The Random Pixels guide to the Miami Media Food Chain / Part II

Raul Armenteros, aka "Ramon," aka "The Monster"

Ever wonder how your favorite TV station or newspaper reports a story and delivers it to your TV set, computer or morning paper?

Wonder no longer.

Here's the latest installment of the Random Pixels Guide to the Miami Media Food Chain.TM

Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 12:48 pm EDT: WPLG Local 10 reports that two men were arrested on...

...animal cruelty charges after a call reporting crying coming from a car led [Miami police] officers to discover several animals inside.

The officers found no child in the car, but they did find several animals, including goats, roosters, pigeons, guinea pigs and ducks.
[...]
James Arroyo Jr., 44, and Raul Armenteros, 46, who police said were responsible for the car, arrived about 45 minutes after the officers made their discovery.

(CBS4 also posts the story on the same day as Local 10.)

Friday, July 15, 2011 12:10 AM PDT: The website TMZ.com reports that one of those arrested is a notorious Miami porn star:

The well-endowed man famous for making backseat love to scores of women on "Bang Bus" is now accused of letting his van get too hot to handle ... nearly killing 21 animals that were locked inside, including 8 roosters.

46-year-old Raul Armenteros -- aka Ramon from "Bang Bus" -- has been charged with 22 counts of animal cruelty ... after police discovered a small zoo of animals locked inside his parked van earlier this week, while it baked under the Miami sun.

Friday, July 15th 2011, 5:53 PM EDT: The New York Daily News reports the story on its website and quotes WPLG and TMZ.com.

A Florida adult film star was arrested earlier this week on animal cruelty charges after cops found goats, roosters, pigeons, guinea pigs and ducks crammed into his van.

Police were called to the van in Miami after someone reported hearing a crying child in a car, according to WPLG.

Monday, July 18, 2011, 12:01 PM EDT: Miami New Times finally gets wind of the story a full week after the arrests and posts it on its website.

Bang Bus porn star "Ramon" -- famous for his giant penis -- was arrested last week for keeping a menagerie of suffering farm animals locked in a vehicle on a 90-degree day.

Last Monday afternoon, Miami Police responded to complaints of a "child crying" in a van parked in a lot at NW 37th Avenue and Seventh Street. Officers found a whole annoying Christmas song full of animals crammed into the van and deprived of water.

Wed., July 20, 2011,  8:45 PM EDT: Eight days after WPLG broke the news, CBS4's Jim DeFede has the story, but he adds important detail that no one else has bothered to report: What the two men planned to do with the animals. (DeFede told me that he knew early on about Armenteros' porn connection but had been holding off on doing the story while he tried to get an interview with Armenteros in jail.)

MIAMI (CBS4) – Raul Armenteros should be a Carl Hiaasen character.

Arrested last week on 22 counts of animal cruelty, the 46-year-old Armenteros was taken into custody after police discovered nearly two dozen animals – four goats, eight roosters, four hens, four pigeons and a duck – in a van baking in the mid day Miami sun.

As Miami police officer Andres Dominguez waited for animal control to arrive, Armenteros and another man, James Arroyo, walked up and said the animals belonged to them.

And why did the men have small petting zoo in their van?

“They said they were going to do an offering,” Dominguez told DeFede.

The men admitted to being Santeros, practitioners of Santeria, where animal sacrifices are a part of their religious beliefs.

But that still is not the strangest part of the story.

Turns out Armenteros is also Miami biggest – and we mean biggest – porn star. Known by the stage name “Ramon” and “The Monster,” Armenteros has spent most of the last decade making adult films in South Florida for the region’s bevy of internet porn sites, including the “World Famous Bang Bros.”

And today, 10 days after WPLG first aired the story, the Miami Herald finally decides to report it.

His nickname is The Monster. And if you don’t know why, then you probably haven’t seen his body of work.

Raul Armenteros is a prolific actor for adult films, many of them produced by the Miami-based Internet giant Bang Bros.com Productions, which has helped solidify South Florida as a pornographer’s paradise.

But while Armenteros, who also uses the screen name Ramon, is used to baring all in movies, most fans probably did not know that the star of Ramonator I and its sequel, Ramonator II, is also a spiritual man.

Neither did Miami police know when they responded to a call of unusual noises emanating from a van, with the engine off and the windows rolled up, parked in the middle of a lot near Northwest Seventh Street and 37th Avenue on July 11.

It was the middle of the day, and temperatures had reached 90 degrees.

Inside the van, Officer Andres Dominguez reported finding eight roosters, four guinea hens, four pigeons, four goats and one duck.

And that, boys and girls, is how a story gets into your morning paper. In the words of the Grateful Dead, "What a long strange trip it's been."