CAT FIGHT Fair installed a security camera on the side of her house that captured video of her new neighbor, Broward Sheriff’s lieutenant Jeff Mellies, scaling a ladder to disable it. newspaper her mermaid persona was an offshoot of her pirate re-enactment group. She said she’d been fascinated with mermaids since she was a little girl in Puerto Rico — so much so that she “almost drowned” in a pool at the age of 10 after putting duct tape on her feet to emulate a tail. “I think all girls are fascinated with being a mermaid,” Mia told the Sun-Sentinel. “It’s the mysterious woman who’s unobtainable, who’s alluring to men.” She was surely a head-turner at the mermaid show. Fair says it wasn’t just Mia’s striking bleached-blond hair, full fig- ure, and expertly applied makeup that made her stand out, but also an unmistakable charisma. While Mia identified with a fiery Puerto Rican persona, Fair cultivated an aesthetic more of the California variety (a state where she lived for a year after growing up in the Mid- west). Whereas Mia was into Wicca, Fair engaged a secular spiritual side. She believes wholeheartedly in karma and tellingly chose the name “ZenDen” for her recently estab- lished Airbnb company. The two women got along fine at first. Fair says it wasn’t Security camera video screenshot (DAVID), a confidential state database accessible only by police and other public officials. The frequently abused DAVID system contains driver’s license photos, vehicle information, driver his- tory, social security number, and other restricted personal data. Federal law forbids public officials from accessing driver- license information for anything but official purposes and provides civil recourse to anyone whose information has been improperly accessed. And it wasn’t just Fair. State records reveal that Jeff Mel- lies, who has a large tattoo of his BSO badge on his right bicep, also ran DAVID checks on Marina Anderson, who owns the mermaid show, and a fellow performer named Janelle Smiley. All of those searches were conducted in 2018, while Mia Mel- lies was still swimming at the Wreck Bar. The lieutenant listed “criminal investigation” as the reason for the searches. State law enforcement records also show Mellies ran a restricted criminal background check on Smiley; Fair suspects he did the same in her case. BSO began an inter- nal investigation of Fair’s allegations, according to the agen- cy’s correspondence. On February 22, Kollin filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court on behalf of Fair and Smiley that alleges Jeff Mellies violated the law and the plaintiffs’ privacy rights when he conducted his DAVID searches. Also named as a defendant is Broward Sheriff Greg Tony, who Kollin claims has failed to properly monitor the agency’s DAVID use. New Times’ request for comment from Sheriff Tony was ex- pressly rejected by BSO. “The Broward Sheriff’s Office makes it a practice not to comment on pending litigation,” emailed sher- iff’s spokesman Cary Codd. Kollin’s complaint also alleges that Jeff Mellies brought Fair and Smiley “into public scandal with great humiliation... in the form of shame, degradation, mental suffering and... damaged reputations.” Messages left on Mia Mellies’ cellphone for comment from her and her husband were not returned. New Times also unsuccessfully sought comment from Jeff Mellies through the BSO’s media relations department. A detailed voice message left with the lieutenant’s attorney, Tamatha Alvarez, also went unreturned. To understand how the clash of mermaids became a fed- eral case, though, it helps to return to the edge of the Wreck Bar pool and a 2018 squabble between the two women that troubles the waters to this day. A POOLSIDE SQUABBLE Like most of her fellow underwater performers, Fair doesn’t take the mermaid aspect of the show very seriously. For Mia Mellies, though, being a mermaid was a lifelong dream. That’s how she characterized it when she was featured in a 2014 Sun-Sentinel story about “merfolk” — those who revere the fictional creatures and celebrate “mermaid culture.” The article came out a year before Mia began performing at the Wreck Bar, but she was already working parties and events as “Mia Mermaid.” A cosplay enthusiast with her husband, Mia told the until a year into her tenure, in July 2018, that the two came into conflict. It began in earnest when Fair left an informal group chat led by Mia. She felt the texts, filled with criticism of Anderson and other Aquaticats, had become toxic. But leaving the chat only raised the tension. Fair found herself arguing with Mia over little things — like part of a costume Fair had retrieved when it was left behind after a show. Mia, who organized the costumes for the team, texted Fair to drive it over to her house in Plantation right away. Fair refused, saying she’d return it before the next show. “You’re making a huge mistake,” Mia texted. “Are you threatening me?” Fair replied. Mia texted back “lol,” before writing, “No snowflake I’m not threatening you, I’m just stating the obvious.” On July 18, 2018, Fair tried to reconcile with Mia via a 13-minute, 45-second voice memo. “We’re getting each other hyped up about the wrong things, like about negative things,” Fair says on the recording, which she saved. “Constantly complaining, which again I’m guilty of, we’re all guilty of. ...It’s something that I don’t want to be a part of.” In rehashing the issues, Fair told Mia that Jeff, who accom- panied his wife to the shows and often videotaped her perfor- mances, had been uncharacteristically unfriendly and had filmed Fair while she introduced the show to Wreck Bar pa- trons in a way that she felt was “intimidating.” In her own voice-memo reply, Mia claimed her husband “never came from a negative place.” On the contrary: He cared about the Aquaticats and watched out for them during the show. “Jeff is extremely protective of all of you,” Mia contended. Fair says the tension only grew, leading to a poolside altercation at the edge of the pool. As they were about to start a show on August 25, >> p8 ERIFF’S OFFICE FOR INVASION OF PRIVACY. 77 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | miaminewtimes.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | MIAMI NEW TIMES NEW TIMES MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 APRIL 21-27, 2022
