7 December 29, 2022 - January 4, 2023 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com New Times | Contents | Letters | news | night+Day | CuLture | Cafe | MusiC | MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | e’ll soon bid farewell to 2022, a bitter shambles of a year during which we inched further away from civilized discourse and into a world where former presidents dine with Nazi- sympathizing rappers, tech icons call for the arrest of our nation’s top public health advisor, and star actors slap the smile off comedians onstage and are rewarded with a standing ovation. It all felt like a fever dream, the kind from which one awakens and wonders, “What hellish depths of the human subconscious belched forth this farce, and where is my negroni sbagliato?” In South Florida, we were buffeted by the one-two punch of increasingly bitter culture wars and one of the most destructive hurricanes in the state’s history. It was also a year of reckoning hereabouts, as prosecutors took aim at COVID-relief fund scammers, abusive cops, and Proud Boys alleged to have played prominent roles in the January 6 insurrection. Meantime, the high tide of the cryptocurrency craze receded, revealing the sunburned, naked asses of many an overexposed bro, along with that of Sam Bankman-Fried, who was plan- ning to move his crypto exchange FTX’s headquarters to Miami shortly before he was arrested for running what prose- cutors deemed “one of the biggest frauds in American history.” In hopes of gaining some clo- sure, we rummaged through the sludge and compiled a list of rapscallions, alleged criminals, and all-around turds in the South Florida punch bowl who stood out as keystones of local dysfunction in 2022. For your pe- rusing pleasure, we present to you, in alphabetical order, our annual Dirty Dozen. None of it was his. Batista, an accused “ladrón de contenido en YouTube” (“YouTube content thief”), was arrested in Novem- ber 2021 in Doral and ordered by a federal judge to await trial alongside his alleged coconspirator, Jose Teran, in Phoenix. According to the feds, Batista and Teran claimed rights to tens of thousands of songs on YouTube that they had nothing to do with and raked in more than $20 million while ripping off countless musicians. As part of the plea agreement, Batista admitted to falsely claiming rights to the royalties to more than 50,000 songs from an array of genres. After pleading guilty to two felony charges in federal court earlier this year, Batista was ordered to forfeit his Tesla, BMW i8, and real estate in Arizona, among other assets. Daniel Bouaziz For years, high-end art dealer Daniel Elie Bouaziz was mak- ing a fortune selling what he marketed as authentic and prized works of art by the likes of Andy Warhol, Jean-Mi- chel Basquiat, Roy Lichtenstein, and Banksy at his two gal- leries in Palm Beach. Bouaziz’s artwork sales funded the purchase of three Rolls-Royces, a 70-foot boat, and ten South Florida properties. Along come spoilsport prose- cutors who allege that Bouaziz was ripping off buyers, charging them tens of thousands of dollars for reproductions of art he bought at online auctions for as little as $100. One unsuspecting buyer allegedly spent $860,000 on inauthentic pieces. In an- other case, Bouaziz allegedly agreed to sell a fake copy of a Basquiat work for $12 million to an undercover FBI agent. Bouaziz was indicted in federal court in July on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering months after the FBI raided his establishments, Gal- erie Danieli and Danieli Fine Art. If convicted, Bouaziz faces up to 20 years in prison. Courtney Clenney Erstwhile OnlyFans model Courtney Clenney is sitting in a Miami jail cell, charged with second-degree murder for stabbing her ex-boyfriend Christian Obsumeli at their luxury Edgewater apartment in April. Clenney isn’t denying she put a kitchen knife in Obsu- meli’s chest — the question is whether it was in self-defense as the 27-year-old claims. While her de- fense attorneys say Clenney was a stalk- ing victim in a tumultuous relationship, prosecutors claim old text messages, love let- ters, and secret audio recordings show the model abused her lovesick (and now deceased) boyfriend. Ele- vator footage of another incident appears to show Clen- ney striking Obsumeli while he tries to fend off the blows. Perhaps most problematic: an audio recording in which Clenney says, “I’m actually fucking not having a good day where I actually, literally fucking want to kill you.” Sam Bankman-Fried Sam Bankman-Fried’s local legacy was born with his cryptocurrency empire’s name emblazoned on the downtown Miami Heat arena and ended with its merch stuffed in trash bags inside a storage room in Wynwood. A month after the former CEO of FTX saw his $32 billion company collapse in a matter of days as investors rapidly pulled out of the firm, Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas at the request of U.S. authorities on a slew of charges including fraud, money laundering, and violations of campaign finance laws. The sudden turn of events was a firm kick in the pants to Magic City Mayor Francis Suarez, who had hoped FTX — which he dubbed “one of the most in- novative companies on the planet” — would help actual- ize his vision of Miami as a global cryptocurrency hub. After the revelation that crypto emperor Bankman-Fried had no clothes, Miami-Dade County and the Heat swiftly pulled out of their partnership with now-bankrupt FTX. Webster Batista On social media, Webster Batista lived lavishly. Instagram photos show him dressed head-to-toe in designer gear and flashy jewelry, chillin’ next to Ferraris and Lamborghinis. He claimed to have built an online music empire worth millions. There was just one problem, according to federal prosecutors: “I’m actually fucking not having a good day where I actually, literally fucking want to kill you.”
