IN MY OPINION / Mixed record of good and bad for Teele

By CARL HIAASEN

Who did I piss off in this town?

That's what former Miami Commissioner Arthur Teele asked Herald columnist Jim DeFede over the phone last Wednesday afternoon. Not long afterward, Teele walked into the lobby of this newspaper and made a show of shooting himself.

For those who cared about him, and there were many, the grief is deep and scorching. It might seem a harsh time for blunt words, and there's no joy in delivering them.

But facts are facts. Teele was a complicated person who did many good things. He also veered disgracefully astray. Even through the tears and tributes, that cold truth looms.

And although he's gone, it's not too late to answer his question: Who did he piss off?

He pissed off the law.

If the evidence is to be believed -- and there's a mountain of it -- he schemed, scammed and ripped off taxpayers. He took kickbacks. He lied. He stiffed the IRS. Worse, he betrayed the African-American community that he claimed to represent. It appears very much that he was corrupt, and that's why he got in trouble.

Politicians who realize the party is over react in different ways. Former County Commissioner Joe Gersten bolted to Australia. Former Miami City Manager Howard Gary turned snitch. Ex-city commissioners Humberto Hernandez and Miller Dawkins copped pleas, put on the ugly jumpsuits and did their time.

Teele chose to end his life loudly in a public place, angling not only for headlines but martyrdom -- a performer to the bitter end.

It's a cliché to talk about wasted talent, but in Art's case it was true. Among South Florida's elected officials he stood out as immensely intelligent, affable and persuasive. He could be a charismatic advocate and a commanding public speaker.

Unfortunately, he was also an egomaniac, wittily arrogant on his best days and pompous on his worst. He probably earned as many enemies as friends, but that's not what brought him down.

It was money. Teele's personal finances were a disaster. At last count he was $1.7 million in the red, half owed in back taxes to Uncle Sam.

Frantic, perpetual indebtedness is likely what drove Teele to concoct the alleged schemes that led to his two recent indictments, with a third on the way.

The initial blow was eight months ago. Prosecutors charged that, while running Miami's Community Redevelopment Agency, Teele steered construction contracts to friends and purposely bloated project costs, in exchange for more than $135,000 in payoffs.

Two weeks ago, a federal grand jury charged him with pocketing at least $59,000 for helping a major electrical firm use a small front company to get $20 million worth of contracts at Miami International Airport.

Additional corruption charges were in the works, a fact of which Teele was dejectedly aware. Already crushed by legal bills, he surely understood that even in Miami the odds of fooling three different juries are slim.

So Teele chose death over court. The way he did it was intended to shock and horrify, and it did. The misery inflicted on his family and friends by the gruesome spectacle must have been wrenching.

Yet Teele knew what he was doing. Killing one's self in a newspaper lobby will get you plenty of ink and air time.

Amid the reams of investigatory records made public, one incident stands out as an especially odious example of how far Teele had sunk, how cold-blooded he'd become.

Developer Michael Swerdlow, for whom Teele once worked as a consultant, told prosecutors that Teele had asked to borrow $705,000 to ship a load of rice to Haiti, where Teele promised it could be resold at 10 times the cost.

Swerdlow said he curtly declined and was offended that Teele would try to enlist him to rip off impoverished Haitians. I've known Swerdlow for years, and I believe every word of his account, which he repeated to me.

The real tragedy of Arthur Teele is that a public figure of such manifest intellect would turn out to be just another fast-buck hustler with no qualms about screwing over those he was elected to serve.

To the last, Teele thought first and foremost of himself.

Another unintended casualty of this story is DeFede, one of the brightest talents on this newspaper and also one of the few journalists in whom Teele continued to confide.

Three times on the day he died Teele phoned DeFede at home. On the second occasion DeFede taped part of the call, without telling Teele or getting his consent. That's against the law in Florida, and it cost DeFede his job.

I spoke with him that night. He said that while Teele was emotional on the phone, the commissioner never mentioned suicide.

''I'm still trying to process Art's death, so I can't begin to process being unemployed,'' DeFede said. It's worth noting that nobody would have known about the illegal tape if DeFede himself hadn't voluntarily informed his editors.

We who are his colleagues and admirers may grumble about how the situation was handled internally, but the fact remains that Jim's gone and this newspaper's readers are poorer for his absence.

He kicked over stones, raised holy hell, refused to play favorites and ticked off plenty of folks in high places -- exactly what a good Metro columnist is supposed to do.

It was no accident that Teele sought out DeFede. The column was widely read, and it had credibility.

If Teele were still alive, he'd be dismayed to know that DeFede got canned. He might ask Jim the same question he'd posed about himself:

Who'd you piss off?

One difference between the two men would be found in their answers. ''I made a mistake,'' DeFede said.

No such admission will be forthcoming from Arthur Teele.