A phone call between former Port Richey mayor Dale Massad and Terrence Rowe, at one time the acting mayor of the city, was just released by the office of Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody.
The call was obtained by 8 On Your Side investigator Mahsa Saeidi Thursday morning.
Rowe was the acting mayor of the city until he was arrested and removed from that position.
“You’re famous Florida man!” Rowe joked to Massad, who made the phone call from the Pasco County Jail in early March.
“You know what my charges are, right!” Massad exclaims. “Five counts of premeditated attempted homicide.”
He’s accused of shooting at Pasco County Sheriff’s Office deputies when they went to arrest him in February for practicing medicine without a license. Massad shot twice, according to investigators and his attorneys. No one was hurt.
“We get persecuted for trying to help people,” Massad said.
Massad goes on to ask Rowe about the publicity surrounding his arrest.
“How bad are they whacking me?” he asked. The other Florida man replied, “Oh my God, Doc.”
Massad explains what went on during the early morning hours of his arrest.
“Why would they have helicopters and all that stuff?” he wondered out loud on the call.
“You have just witnessed a political assassination, a bloodless coup,” Massad said. “Be careful, Terry.”
The former mayor said he had a stroke while in jail and said, “it sucks in here.”
Both men then discuss a Port Richey Police Department officer at the center of Massad’s arrest.
“Somebody’s gotta answer for, ah you know, this doesn’t go down without somebody answering for it,” the other Florida man said.
“Just be careful because they will throw you under the motherf****** bus,” Massad said.
Court documents obtained Thursday by 8 On Your Side show that Massad did drugs. Paperwork explains that Massad and others “liked crystal methamphetamine” which they referred to as “jet fuel.”
In one report, a Florida man told investigators that he would buy Massad crack cocaine “five nights a week.”
