Stripper, bodybuilder, bigot: The life of bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc
Cesar Sayoc is so at ease with his bigotry and his extreme political views that even those who were put off by him were surprised to learn he could be accused of resorting to violence.
He was a DJ at a strip club in West Palm Beach, an
exotic dancer and steroid-using bodybuilder with a long criminal history, a Donald Trump fan who plastered his politics on the van that doubled as his home for at least a year, possibly three or four.
“There is no doubt in my mind that he is mentally disturbed,” Ronald Lowy, a Miami lawyer who has represented 56-year-old Sayoc in
a handful of criminal cases told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “He has a limited IQ, problems with basic comprehension, a history of drug abuse and steroid abuse — he acts like he’s 14 instead of his age.”
Family members tried to get help for him, Lowy said, but he rebuffed their efforts, yelling “I hate you” to his mother one of the last times he spoke to her in person.
That, Lowy said, was about three or four years ago.
As news spread of Sayoc’s arrest Friday, interviews with people who know him revealed him as someone able to express contempt for blacks, Hispanics, Jews and gays even while working at jobs that put him in touch with the public. And he did it without drawing a complaint.
“Did he spew hateful things? Yes,” said Debra Gureghian, Sayoc’s manager last year at New River Pizza in Fort Lauderdale. “Was he a reliable, dependable driver? Yes. I wasn’t about to fire him because of his political views.”
Gureghian said Sayoc was almost apologetic in expressing his views to her because she is a lesbian. “I like you as a manager, but if I could, I would eradicate you,” he told her.
Still, Gureghian kept him on the job. “There were no customer complaints and he wasn’t taking money from us. People are entitled to their private political views — he did his job.”
Sayoc quit in January after eight months, Gureghian said. He told her he had a job lined up as a trucker in North Carolina.
On his LinkedIn social media profile, sayoc said he attended Brevard College in North Carolina in the early 1980s. He also expressed pride that his grandfather, Baltazar Zook sayoc, was a surgeon from the Philippines who “perfect[ed] the conversion oriental eye to Americanize.”
While Sayoc’s social media postings indicate he is a member of the Seminole Tribe, that could not be confirmed Friday. “We can find no evidence that Cesar Altieri, Caesar Altieri, Caesar Altieri Sayoc, Ceasar Altieri Randazzo (Facebook) or Julus Cesar Milan (Twitter) is or was a member or employee of the Seminole Tribe of Florida,” said tribe spokesman Gary Bitner.
Lowy said in an interview on CNN that Sayoc’s mother’s heritage is Italian and his father was from the Philippines.
sayoc’s mother was having surgery Friday and woke to learn the accusations against her son, Lowy said on CNN.
Hayley Sloman, a Miami psychologist who attended school with Sayoc in North Miami Beach, said her former classmates were sharing yearbook photos of him on social media Friday when they realized he had been arrested on suspicion of sending out the potentially explosive devices.
Sloman said she remembered Sayoc but did not know him well. She remembered that he was on the soccer team. Sayoc graduated from North Miami Beach High School in 1980 and previously attended Sabal Palm Elementary and John F. Kennedy Junior High, all in North Miami Beach, she said.
It’s hard to tell when Sayoc’s politics turned extreme. He registered to vote as a Republican in Aventura in 2016.
But Daniel Aaronson, a Fort Lauderdale attorney who represented Sayoc in a 2014 misdemeanor case in which he was accused
of stealing “various copper piping items” in Hollywood, said the man he knew then was apolitical.
“He was the most respectful client that I think I’ve ever had. I didn’t think he had a political bone in his body,” Aaronson said. “I am floored. … There are 330 million people in the U.S., I would have put him in the bottom two to three million of people I would suspect of doing this.”
His van and his social media accounts tell a different story.
A Twitter account believed to be his promotes the false claim
that survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting were actors, and wishes for the deaths of George Clooney and Andrea Mitchell.
The van impounded at the site of Sayoc’s arrest in Plantation was littered with pro-Trump stickers and pictures of prominent Democrats such as Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton with crosshairs over their faces.
His Facebook page, though now switched to private, previously showed him attending President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
sayoc’s criminal history is lengthy, but only hints that he is capable of the kind of criminal act that would make national headlines.
According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Sayoc’s first arrest came in 1991, when he was arrested by the Broward Sheriff’s Office and charged with grand theft, a thirddegree felony.
In 1994, his grandmother, Viola Altieri, filed a domestic violence allegation against Sayoc, whose middle name is listed as Altieri in the Broward County courts system.
Altieri, who died in 2006, lived in Hollywood, Aventura and North Miami Beach, according to public records. Details of the allegations were not available Friday. Altieri would have been about 80 at the time of the complaint.
Sayoc’s later arrests included several other theft-related charges, but also a 2002 charge for making a bomb threat.
According to an arrest report from the Miami Police Department, Sayoc called a representative from Florida Power and Light and “threatened to blow up FPL and that ‘it would be worse than September 11.’”
His most recent arrest, according to FDLE, came in August 2015, when he was charged for a probation violation.
As recently as Thursday, Sayoc was working at Ultra Gentleman’s Club in West Palm Beach as a DJ and a doorman, according to WPTV.
He parked far from the club, the club’s manager told the news station. Co-workers were unaware of the political stickers on his van.