Pata's car(s) at Miami

Reading the NYT story on Pata, the kid from Miami who was shot and killed this month, this struck me as a bit odd... also ... the NCAA doesn't have a heart, but how long till an investigation into the CARS is opened?

After eating a catered meal, Pata left practice in his black <b>2005 Infinity QX56</b> with personalized license plates, driving down U.S. 1 to the Colony Apartments in suburban Kendall.

It was early evening. Family members later reported that Pata was seen arguing with a man in the parking lot of the gated apartment complex. After Pata turned away from the man, according to the family, he was shot several times, including in the back of the head. Brody found the body.

Pata was 22, the <b>youngest of nine children raised in North Miami by a single mother, a Haitian immigrant who reportedly worked as a hotel maid.</b> Pata graduated from Central High School, in the heart of Liberty City, an impoverished section of Miami.

At the University of Miami, he lived a lifestyle more associated with professional athletics than with the academic world. Most conspicuously, he drove that <b>2005 Infinity with customized rims and an on-board navigation system.</b> On his MySpace Web page, which was still active Wednesday afternoon, Pata referred to the Infinity as “the Big Boy truck.”

The Palm Beach Post reported that the Infinity had been a gift to Pata from his sister’s husband, Kahane Andrew Lynes, according to a family member. Yet when Lynes unsuccessfully appealed a trespassing conviction in Miami-Dade County last year, he employed a public defender. Lynes declared himself indigent upon his arrest on trespassing and battery charges in 2003, and again in 2004 as his case worked through the system, according to court records.

Pata <b>arrived at the University of Miami in 2003 driving not the Infinity but a customized “candy” blue Chevy Tahoe with 24-inch spinners and an on-board television monitor.</b> The truck was a gift, he said, from his mother and his sister. Driving either the Infinity or the Tahoe, he racked up close to $1,000 in parking tickets and traffic citations, records show.

Although several of the tickets were for speeding, Pata told The Miami Herald that he had yet another car he drove for speed. Customizing cars and selling them on eBay was a hobby, he said.

 

Things that make ya go hmmmmmmmm.

 

Wow.

Looks like Coker's getting out as the shit hurtles towards the fan.

 

Corruption in college football? When did that start?

 

i don't know. i think it's like being house poor. haven't you ever known someone who has an incredible house but actually is poor? it's the same with a car.

 

It's also possible that the way he acquired the rides had nothing to do with the University of Miami.

 

Anything is possible. His buddy could have won the lottery. Guess we'll have to see what the investigation turns up, because this kind of thing probably won't go unnoticed.

 

chances of that are slim

 

Nope.

 

well it's a fairly common phenomenon. i guess saying the person is actually 'poor' is a bit of an exaggeration but when people get obscene mortgages that they won't be able to afford and then have to pay the piper, it's called being 'house poor.'

 

His mother has one hell of a set of wheels, too, if I recall correctly.

 

Pretty sure that the initial article mentioned her coming to his apartment in a Lexus. Thought that it was a strange mention in the article -- either the author knew something or was trying to imply something.

Im sure that it is against NCAA rules, but it wouldn't be hard for him to get a loan secured against his signing bonus. He wasn't exactly living in a lavish apartment complex -- I used to live near there and it wasn't exactly anything fancy.