Trump-Tied Evangelist Funded Fontainebleau Pool Attendant's Miami Beach Real-Estate Deal

[Zorro]

Jerry Falwell Jr., the evangelist son of world-famous Southern Baptist minister Jerry Falwell Sr., runs a hardcore-Christian university and often acts as the public face for the American evangelical movement. That's why it seemed so hypocritical when he endorsed Donald Trump — a sexually rapacious avatar of American greed, racism, and unearned privilege who very clearly does not care about the Bible that Falwell Jr. claims to love so much.

But it's also pretty darn curious that Falwell Jr. recently admitted in court that he paid $1.8 million to a pool attendant at Miami Beach's Fontainebleau resort who had befriended the Falwell family. It was part of an exceedingly odd business deal in which the group tried to buy the Miami Hostel at 810 Alton Rd. in South Beach. The building is attached to the popular Italian restaurant Macchialina and also houses the 120-bed hostel, where a bed costs just $20 per night.

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The case raises more questions than answers: Falwell Jr. and his wife appear to have simply "befriended" a then-21-year-old pool attendant while the husband and wife were staying at the ritzy Fontainebleau. They then welcomed the pool attendant into their lives, began flying him around on a private jet, and even put up millions of dollars to help his business ventures. Falwell and his wife have appeared in Facebook photos eating at Macchialina with the pool attendant — a Florida International University graduate named Giancarlo Granda, who now lives in Washington, D.C., and attends Georgetown University.

BuzzFeed News has previously reported that the real-estate transaction also had some odd potential ties to Michael Cohen, Trump's former "fixer" who was recently sentenced to three years in prison for illegally paying two porn stars to keep quiet about having sex with Trump.

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/jerry-falwell-jr-funded-miami-pool-attendants-alton-road-real-estate-deal-10960428

Very curious arrangement.

[Squinch]

1. There's your live boy.

I fully expect that we'll find the dead girl in Individual 1's closet.

[CurtEastPoint]

8. Mr. Pool Boy....kinda hot.

[Volaris]

20. Yep lol!

[Achilleaze]

2. It's OK. They are republicans.

They are special.

[Goodheart]

3. The word "cuckold" popped into my head

Wife lusts for pool boy. Husband is titillated by it all. Word can never get out because this would be even worse for business than the Jimmy Swaggart situation. Pay off.

[tanyev]

4. Or a threesome?

[UpInArms]

6. Ewww ... that hit my gag reflex

[Goodheart]

9. Seriously, after reading that they had only met this pool boy recently while on vacation

my bet would be on some sort of sexual relationship.

[UpInArms]

10. I agree

It just still makes me sick ...

In general, all things Falwell make me sick

[safeinOhio]

17. My second guess would be

blackmail..he has a pee tape or something like that.

[cactusfractal]

13. Twice ;-) n/t

[Volaris]

21. I'll take bets that it hit Jerry's, as well.

OnEdit: and now there's an ad for Fountaineblue Resort Miami Beach at the top of this page heh...

Not sure how I feel about that, actually...

[demtenjeep]

18. or Jr. lusts for the boy and wife says go ahead as long as you leave me alone

with your credit cards.

[Girard442]

5. The Evangelicals have been full-on tribal for a long time.

At this point Falwell could be seen tossing children into a wood chipper Fargo-style and they’d be scrambling to find Bible verses to justify it.

[CurtEastPoint]

7. "Spare the rod and chip the child..."

[Baitball Blogger]

11. I think we all know what's going on here.

Would not surprise me to learn that they had cameras in the room.

[RT Atlanta]

12. agreed

this is something shady AF about this deal from the outside. Those puritanical 'Christian' leaders sometimes end up being the most sexually repressed.

[Baitball Blogger]

15. I saw the church in a very different light a few years back.

Different from the way I understood it when I lived in a third world country where good deeds and obligations were simple to understand.

It was just one sermon in a new church that woke me up. A neighbor invited me to her church, where her husband was the pastor. We had some serious problems in our Association where neighbors had committed fraud and conspiracy. We were just beginning to see how it was tied to other misbehavior in the larger community. At the service, the pastor talked about an accident where a man killed a two year old child. DUI, I believe. I thought the sermon was going to be about the pain of losing a child, and how you come back from such a tragedy. But it was all about how that pastor reached out to that man and how the man "turned" his life around by speaking about his experience to others. The pastor stated that the speeches were redeeming to the man.

I'm thinking to myself, this pastor seems to be way too interested in reaching out to someone who was responsible for destroying a family's life, than I feel comfortable with. There is just no balance in this sermon. I didn't even remember hearing the pastor state that the speeches might prevent someone else from committing the same mistake. It was all about making the sinner whole again from his perspective.

That's when my radar was activated. I had all these thoughts in my head that morning, trying to make sense to why it was that it never seemed that we could dig out from all the intrigue and deceit that was habitual in our community. It was one moving piece of a puzzle that connected with another when I heard that sermon. Because I began to realize that churches in America may have a different outlook and purpose than the churches where I grew up.

If you think about it, a church must operate as a business. There are bills to be paid. What could be more profitable to a church than to pull in people with deep pockets, who are seeking redemption? Think about the role that church would play in a community. People who have made transgressions against other community members can seek out the pastors, show them that they are remorseful and want absolution. They probably provide a huge donation to the church.

The pastor in turn, who may know the wronged individual, turns into a calculated broker. It's not like he's going to reach out to the victim and share information which is "blessed" by confidentiality. Instead, he does what churches in right-wing communities have done for the better part of two centuries. He teaches the victim to accept and forgive. He tells the victim that we can't know everything, but we need to forgive in order to free ourselves.

Which is the biggest crock of shit ever told in a community where there are two societies running parallel of each other, and one society just habitually shits on the other.

Can you ever imagine a worse misuse of authority? If my guess is right, churches just add to the dysfunctional societies we have to deal with in red communities.

[safeinOhio]

19. I think about the same thing every time I see that

Pillow Guy on tv with his cross hanging outside his shirt.

[not fooled]

14. Maybe it's not the parents

who started this "business arrangement", but the son??? This article referenced in the Miami New Times story indicates that falwell jr. gave his spawn trey the money for the purchase.

[link:https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/25/jerry-falwell-miami-hostel-liberty-university-trey-falwell-215528|]

The hostel is at 810 Alton Road in Miami Beach, on the same parcel of land housing Miami Beach Liquors and Macchialina, a better-than-average Italian restaurant. Documents with the Miami-Dade County Recorder show that on February 21, 2013, that parcel was purchased by Alton Hostel LLC for $4.65 million. At the time, the LLC—which had formed just two weeks earlier, on February 7, 2013—listed Trey Falwell, then 23, as the sole manager of the company. A high-ranking Liberty University source with extensive knowledge of the deal confirmed to POLITICO Magazine that Jerry Falwell gave his son money for the $4.65 million purchase. The same source maintains that the elder Falwell has no business dealings with the property—which may be true, but a May 21 Facebook post shows that Jerry Falwell and his wife, Becki, dined at Macchialina with Giancarlo Granda, Trey’s business partner in the hostel’s LLC.

[KrazyinKS]

16. I just ate breakfast-

and I am trying to keep it down.