2 KB Condo Owners Threatened Over YouTube Video

Key Colony board member Christian Hosford, right, and association President Matt Bramson, left, during a gathering of unit owners, Jan. 7, 2019 (Maria Bueno via YouTube)

Two Key Biscayne apartment owners are being threatened with possible legal action if a video made at a Key Colony Condominium meeting earlier this year isn’t taken down from YouTube. Letters sent by the EmeraldBay Condominium Association state the video contains allegedly “defamatory” statements, but did not provide specific details.

The March 26 letters to Key Colony owners Matt  Bramson and Maria Bueno concern a Jan. 7 meeting at the complex. Bueno made and published the videotape; Bramson had called the meeting as then-president of the Key Colony master association about a pending election dispute. Both were among four candidates vying for election to the association’s board of directors.

“The EmeraldBay Association demands your removal of the aforementioned videos from YouTube,” says the March 26 letter to Bueno. “Should you not comply with the foregoing request, the Association may pursue all available legal action to protect its rights” wrote Jorge Cavalier, the president of the EmeraldBay Condominium.

“I was sent a personally threatening, intimidating, harassing letter,” Bueno said.

Bramson defended Bueno, saying she had a legal right to take the video.  He rebuffed the demand and suggested EmeraldBay residents wouldn’t approve of the takedown demand.

“The resources of the owners of EmeraldBay should be used more appropriately in my opinion than having you or their fiduciary representatives engaged in this sort of activity,” Bramson wrote.

Cavalier said some comments made in the video tape “spoke ill” of two EmeraldBay members, Antonio Camejo and Luisa Conway. Both Camejo and Conway are also officers of the Key Biscayne Condominium Presidents’ Council, which often takes public stances on Village issues.

When asked to identify the specific comments that were “defamatory,” Cavalier said he could not immediately recall them. Camejo could not provide an example of specific defamatory statements by either Bramson or Bueno. He said the publication on YouTube was “totally negative for the community” and that Bueno should remove it. He also took issue with comments made by the association’s attorney. Conway did not return messages for comment.

The two videos run about 37 minutes in total and feature a number of residents talking about the dispute, which centers on the submission of candidate statements for circulation to voters, even though they were submitted after the due date. Ultimately, the association’s board decided to not circulate the candidate statements, Bramson said.

In an ironic twist, ballots in the election were not even tallied because of failure to meet a turnout threshold.  As a result, Bramson and the other incumbent representative from the Botanica Condominium retained their positions on Key Colony’s board, Bramson said.

Bueno said she stands by her posting of the videos. “They are trying to have public information taken down. I believe in free speech. I believe in the First Amendment.”

The videos are located at https://youtu.be/f67P5L4B2XY and https://youtu.be/efgO41PJtXE

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Tony Winton was at the Jan. 7 meeting as a unit owner. He had no role in making or publishing the videos.]