, a spokesman for the Tribe of Florida Seminar, said there was no evidence that Sayoc worked for the tribe or was a tribal member.
Altieri, his cousin, said Sayoc 's only connection to Native Americans was a member of a tribe.
Sayoc was born in New York City. His mother was Filipino, and his parents were separated when he was a young boy, Altieri said. After his parents separated, Sayoc was "kind of rejected" by his family.
"When you get a young kid, you get kind of out of whack," he said.
He enrolled at Brevard College in North Carolina in 1980 and attended for three semesters, said Christie Cauble, the school's interim director of communications. He then moved to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, enrolling for the 1983-84 academic year. Buffie Stephens, director of media relations for the school, said Sayoc did not declare a major. He played a few games as a walk-on player for the university's men's soccer team. There is no indication he never completed a degree.
He moved to the Miami suburbs in the late 1980s. He had serious financial problems in recent years, including losing his home in foreclosure in 2009 and filling for chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in 2012.
In short records, Sayoc was described as having $ 4,175 in personal property and more than $ 21,000 in debts, mostly from unpaid credit cards. His monthly income at the time was $ 1,070.
"Debtor lives with mother, owns no furniture," Sayoc's lawyer indicated in a property list. Sayoc 's mother, Madeline, also filed for bankruptcy around the same time. She was not immediately available to answer messages left with her by the AP.
Sayoc's media diet appears to have a toxic mixture of conspiracy theory, parody accounts and right-wing news sites. One of Sayoc's most recent news from the Parkland High School shooting in Florida earlier this year.
He has been at least 40 times a screenshot of Parkland's mass-shooting survivor David Hogg never went to Stoneman Douglas High School, sometimes including hostile captions such as "He is a George Soros paid protest." Soros, the progressive billionaire political donor, was targeted this week by a package bomb.
Sayoc may be stumbled across a Polish conspiracy news site, tweeting out a wildly false claim that Angela Merkel had been conceived using Adolf Hitler's frozen sperm.
In June, he praised Trump in a birthday message saying, "Happy Birthday President Donald J. Trump the greatest result President ever."
___
Associated Press reporters Michael Schneider in Orlando, Florida; Terry Spencer in Plantation, Florida; Mike Balsamo in Washington; Curt Anderson in Miami; Ken Sweet in New York; Kelli Kennedy in Aventura, Florida; Ellis Rua in West Palm Beach, Florida; Tom Foreman Jr. in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Raphael Satter in London; and Jonathan Drew in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this story.
___
Follow AP investigative reporter Michael Biesecker at http://twitter.com/mbieseck
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
[ad_2]
Source link
