Miami lawyer: I changed my identity after Michael Cohen intervened in Falwell dispute
The flood of on-the-record confirmations in the Jerry Falwell Jr. “pool boy” saga has now connected two of the more obscure pieces of string in the scandal.
Former presidential fixer Michael Cohen this week confirmed he had helped the evangelical leader with compromising photos allegedly held by a young Miami lawyer at odds with Falwell and his wife, Becki. On Thursday, that lawyer confirmed he changed his name in 2016 after Cohen waded into the legal dispute.
Cohen has always been a famous player in the saga over the Falwells’ puzzling relationship with Giancarlo Granda, a 20-something former pool attendant at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach who went into business with the Virginia couple after they met him on vacation in 2012.
Cohen is a former lawyer for President Donald Trump who turned on the former real estate mogul after going to jail on charges of lying to Congress. Last year, he was surreptitiously recorded recounting legal work for the Falwells trying to retrieve “personal” photographs” related to the “pool boy” situation.
At the time, it wasn’t clear which of two young men from Miami with ties to the Falwells may have had the photos. One possibility was Granda. The other was Gordon Bello, a former Granda friend who claims he was the one who pitched the Falwells on a plan to buy a South Beach hostel as a way to jump into the Miami hospitality industry.
On Wednesday, Cohen told CNN that he was pursuing photos held by Bello — at the time, a University of Miami law student named Jesus Fernandez Jr. Bello, a former high school friend of Granda’s, changed his name in 2016 in the midst of a lawsuit against the Falwells. While he said the new name stemmed from the dispute, on Thursday Bello said he opted to switch identities after Cohen got involved over the photos.
Bello, 29 and until recently a legislative aide at the Miami-Dade County Commission, declined an interview request. But asked by electronic message if “any interaction with Mr. Cohen was part of the motivation with changing your name,” Bello responded: “Yes.” Less than a year after changing his name, Bello passed the Florida Bar exam and became a lawyer.
Cohen’s pursuit of racy Falwell photos in Miami in 2015 attracted extra attention because Falwell, then the president of Liberty University, endorsed Trump in early 2016. That gave Trump, a man on his third marriage with a sex life that made New York headlines, the support of one of the country’s top evangelical leaders.
While Cohen told CNN he intervened for the Falwells on “personal” photos the couple didn’t want published, he said the mission wasn’t tied to him securing the Falwell endorsement for Trump. “There is absolutely no connection between the photos and my personal request to the Falwells to assist the Trump campaign,” Cohen said.
Granda has not responded to requests for comment on Cohen or Bello. This week, he told Politico that Bello and his father, a Miami builder who was briefly a plaintiff in the suit, had obtained compromising photos of the Falwells.
Granda quoted Becki Falwell saying of Cohen: “Michael is well-connected in Miami. He will get this buried and will make those photos go away.” Jerry Falwell this week told The Washington Post that Cohen helped him pursue photos someone had stolen from his phone. He said the photos were of the couple and “weren’t fully nude.”
Bello sued the Falwells in 2015, demanding that he be paid a fair share of the proceeds from the Miami hostel the family purchased for $4.7 million in 2013. The Falwells made Granda a partner in the venture running the two-story property on the 800 block of Alton Road. Falwell settled the case for an undisclosed amount in 2019.
The suit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court helped frame the Falwell drama. Its filings referred to Granda as a “pool boy” in questioning why the Falwells would go into business with the young man, who recently graduated with a degree in real estate from Georgetown University. In papers, Bello also said he had a “personal relationship” with Becki Falwell.
Until recently, that phrase was the closest anyone in the saga had come to hinting at an intimate interaction with the Falwells. That changed dramatically on Sunday, when Jerry Falwell Jr. released a statement saying his wife had an affair with Granda. He accused Granda of trying to blackmail the couple over the relationship, saying he demanded money.
The next day, Granda confirmed a longtime sexual relationship with Becki Falwell and said her husband would watch their encounters. The following day, Falwell resigned his position as president of Liberty University, the evangelical school his father had founded in Lynchburg, Virginia.
While Granda, Falwell and now Cohen have gone public with their roles in the saga, Bello remained quiet. He declined to comment this week beyond a statement that read: “Giancarlo is not telling the full truth. I hope he finds the courage to do so.”
