Days before trial, Roger Stone was raising cash for defense — with a Hialeah GOP club

A few days before Roger Stone was set to go on trial in Washington, D.C. on charges related to Russian interference in the 2016 election, the longtime confidant of President Donald Trump was about as far from the inside-the-beltway crowd as he could get.

He was at a Hialeah Republican club reception, raising money for his defense by posing for photos at $75 a pop at an event organized by one of a leaders of the far-right group the Proud Boys and held by the Miami-area GOP group whose main activity is standing on a street corner on Saturdays waving pro-Trump signs.

In Facebook photos posted by local candidates who belong to the club, Stone — a self-described dirty trickster in Richard Nixon’s campaign and a leader in the “Brooks Brothers revolt” during Miami’s presidential vote recount count in 2000 — is displaying his toothy grin and flashing his usual victory signs on the dance floor of a reception hall.

Julio Martinez, president of the 600-member club and a former Hialeah mayor, said he believes in anyone Trump supports, including Stone. “I am 100 percent sure that people have done worse things than he has done,” he said.

Martinez said he was introduced to Stone through his friend Enrique Tarrio, the South Florida-based chairman for the far-right Proud Boys group who has filed to run for Congress against Democratic U.S. Rep. Donna Shalala. Tarrio is also known for planning a Portland rally in August for the Proud Boys that brought out extremists from the far right and far left.

Martinez said that he wanted to help Tarrio, who proposed having the Nov. 2 free reception as a send-off before Stone started his trial. About 100 people attended the event, where they also sold T-shirts designed by Tarrio that said, “Roger Stone did nothing wrong.”

Tarrio said Stone paid for the reception hall for the free rally. The club advertised on Facebook that donations from paid photos from the “Stand with Stone and Trump” event would go to the Roger Stone Legal Defense Fund.

“A lot of people got to see a side of Roger they hardly get to see,” Tarrio said.

Stone, who is a week into his trial on charges that were brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, couldn’t be reached for comment through his lawyers.

He’s facing charges that he obstructed a congressional inquiry and gave false testimony during the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Stone has been under a gag order since late February after U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson interpreted his comments and a photo on Instagram with the judge’s face next to rifle cross-hairs as a personal threat.

He was arrested in a highly publicized FBI raid at his Fort Lauderdale home in January.

Stone and Hialeah might seem like an unlikely combination but the staunchly red city in mostly blue Miami-Dade County is predominantly Cuban-American and predominantly conservative. Its residents’ experiences were shaped by living under a socialist government in Cuba. Many who live there are working-class people who want the small government system they say the Republican party promises them. Plus, Trump is tough on limiting the cash flow to Cuba that increased when former President Barack Obama opened relations with the island nation.

Stone was first introduced to the Hialeah Republicans’ club as early as February, a month after he had been arrested, when he spoke at a reception attended by about 500 people. Club members were celebrating the resurgence of the club.

Tarrio was the driving force behind the Stone fundraiser. He said he met Stone a few years ago at an event he held and they became good friends. About a month ago, Tarrio said that he and Stone were having lunch when Tarrio asked if Stone was going to hold some sort of event before he went to Washington.

“Let’s just do a free event, dude,” Tarrio said he told Stone. “Let’s get your supporters out.”

A week after the fundraiser — Tarrio said the group sold about 30 T-shirts and charged for about five photos — the club members were back on the street corner, between West 68th Street and West 67th Place, just off Miami’s Palmetto Expressway, waving their usual signs.

At a grassy spot that is kept mowed by an elderly club member, more than a dozen club members waved flags with Trump’s face against a backdrop of stars and stripes. Women waved pink “Women for Trump” signs. A parked truck with a digital advertising sign in the back displayed a slideshow of messages in support of Trump in English and Spanish.

Stone visited the group’s weekly demonstration in September, stopping by for a 30-minute meet-and-greet with some of the flag-wavers. He took photos with candidates for the Hialeah City Council wearing his signature black-rimmed sunglasses.

On Saturday, though, it was only the club members. But they were getting plenty of attention, as drivers beeped and club members shouted back. One driver in a battered blue-green van yelled, “Oye, que viva Trump,” or “Long live Trump” in Spanish.

And that was enough support for Martinez, who chaired Trump’s 2016 campaign in Miami-Dade County, to keep going: “People don’t honk unless they like what they see.”

This story was originally published November 12, 2019 at 9:14 AM with the headline "Days before trial, Roger Stone was raising cash for defense — with a Hialeah GOP club."