The Price of Kindness

Think twice before helping out someone in need — especially if you’re an elderly man on your way to the market. It could cost you thousands.

By Angie Hargot

Rosco O’Neal and what the county calls a taxi. Photos by Richard M. Brooks

Rosco O’Neal, a diminutive 78-year-old man, sat in front of his little yellow house in Opa-locka on a clear Tuesday afternoon and, in his thick Georgia accent, recounted a mind-boggling tale.

After helping someone whom he thought was in need, the great-grandfather of three became the victim of a sting operation designed to catch gypsy cab drivers. He was accused of running an illegal taxi service, fined thousands of dollars, had his car impounded and found himself standing on the side of the road with two small grocery bags, in need of a ride himself.

Around noon on April 12, O’Neal climbed into his late-model maroon Dodge minivan and made his way to the Winn-Dixie at Northwest 157th Street and Seventh Avenue to pick up some groceries. On his way into the store, a woman stopped him and asked if he could give her a ride home, a few blocks away.

“I said, ‘If you’re still here when I come out, I can give you a ride,’” O’Neal recalled, while sitting on a wrought iron chair on his front porch. He wore a blue, short-sleeve collared shirt, green trousers and a black golf cap.

“Then I went in and did my shopping, and when I came out, I walked right past her — I had forgotten I even said that. Then she asked, ‘Did you forget about me?’ and I said, ‘Lord, ma’am, I sure did.’ She asked me, ‘How much?’ and I said, ‘Anything you want to give me.’”

But she insisted that he give her a price.

“She had two bags of groceries,” he said, wringing the morning paper in his hands as he thought of the experience. “I don’t know what was in them. I said, ‘$6.’”

His two bags of groceries contained all perishable meat products that he planned to cook for dinner. He had no idea that he would soon be left stranded on the side of the road.

In retrospect, he said he should have known something was wrong. But because the woman claimed to be a neighbor, he gave her a ride anyway. He dropped her off at a nearby apartment building and she gave him $6.

With gas prices approaching $4 per gallon at the gas station near his house, O’Neal accepted the money.

Turns out, something was wrong — he was being set up. Moments after dropping off the woman — who turned out to be Betty Rivera, an undercover county employee — a Miami-Dade County Police Department squad car pulled him over.

“The officer asked me for my driver’s license, registration and insurance, and I asked, ‘What did I do, officer?’ and she said I was running an illegal taxi service. I said, ‘This ain’t no taxi.’ She said, ‘You got $6 for what you did.’ I said, ‘Yes, I have it right here,’” and he showed her the $6, which he had tucked into his left shirt pocket.

Regardless, Miami-Dade County Passenger Transportation Enforcement Officer Ruben De Jesus wrote O’Neal two citations totaling $2,020 — one for permitting the operation of a vehicle without a chauffeur’s license; the other for not having an operating permit or license, both of which are required for taxis and other for-hire vehicles. His car was towed and impounded.

“I said, ‘How am I gonna get home?’” he recalled. “They said I’d have to call somebody, so I called my niece and she came and picked me up.” His grandchildren, whom he was supposed to pick up at school that afternoon, were also stranded. He had to call his daughter to pick them up.

Originally from Dublin, Georgia, O’Neal left the farming business and moved to South Florida in September 1951 in search of new economic possibilities. He initially planned to stay just six months, but gained employment with several companies that manufactured truck ties and hitches.

He retired after a work injury — a tie he was working on snapped and split the top of his head open. He was hospitalized for 26 days. He removed his cap to reveal a long scar from the bridge of his nose to the back of his head. He now lives off of his pension and, since 1990, an odd job caring for ailing snowbird Hillard Hicks’ Coral Gables property. There, he does light housework when the owner returns to Idaho — he flushes the toilets, puts the mail on the table, washes the windows and cleans the patio.  

As it turns out, his employer’s son, Mark Hicks, is a partner at the Hicks & Kneale law firm in Miami. When O’Neal called his boss and told him the story, his son’s firm decided to take the case pro bono.

“It was outrageous,” said Hicks & Kneale attorney Ellen Novoseletsky, who was assigned the case. “He received a notice that his car would be auctioned off on June 3 if he didn’t come up with the fees. The firm had to advance him the money. When Mark Hicks first heard the story, he thought, ‘Is the county spending our tax dollars on sting operations to catch little old men and not targeting the real criminals?’”

However, the department refrained from calling the measures “stings.” They are “observations,” said Sonya Perez, spokesperson for the Miami-Dade Consumer Services Department.

She said at least 98 unlicensed individuals have been cited for the offenses in the last year.

“We pick random locations,” she said, adding that the Winn Dixie was not the only target; the department has also staked out Miami International Airport, Greyhound bus stations and other locations.

However, Perez admitted there was no evidence that O’Neal had ever provided taxi services before. She also said that if your passenger gives you a couple of bucks for gas, you’re not breaking the law.

“Not at all,” she said. “People who know each other, as, say, in a carpool,” aren’t breaking any rules. “But O’Neal didn’t know the person, so it was a business transaction. If we happen to observe and witness the event, the people will be cited.”

Still, according to O’Neal’s attorney, the department didn’t just witness the events of April 12. O’Neal himself said if the woman who approached him hadn’t been so persistent, he never would have given her the ride.

“I believe it is entrapment,” Novoseletsky said. “At the probable cause hearing, the judge decided that the minimal degree of probable cause was present to take his car.”

If O’Neal wins the appeal of his tickets, the county will reimburse the $2,020 that the law firm advanced him, but he will not get back the $419 in impound and storage fees he had to pay.

O’Neal’s van did not possess a taxi meter, a point Novoseletsky argued at the April 22 probable cause hearing, although consumer services officials countered that the type of vehicle O’Neal was driving is sometimes used for flat-rate, for-hire purposes. Ultimately, the judge said that despite his ruling that the department did have probable cause to tow and impound O’Neal’s car, he suspected that, under the language of the county’s own code, O’Neal’s meter-less minivan would not legally constitute a taxicab.

And the county itself actually agrees — on its own Web site, the consumer services department defines a taxicab as a for-hire vehicle “equipped with a taxi meter, and the passenger controls the route and destination.”

“At the hearing, there were the two men and the lady who set me up,” said O’Neal, who appears even more harmless in person than on the videotape of the hearing. “The lady said [she targeted O’Neal because] I sat in the car for 20 minutes. But I didn’t say anything to her, I just shook my head. But she wasn’t telling the truth. I didn’t sit in the car but five minutes. If she hadn’t said anything to me [at the store], I never would have spoken to her.”

After the hearing, the judge warned O’Neal not to accept money for a ride ever again. After all the trouble, he chuckled at the very thought of it.

“When my neighbors need a ride, I don’t set no price,” he said. “But they know how much gas is. I don’t charge them. I would want them to do the same for me. We’re supposed to be neighbors.” 

Due to a full judicial calendar, O’Neal’s court date challenging the citation will most likely be scheduled in June.

“All the officers will be there,” O’Neal said. “I want to hear what they say, and I’m gonna tell the truth, ‘cause I didn’t do anything wrong. I know what happened was wrong. They stopped me and told me that I hauled people in a cab. But I’ve never hauled people in any cab. But they sure put it on me. They sure put that on me.”

Comments? E-mail angie@miamisunpost.com