Francois McKinnon: Welcome to the Miami PI Chronicles podcast. I am your host, Francois McKinnon from McKinnon Investigative Team.
Oscar Santamaria: And I am Oscar Santamaria of Optimum Investigations.
Francois McKinnon: We created this podcast with the goal to educate, inform, and entertain aspiring beginner and seasoned professionals in the investigative field. With over 60 years of combined experience, we offer invaluable insights and lessons learned. While we may not have all the answers, our knowledge can certainly benefit anyone interested in this dynamic profession. So sit back, listen, and enjoy these episodes. Please do not forget to like, share, and follow. Welcome to the Miami PI Chronicles podcast. This is our episode 18. Oscar, how are you? Welcome back. And tell me, how was your week this week?
Oscar Santamaria: I am doing well. I had a pretty good week. You know, one of the great things about being self employed is when you just want to take some time off, you can. And that is what I did last week. I took a few days off, and I started bike riding again. Being a surveillance investigator, you live kind of a sedentary lifestyle, and it is very important for you to be moving around and either walking, running, doing some sort of exercise. And biking is one of those really good exercises that somebody should do. So I started doing it again. I am clearly out of shape, at least you know, but you are doing something about it, which I like. So I started doing these laps around this path. That is like a five mile path. I will take the first few weeks, and I will do one, and then hopefully I will increase that to two, and then three.
Francois McKinnon: Yeah, the idea, you do not want to do too much when you start. It is been a while. And also, what you brought up, being a surveillance investigator as you are, you can spend eight to 10 hours in a car without really moving that much. So there is exercises that you do for your feet and stuff. But for you, getting back to bicycling and walking is going to be a game changer. It is been for me, I lost like 40 pounds since I started walking almost every day.
Oscar Santamaria: I wish I could walk every day, but sometimes I have things to do or travel. But yeah, absolutely. It is fantastic. Good for you. So I have been enjoying it, so we will see how long I will stick to it.
Francois McKinnon: I am sure you will stick to it, because you will see in about a week, you will feel better about yourself. Me, once I felt better about myself, I just said, wow, this is so easy. And I used to bicycle quite a bit, but I started walking with my wife, and things changed, man. I lost weight, I felt tight, then I started doing push ups and sit ups. It is a whole change, I think. Once you feel good about yourself, and you look good, or you look better, not that we look good, but it is always been positive to exercise. And it is for circulation, which I had problems with all my life, working out, walking, specifically walking or doing any kind of exercise for, like we were discussing, 7,000 steps a day doesn’t sound like it is that much. But you do that every day, five, six days a week, you are going to see that it is a big difference.
Oscar Santamaria: Something else I tried to look into during my off time was my website. It is been a while since I looked into it, had anything done to it. Last year, I was getting some SEO done, and I stopped that. I got to where I wanted to be on the desktop version, not quite where I want to be on the mobile version. And I decided, how hard can this be? So I enrolled in YouTube University, and I have been looking at some websites, some videos on how to optimize your website. Looks like you really need to do that at least once a month to maintain, and maybe even to rank a little bit higher. And to do that these days is the minimum of anywhere from 500 to 1000 dollars a month. And like I said, I am already kind of where I want to be. And so I just want to know if me tweaking the website myself may allow me to rank higher. So looking into it, and it doesn’t seem like it is really that difficult. So I am going to take a shot at it, look at some more videos, and then go in and see what I can do.
Francois McKinnon: Yeah, there is so many videos on YouTube to learn about this. It is wonderful. Yeah.
Oscar Santamaria: I mean, who knows? I might knock myself completely out of the web. I might actually start ranking higher. So I will let you know how that goes. But again, I think it is really, really important.
Francois McKinnon: I want to see how well you do, then you show me how to do it.
Oscar Santamaria: Yes, I think that is a good idea. It is a good plan for me anyways. So I think it is something that most people really need to look into. If they do not have the money to go ahead and maybe do it themselves, just learn how to do it. It is something that you can save yourself a money, put those dollars into something else in your business. And these days you can learn almost anything you want on YouTube with YouTube videos. And they go down, they explain it perfectly. And depending on what platform you use, I use something called WordPress. That seems to be the easiest. And they have things that can help you almost like AI to assist you with these things. You put in some things called plugins for certain different things like media, SEO, to back up your website, just plug in the things that you need and just try to learn a little bit every day. And who knows, maybe one day you will become an expert.
Francois McKinnon: Well, at least you are doing something about it. A lot of people keep talking about it, they do not do anything about it. So it is a good way to save money. And on top, whenever somebody searches for a private investigator for Lydell or cheating cases, surveillance or whatever, you will come up at the top two or three. I think you already come up to two now.
Oscar Santamaria: Yeah, no, I am on a three pack with the desktop version. It is the mobile version that I am not quite there close, but I think with a little bit of tweaking, I can get it there. So we see if I can figure this out. I am kind of curious.
Francois McKinnon: I am sure you can. You are a smart guy. Well, just if you have the time, you might as well use the time to move forward and ahead of here.
Oscar Santamaria: Listen, I think it is only takes a few minutes just to optimize your website. So it is something that is not brain surgery. So hopefully, thank God that I can handle. We will see.
Francois McKinnon: Okay. What else is going on?
Oscar Santamaria: Before we went on shut the air here, I got a call from a friend of mine, Scott, and he was looking for an investigator to do a case for him in the Vero Beach area. He reminded me as we were talking about this investigator that I had referred to him years ago. He was an older guy. In this business, you are going to see characters. You are going to meet all kinds of people of all different personalities. So I was working at a company as a subcontractor with this guy, and I happened to work a few two man jobs with him. He just spoke really heavy Spanish, very broken English, but he was a good investigator. So they would put me to work with them because I know some Spanish. And he became like a friend of mine. We would chat when we were on surveillance. And one day he asked me, Hey man, when you go on these early morning jobs and you see a hooker, do you like stop and pick her up? And I said, no, I do not do that. He goes, Oh yeah, I do. You know, not all the time, but I do it sometimes. And I was like, bro, you know, good to know. So didn’t think about it. A couple of weeks later, we do a job, me and him, a case. And a lady goes to a doctor’s office. We are kind of parked away. And I just want to see if she was still in the lobby. I came out. And as I came out, I was walking to his car. We were parked along the roadside of a road called East Broward Boulevard. And as I was walking by his car, I opened his door. I was going to say, yeah, she is already inside. And there was a woman in his front seat. And so I just closed it. And I was like, Oh shit. Remembering what he told me, you know, so we had the lady ended up leaving and we ended up following her and she went to work at like a little cafe. So when we were in there, I told him, dude, I am really so sorry. I didn’t know you had a hooker in your car. And he goes, that is not a hooker. That is my wife.
Francois McKinnon: I knew it. I was like, Oh my God. Jeez.
Oscar Santamaria: I felt really bad, but I am double sorry that I opened the door. We left early in the morning. He told me about what he did. I opened the door. So he took his wife on surveillance. And he forgot to tell you.
Francois McKinnon: So I, he forgot to tell me. And that is funny as well. God, that is where you were calling with that. When you said, I am sorry, I didn’t know you had a hooker. So it is my wife and Scott always like, you know, we will end a conversation every once in a while, we speak. That is not a hooker. That is my wife. Clearly it was funny. That is funny, man. That is funny. What else is going on? You are taking a Skylar, our producer, which we will not have this evening and we will be, I might heard the show. You are taking her to see Taylor Swift tonight.
Oscar Santamaria: I am taking her to the stadium in a little while. And she is on StubHub and some other app where, cause the tickets are like over, over like 15, 1600 dollars a piece plus fees. I mean over 2000 dollars. So she is, we do pay her good money. Yeah, sure. We give her a lot of, that is the biggest joke we said so far. No, that is funny. No. So, you know, she was hoping she can get them, you know, under five or 600 dollars. She obviously that the show is going to have to start before they start dropping considerably. So we will see what happens. She will be very disappointed though. If she doesn’t get in.
Francois McKinnon: Well, I hope it all works out for her. We adore her. She is wonderful. And coming up next, I have my dear friend, Jonathan Friedman, criminal attorney in Fort Lauderdale.
Francois McKinnon: Welcome back to the show. I am so glad that our friend and criminal attorney Jonathan Friedman could join us right now. He actually was kind enough on a Sunday because we always reach out to him on Sunday. He is pulling over because he had something to do and now he is in his car. It is pouring down rain and he is there. Hey Jonathan, how is it going?
Jonathan Friedman: Hey Francois, how is it going? Yeah, it is starting to rain, but you know, I want to do the show. So I am pulled over and ready to go.
Francois McKinnon: Oh, I appreciate it. We appreciate it so much. How was your week?
Jonathan Friedman: The week was good. Last week was good. I was involved in a lot of things in court. I am trying to schedule, believe it or not, I am maybe going to Bogota, Colombia to take a deposition of a witness. So that is sort of in the works right now on a federal criminal case.
Francois McKinnon: You do know that we provide protection in Colombia? Everywhere in Colombia. I do. One of our clients was pet chicola for three months.
Jonathan Friedman: I would hire you for this deposition, but I will be going down there with the U.S. attorney and some FBI agents.
Francois McKinnon: Okay, good. As long as you are covered. But you did discuss about Port au Prince going to Haiti. Yeah. I have somebody for that that lives there and that is licensed, insured, and they know how to get you from there to be safe. I will tell you what, it can be a little bumpy ride.
Jonathan Friedman: Well, like I told you earlier on, it is preparedness is everything. Absolutely.
Francois McKinnon: We are glad to hear about that. We were talking about this Pete in a case the last time you were on the show and a lot of things are happening with this. Now they are trying to get a third hearing.
Jonathan Friedman: A bond hearing? A bail or a bonds hearing? Well, you could call it a bond hearing. I think what is happening is a different judge basically was assigned the case. And this new judge has alluded to the parties that he would probably entertain a motion if one is going to be filed. So I think that is what the big news is lately on the case that they may have another shot at a bond hearing. That is usually not the way it goes because usually a judge is assigned and the judge is the judge on the case until the very end. But for some particular reason, having to do with the scheduling of the trial, the judge, I think it was Judge Carter, basically said, look, I am going to reassign this case to another judge that may be available during the time that the trial is set, which is in May 2025. Does that sound a little different from your experience?
Francois McKinnon: You know, I do not know. You would have to know the judge’s calendar and what he is got scheduled.
Jonathan Friedman: He may have some big cases that he has scheduled in May that are like special set. And maybe because this case is on a fast track right now, he doesn’t want to take a chance not being available for such a case as this and just reassigned it. That is one possible reason why. Unless, you know, he just didn’t want this type of case, you know, this big publicized, highly publicized case. But I do not think that is the case with federal judges. They are. I think they have seen it all and they have heard it all.
Francois McKinnon: Yeah. But there is got to be something there, a third bond hearing. So as a criminal attorney and a good one, how would you change things around? You are already offering a very nice bond package, 50 mil upfront cash. You are offering to get monitored at all times, not have any females in your home, because that seems to be an issue. And also, as you heard, as everybody is talking about is the fact that they insist on saying that the public is not safe if he is out because he can communicate and try to alter the case. What are your thoughts on it?
Jonathan Friedman: Well, now that there is a new judge and the judge made some sort of comment, I think, during a hearing that would open up the opportunity to file a new bond motion, because generally when cases get reassigned, generally whatever was ruled upon before that assignment is sort of what you are stuck with. So it sounds like the judge said something from what I am hearing during one of the hearings that allowed the, you know, or at least the defense team to believe they can file a motion with the court. Now, when you file a motion generally with the court, you got to have changed circumstances. You need something new. And that is what everybody is waiting for. You know, what new has happened? What are the changed circumstances?
Francois McKinnon: But what kind of a new bail bond package they could add to this? Because, I mean, I thought, seriously, I have done this for 30 years and so have you. Do not you think it is like very generous offer to say, I do not want to be in jail? And they are talking about the fact that he is wealthy and a lot of people are not, and it is not fair because of the fact that he is wealthy. But then again, apparently he is in like a, so he climbs to one of the worst jails. And I looked it up. It is not the best jail ever. But the fact is, how can he defend himself when he doesn’t even think he is going to live another day? I think that is kind of a fair question. Yeah.
Jonathan Friedman: I mean, obviously being out of jail is a much better situation to be in when you are trying to defend the case. You know, your lawyers have more access to you, this type of thing. Plus obviously the niceties of being out in your own home would assist because when you are in jail, it is as far to logistically, when you have a client in jail, bring in all the materials and the resources and things like that. So that is anybody wants to get out of jail.
Francois McKinnon: And also the mindset you are in jail, you have a case that you have to defend yourself. You have to speak to your criminal attorneys. How do you can even imagine to start doing that? I mean, you and I have interviewed countless people in jail and whenever they are there, it is like we are in a cage, they are locked up and they are sometimes they are shackled in front of you and we have to make the best of the hour that we have. And now imagine him that is used to this wealth of treatment, massages and Lamborghinis and dimensions of everything. Now he is in a small jail cell and he can’t really concentrate, I assume. I know I wouldn’t be able.
Jonathan Friedman: I think you have a book that is coming out, if I am not mistaken, I think it is Peter Gray, Many Faces. Is that what you write?
Francois McKinnon: Yeah, Peter Gray’s Many Faces. Peter’s Gray’s Many’s. Peter Gray was my back story. If anybody, if anything happened to me, I would go, what is your name? Peter Gray. And I had a whole story. So in 2001 during COVID, I decided, because my daughter had told me, my daughter Isabella told me, dad, you shouldn’t really write some of this stuff for me. You have done without being too detailed to keep my clients. Controversiality kept, but I started doing it that she was here at Christmas and then she goes, no, no. She grabbed her laptop, put it on her lap. Fireplace is going on. She starts typing. This is the story. What happened after that? And she created the outline of your story because I couldn’t tell her details. Yeah. I couldn’t get into the details. So I decided to kind of give her an outline, but she gave me a format. She printed it. I went downstairs, I got this and I ran everything again. And I decided to apply myself and put this story together. And it is a fascinating story. It is a sad story, but it is the reality. I was hired to find and locate this young lady from California that was missing. Turned out she had been kidnapped at a one of her girlfriend’s party in a very exclusive place, very wealthy place in California. So I got the call. I was in Canada. The gentleman sent his dad. I got my team. I got some guys in New York, from Montreal, from Quebec City, Montreal, and then New York. And then we picked up some more. It was a big plane. We picked up some more in Miami. We flew to LA and in LA, we ended up driving to Chihuahua, where we started looking for this girl everywhere, door to door, money, flyers, you name it. We had everything on. And it was quite an eye opener because, well, you will have to read the book. We are going to find out about this new hearing on P. Diddy, the Bond hearing. So we’d love to have you back in next week if you have the time.
Jonathan Friedman: Okay. We will try to keep you posted with what happens. And I know you are very busy with the cases, so I will try to send you some stuff that is going to be valid for the show. Awesome. All right.
Francois McKinnon: Hey, Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us again. We’d love to have you, and you are always a pleasure to have. Thanks so much. Thank you for listening to the Miami P.I. Chronicles podcast. For all of your investigative needs in Florida, please contact McKinnon Investigative Group at 954 513 7414. That is 954 513 7414. Or visit us at www.miginvestigations.com. Thanks again for listening, and please remember to share, follow, and like.
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