Rick Sanchez Revealed (w/sources): UPDATED

CNN’s Rick Sanchez is a racebaiting, political bigot and his hypocrisy is documented.

But Rick is not just your average poster boy for media bias. He used his position in the media as a club and inflicted real world damage with casualties.

Let’s not forget how he may have stymied Rush Limbaugh’s bid to become one of the owners of the St. Louis Rams football team in 2009.

Limbaugh’s perceived racist diatribes are too many to name but here’s a sampling: He once declared that had “Slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark,” said Limbaugh.
— Rick Sanchez, 10/12/09

After being alerted to the fact he repeated a defamatory, unverified quote on the air and the possibility of a lawsuit by Limbaugh, Sanchez offered a half-assed apology where he partially blamed his “staff”. Like any warning they may have given could have stopped Rick from backing off of a big target.

Rush later brought up an interesting point.

Rick “DUI, Leaving the Scene” Sanchez. Now on CNN every afternoon, spreading filth and lies, knowingly … like many journalists, he can’t take the kind of investigation or coverage he dishes out and the rest of his people dish out. They head to the tall grass, hide behind executives. I know ordinary people go to jail for this. But he was friends with the cops! As a TV reporter, he was friends with the cops. He got preferential treatment.
— Rush Limbaugh, 10/14/09

So-called journalists will go after a subject with vicious determination but if one were to examine their pasts, we all know they’d get bent out of shape if we had access to their driving records, domestic abuse filings, defaults, credit dings, etc.

Rick Sanchez doesn’t talk much about his past and with good reason.

Minutes after midnight on the morning of December 10, 1990, an intoxicated Jeffrey Smuzinick darted out in front of a Volvo on a residential street near Joe Robbie Stadium. The driver of the car, WSVN-TV Channel 7 anchorman Rick Sanchez, became the subject of a subsequent January 16 New Times story that described the odd circumstances of the accident. Sanchez, whom a Metro-Dade police officer said “smelled strongly of alcohol,” first stopped his car but then later left the scene. A blood test to determine Sanchez’s sobriety was not administered until an hour and fifteen minutes after the collision. Though Sanchez says he tried to aid Smuzinick at the scene of the accident and flag down motorists, eyewitnesses claim the anchorman ignored the injured man and loudly told police and bystanders that blood tests were pointless, and would hurt his public image.

Best known for his stint as a sometimes-melodramatic correspondent on Channel 7’s “Crime Check,” Sanchez continues his work on the station’s evening and late newscasts while awaiting a September 13 court date on misdemeanor drunk-driving charges. His attorney, Richard Essen, now says the anchorman returned home and had “a couple of drinks to calm his nerves” before returning to the scene.
— Miami New Times, 8/7/91

Like most news personalities, Sanchez expected and apparently received special treatment.

Sanchez will be defended by Richard Essen, whose courtroom successes in DUI cases have been featured on CBS-TV’s 60 Minutes. If convicted, Sanchez faces six months in prison and a $500 fine. He has no prior DUI arrests. Sanchez will not comment on the case, Essen said on Friday.

But in January, Sanchez was quoted in the Miami newspaper New Times as saying he had police permission to go home. The article indicated that police denied Sanchez’s story.
— South Florida Sun Sentinel, 2/16/91

What has raised questions is the police handling of the accident. Before becoming an anchor on WSVN-Ch. 7, Sanchez was a reporter responsible for the station’s “Crime Check” reports. During that segment, he would take TV viewers to crime scenes, where he not only reported on the news but also seemed to be part of the action. Smuzinick’s friends and family think police gave special treatment to Sanchez because of his “Crime Check” coverage.

Officers let Sanchez leave the scene and drive to his Pembroke Pines home, ostensibly to pick up his driver’s license. He returned 20 minutes later. A blood test was not administered until one hour and 15 minutes after the accident. Sanchez’s blood alcohol level registered .15 — legally drunk.
— South Florida Sun Sentinel, 10/6/91

The story didn’t end well for Mr. Smuzinick.

Jeffrey Smuzinick, who was left paralyzed after being struck by the car of Channel 7 anchor Rick Sanchez, died Monday in a Pennsylvania nursing home. He was 36. Smuzinick was injured Dec. 10, 1990, after he ran out into traffic following a Dolphins football game. He was struck by a 1991 Volvo driven by Sanchez. Smuzinick suffered severe head injuries and was in a coma for many months.
— Miami Herald, 11/2/95

We can go down the list of so-called journalists who’ve run afoul of common decency, let alone the law, and for some strange reason they’re able to land new high-paying gigs and keep their pasts, as best they can, out of public view.

Rick Sanchez is back on the air! His viewers are back on the edge of their seats! But Miami’s famously flamboyant anchorman isn’t broadcasting news from his famously factious hometown. Sanchez hosts a prime-time show which would seem completely at odds with his staunch anti-communist upbringing: He is now a TV star for RT America, the state-funded Russian network that media analysts and U.S. intelligence officials have derided as a propaganda tool for the Russian government.
— Miami Herald, 5/23/19

They demand transparency from politicians, law enforcement, the public; pretty much anyone they come in professional contact with.

But what Rick Sanchez and many others are best at is making sure transparency and accountability stops within arms length of them and their actions.