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Truth Test: Lincoln Diaz-Balart Ad Makes Claims About Raul Martinez

POSTED: Tuesday, September 23, 2008
UPDATED: 6:53 am EDT September 24,2008

A new 30-second political ad from the campaign of incumbent Republican Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart makes claims about his opponent that are factually correct, but not the whole story.

The spot opens with images of a mug shot of former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez taken after his 1990 indictment on bribery and extortion charges.

“Convictions from bribery and extortion,” says the announcer over images of 1991 headlines from the Miami Herald and Chicago Tribune.

The conviction headlines are authentic, but the ad does not show the headlines that followed. Martinez won an appeal. His convictions were overturned. And in 1996, a jury acquitted Martinez on one of the corruption charges and hung on the others. Martinez, under U.S. law, is innocent until proven guilty.

The spot alleges Martinez used his public office to become “a millionaire." The context, according to the Diaz-Balart campaign, is back pay and legal fees the Hialeah City Council voted to grant then-Mayor Martinez after his acquittal.

Legally, Martinez was entitled to those. Martinez recently said he also made money during his mayoral tenure from real estate to supplement his city salary.

The Diaz-Balart campaign insinuates Martinez was involved in the drug trade in the 1980s.

"Martinez is featured in the investigative documentary ‘Cocaine Cowboys’ about drug trafficking in South Florida," the announcer says.

The statement is false, according to the dictionary definition of “feature” as “main attraction." Martinez appears in exactly two seconds of the two-hour film in a clip that has nothing to do with drugs.
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