MIAMI — A North Miami-Dade home where a man was shot dead and three others were wounded on Easter Sunday night is owned by a religious organization whose colorful and controversial president also founded the group, “Blacks for Trump.”
Maurice Symonette — a sign-waving fixture often seen behind former president Donald Trump during televised campaign rallies and a former member of notorious Miami cult — has been inviting young people to a 5-acre property dubbed the “Boss Mansion” for more than two decades for monthly parties he told the Miami Herald are intended to promote racial harmony. Neighbors have differing views, complaining of noise and trash in the adjacent waterway.
Reached Monday, Symonette, 62, said there wasn’t supposed to be a party on Easter Sunday and that it apparently happened a few hours after he had told some stragglers to leave. He said he later left himself and wasn’t there when police said the shooting erupted after a fight between two men.
Symonette said it was the first time someone had been killed on the sprawling waterfront property west of the Golden Glades interchange, where he said he lives off-and-on with about three other people.
“I think there were shots before,” he said. “But this is not a hoochie-mamma party. We usually have it once a week or once a month. I’m just trying to stop the race war by bringing people together.”
Symonette most recently made national headlines after Trump announced he was running for president when he created the group “Blacks for Trump.” He was often seen carrying that sign that in a prominent spot during Trump’s televised rallies.
Symonette, 62, born Michael Woodside, also is a controversial figure tied to one of Miami’s most notorious scandals. He — along with his brother — is a former member of the Yahweh ben Yahweh cult, who was charged with conspiring in a pair of murders and later acquitted. The group’s founder, Hulon Mitchell Jr., was sent to prison in 1991 for decades after murder convictions, including one in which a man was decapitated in the Everglades.
Woodside said he reinvented himself after the trial, changing his name to Symonette, which belonged to his father and working as a musician and radio host. He also began calling himself “Michael The Blackman.” Symonette, who often preached anti-gay and conservative messages, began making a name for himself while bashing then-President Barack Obama.
His LinkedIn page now claims many other political connections and says he is a radio show host who has appeared on Sean Hannity's and Glenn Beck’s programs.
The page includes a picture with Florida Sen. Rick Scott. And it claims he partnered in the past with Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado’s “City of Miami Homeless Veteran’s Task Force.” Regalado said Monday he had no recollection of Symonette but the mayor’s former head of veteran affairs said Symonette did help with veterans.
In the past he’s come out in support of former U.S. senator and conservative political commentator Rick Santorum and he’s been videotaped with his arm around convicted Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio during a failed run for the Senate, when the two were at the border.
According to police and witnesses, there were a few dozen people at the home when a fight between two men broke out the South River Drive home late in the evening. Miami-Dade Police, who hadn’t arrested anyone or named any victims by Monday, said someone started firing and both men, one 22, the other 24, were shot.
The 22-year-old was hit in the chest and died at the hospital, according to police. The 24-year-old was hit in the buttocks and survived. Also, a mother and her 14-year-old son who she was picking up, were grazed by shrapnel, police said. Their injuries are non-life-threatening.
“We don’t know who shot the gun,” said Miami-Dade Police Spokesman Argemis Colome.
Facebook and Instagram, which refer to the Northwest Miami-Dade property as “Boss Mansion,” call it a performance and event venue. Miami-Dade property records, which shows Boss Group Ministries purchased the home in 2014, says it has five bedrooms, a pool, and a tennis court.
The tract is owned by tax-exempt Boss Group Ministries, according to state records, which also list Symonette is its president. His Linked In profile said he has been holding the “Free Jet Ski/Mansion Party” for more than two decades. A March Instagram post by “BossMansion305” to its almost 11,000 followers also says the owners have “Vice City” parties on the property every Sunday, with music, food trucks, artist showcases, twerking contests and personal watercraft and boat rentals. On April 10, it promoted a spring break unsigned artist showcase and pool party.
Apparently, along with the parties, have come complaints. Though police initially said they don’t know of any previous problems at the property, neighbors claim to have been voicing concerns about the noise and the mess left behind for years.
Emails received by the Herald on Monday purport to show a series of 311 calls to Miami-Dade late last year, with fed up neighbors complaining about trashed waterways, crowds of people and noise.
“We have sent emails, reported them to the police, to the county and nothing has ever been done about this. These parties on both of these houses go on every weekend. They have armed security guards every weekend intimidating the neighbors,” wrote “the neighbors of Biscayne Gardens,” who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation.
On Monday, after Symonette said he was gone from the home for about two hours when the shooting happened, he began rambling about the possibility of a conspiracy and how he had to verify that someone actually died. He also said he often sees police parked just a few blocks from his home.
“A detective was there in less than two minutes. How? Now it makes me wonder: Is this some kind of a setup? I mean I believe someone was killed, but now I have to verify it,” he said.
____
