By David Oscar Markus
As long as I can remember, if there was a newsworthy federal case in Miami, Jay was there. A real institution. It's strange to think he won't be sitting in the back of the courtroom. His last article was yesterday (about a sentencing in one of my cases).
It feels a little weird for me to ask Jay for a comment instead of the other way around.
From Jay: “After 46 years of chasing stories as a reporter, it feels weird to just stop and retire. I wasn’t burned out or bored. But I turned 71 this month, and it seemed like the right time to slow down and start enjoying more of life and the world. I’m gonna miss the federal court beat — all the crazy stories about corruption, fraud and 'funny money,' as Judge Lenard once described the laundered proceeds in a Miami drug case. But I’m really gonna miss the prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges. They’re the ones who made my job so interesting and rewarding. Thanks for the countless tips and comments.”
Alex Mena from the Herald sent this email to the newsroom:
Folks:
After 27 years at the Miami Herald and more than 45 years in journalism, Jay Weaver is retiring.
Jay's career has been defined by relentless reporting, deep sourcing and an extraordinary ability to untangle complex investigations. He has been a force behind some of the Herald’s most consequential journalism.
He has written about a rogue's gallery of corrupt politicians, crooked cops, Ponzi schemers, drug traffickers and steroid-using MLB players. Among his notable works: ground-breaking stories on South Florida's Medicare rackets that highlighted the loss of billions of dollars in government benefits because of local scams by clinic owners, patient recruiters and physicians.
Jay was part of the Herald teams that won Pulitzer Prizes for Breaking News in 2001 for coverage of the Elián González saga and in 2022 for coverage of the Surfside condominium collapse. He was also a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting for the Dirty Gold investigation, which exposed an international gold-smuggling network that laundered drug money through illegal Amazon mining operations and into major U.S. companies.
Along the way, Jay earned national recognition for groundbreaking reporting on Medicare fraud, performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball, corruption in Opa-locka, the assassination of Haiti's president, and the Herald's "Shakedown City" investigation into corruption at Miami City Hall. He is also the co-author of two acclaimed books, The Grifter's Club and Dirty Gold.
More than the awards, Jay leaves behind a legacy of fearless reporting, meticulous journalism and a body of work that made South Florida, and the world, better understood.
Please join us in thanking Jay for his remarkable career and wishing him the very best in retirement.
We will celebrate Jay with a newsroom lunch on Tuesday, Sept. 1. More details will follow, but for now, please save the date and plan to join us in sending him off.
Congratulations to Jay on an incredible career. I hope he enjoys his well-deserved retirement.
21 comments:
Is it just me, or do other lawyers find themselves incredibly frustrated when they read journalism on the subject of legal cases / issues? Regardless of whether it's an issue I'm aware of (or even a case or issue I've litigated), it always seems like the reporters--no matter how long they've been doing it--haven't the slightest idea how the legal system actually works.
I get that they're not lawyers themselves, and that they have to speak in layman's terms for the general news-consuming public. But man is it frustrating to see things that don't reflect reality, skew things in a way that make outcomes seem nefariously chosen rather than compelled by statute/precedent, wholly unexplained (because the reporter doesn't understand) legal terms of art, and weird verb choices (like a court's order phrased as a "response" to the litigants filings). In a recent NPR article on ICE detention, "habeas" was misspelled--three separate times! No one caught that???
I feel like I'm always thinking: "Man, how does [insert news organization] not have someone with the most basic legal training to do a quick pass prior to publication?!"
Anyway, Weaver was no exception, despite so many years of experience. To the point one starts to assume it was just intentional. Or at least just old-school "click-bait."
Sorry but Weaver was transparently and completely pro-government in all his fed court reporting.
Wonder if Herald will get a part-time law student to replace him like they did for state court coverage.
A big loss to the community but a well earned retirement. Jay had great and diverse sources. Hopefully the replacement(s) will have the patience and leash to conduct and write some of the longer investigations as well as the temperament and ability to get well-placed sources to confide in him.
Is this blog going to ignore the Above the Law article on Altman?
It's telling how quiet the South Florida legal community is about the RKA story.
Don’t know if it’s that quiet. I’ve gotten four text messages today from different lawyers with the story. And no one is surprised. Problem is no one wants to call out the golden boy. And I’m sure he and his band of followers are busy using their contacts to quash it.
Perhaps this will be a valuable lesson. But that requires humility.
Attacking Altman for pointing out the need to protect Israelis from the promotion, ideological support, and growing acceptance of terrorism is not above the law; it’s beneath contempt.
He’s being attacked for calling keffiyehs terrorist scarves. That’s racist and dehumanizing. Not complicated.
What 10:44AM said. Mischaracterizing the allegations is another disservice to the blog and the public. Read for yourselves. https://abovethelaw.com/2026/08/federal-judge-calls-arab-head-covering-a-terror-scarf-as-part-of-persistent-anti-muslim-rhetoric/
I really hope David Lat reports on this.
Preach. His reporting was not fair and balanced.
Exactly right. Same line of thought that equates any anti-Israeli government opinion as being anti-semitic.
The jihadis chose the keffiyeh as their symbol. If you can find somebody sporting one who doesn't want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth let us know.
Do you practice law with that logic? This is quite literally a perfect expression of the most well-known logical fallacy. Yikes.
Or a recognition of reality. Haven't found one yet?
No one is looking because of course there are people who wear them who don't wish that.
There are people who wear them solely for fashion and have no opinions at all about Israel. That shatters your absolutist statement on its own.
But let me guess, what you really meant is "someone" who knows what the thing actually is? Oh, ok - - then yes, there are literally thousands of Muslims who wear them but don't wish for Israel to be wiped off the face of the earth. There are Palestinians (who wear them) that are married to Jews. And there are Palestinian activists (who wear them) and are involved with organizations seeking to stop silly religious violence and who actively support Israel's existence, although maybe not its current administration and political choices.
Histrionics are not effective. And superlative statements are virtually never true. You're a fan of both.
Oh yes that silly religious violence like October 7. They're not doing a very good job of stopping it. I'm sure you give the same benefit of the doubt to a redneck waving a confederate flag. Privileged idiot white girls donning a keffiyeh to march in the Globalize the Intifada rally aren't wearing it to keep the sun off their heads.
2:17PM is spot on. It should be obvious to any lawyer that you don’t condemn an entire population based on the acts of some. And to do so on the basis of what they wear is preposterous. This is not about individual prejudices and giving the benefit of the doubt - this is about what a sitting federal judge said publicly from the comfort of his taxpayer funded chambers. It’s not okay
3:33 and 2:17 here. I have to assume you're 2:03 and 9:59 because (a) it makes sense that you don't understand how to "reply" to a comment rather than starting a whole new chain that becomes hard to follow; and (b) you're exhibiting another logical fallacy here--the strawman one.
Whether they're doing a "good job" is irrelevant to whether everyone who wears one wishes death to Israel--the point (your point) that we are actually "debating."
Jay's wife has entered the chat.
Imagine after 46 years your retirement announcement delves into a discussion on an unrelated issue and that the few comments pertaining to your work are negative and recount your bias. Speaks volumes for the legal community's view of the "character" of the retiree.
Post a Comment