The Florida Bar last week opened a disciplinary file on a Miami Beach City Commission candidate accused of defaming a local filmmaker who reported on her lasting affinity for her father, the serial killer inspiration for “Dexter” executed in 2012.
Monique Pardo Pope, one of two candidates in the Dec. 9 run-off election for the seat, has until the day after the election to respond to allegations that she defamed South Florida filmmaker Billy Corben when she claimed that he’d lost a defamation case.
This came after Corben discovered that her father was Manuel Pardo, an ex-cop turned drug dealer who murdered nine people in the 1980s and was executed for his crimes in 2012. Pardo Pope has since called her father her “hero,” signing off one Instagram post with his last words on the Florida State Prison’s execution table.
Opening a disciplinary file is the second step in a lengthy process to determine whether a Florida attorney has violated the Bar’s rules, although just 25% of yearly complaints against lawyers reach this step. This step simply means that if a complaint’s accusations are proven true, Bar rules would have been violated.
It is not an outright sign of guilt or non-compliance.
“The enclosed letter is an official inquiry by bar counsel,” reads the notice of grievance procedures emailed to Pardo Pope on Nov. 25, five days after Corben filed his Bar complaint. “If you do not respond, the matter will be forwarded to the grievance committee for disposition … . Failure to respond may also be a matter of contempt.”
The letter asks the candidate to respond to Corben’s allegations by Dec. 10 via mail or email.
What happened?
The case emerged after the Miami New Times picked up Corben’s Sep. 25 report on Instagram that Pardo Pope’s father was a pro-Nazi, anti-Black serial killer executed by the state for the deaths of South Florida drug dealers and bystanders alike. Pardo Pope was four years old when the crimes occurred.
When the Times asked her to respond to Corben’s claims, she accused the filmmaker — known for documentaries like “Cocaine Cowboys” — of making a career off of “slinging mud, which has even resulted in losing a defamation case.”
Corben, who had not lost the defamation case against his movie-making company, in turn filed a Nov. 20 Bar complaint against Pardo Pope for allegedly defaming him.
He told the Phoenix at the time that his complaint was “not about the sins of the father, but about the lies of the daughter.”
When searching the Pardos family’s Hialeah apartment at the time, Corben said, officers found a family dog named “Satan,” tattooed with a swastika, Polaroid photos of Pardo’s victims, and a slew of anti-Black and anti-Jewish memorabilia.
After his death, Pardo Pope lauded her father as a “guiding light” on social media, vowing to bring the “kind of leadership” she learned from her family to City Hall.
“Happiest of Birthdays to this little girl’s first true love — her Daddy. You would’ve been 59 years young today. Missing you each and everyday, mi papi bello….my guiding light in the sky, my eternal best friend,” she wrote in 2015, including a photo of him holding her as a baby.
She signed it off with his final words on the execution table, “Airborne forever, love your Michi girl.”
This report first appeared on the website of the Florida Phoenix, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to coverage of state government and politics from Tallahassee.