In Cahoots

A fatal stabbing at a Miami school board meeting opens up the secretive and corrupt world of the state's second largest bureaucracy. It propels Investigative TV Reporter Jezebel Underwood into the spotlight, as her series of school board malfeasance stories turn murdereous.

Set in scenic Miami with pastel houses, palm trees dripping against an azure sky that floats above a turquoise ocean, Underwood has a silent partner. He is a school principal who knows where all the bodies are buried and tells her. It is her challenge to get the exclusive reports, break the news and unshackle the school children and teachers of her city from the greed of the adults who claim to have their best interest at heart.

Author: Jilda Unruh, Bob Horton
Publisher: Jilda Unruh
Published: 05/10/2019
Pages: 478
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.97lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 1.19d
ISBN: 9780986419706

About the Author
Unruh, Jilda: - Four-time Emmy Award winning Investigative Journalist Jilda Unruh made a name for herself in big cities like Miami, Boston, and Minneapolis uncovering jaw-dropping cases of Public Corruption. A respected story teller throughout her 35-years in Television News, her work uncovering graft, malfeasance and cronyism in the Miami-Dade County Public School System for more than half a decade led to threats against her life and some of the highest ratings in local TV news. Jilda's investigations led to the firing of one Superintendent and the forced resignations of a team of top administrators. She broke stories that led to a Federal prison sentence for the President of the nation's fourth largest teacher's union. Jilda's reporting on the school board and administration pushed former Florida Governor Jeb Bush to appoint an oversight committee to review the district's finances involving land acquisition, construction and maintenance. For the 6 years Jilda covered the corruption at Miami's School Board, she endured threats against her life, including one made by the Union boss who claimed to have ties to the mob. Being followed, receiving hate mail and nasty phone calls was all part of the job. Her reporting of the facts so irritated the local teacher's union, they hired two powerhouse law firms in Miami and Washington D.C. and filed an FCC challenge against her station's TV license. The last person who did that was President Richard Nixon and he failed. Unruh knew more about what was going on behind the scenes in the largest school district in Florida than she was ever able to report. "In Cahoots" is based on information she was forbidden by station management to report or could not second source. Her doggedness was on full display in Miami between 1999 and 2005 as she shed public light on the private secrets in the school district. Her collection of inside sources was vast and trustworthy. However, the fear that permeated the rank and file who worked in the district and saw all the wrong that was happening prevented most from ever appearing on camera. Only one person ever went on camera to stand up against alleged corruption at her school. She received death threats days after her interview aired, and left her job for her own safety. Jilda's "tough-as-nails" investigative reporter instincts date back to the start of her career in Oklahoma. After graduating from Vanderbilt University with a double major in American History and Drama, Jilda began her career at the CBS station in her hometown of Tulsa. After moving to ABC station in Tulsa, Unruh was the first TV reporter to uncover and report on the secrets about the Race Riot of 1921 in Tulsa. Until the 1960's, it was the worst race riot in the nation's history. It was the first time her life would be threatened because of her investigative reporting. The Ku Klux Klan also threatened to bomb the TV station. Later, she would earn her nickname the "Pitbull in Pumps", as host of The Jilda Unruh Show, due to her relentless questioning of guests in Tulsa's first, live, studio talk show. In 1994, she left Miami for the NBC station in Boston where she earned several Edward R. Murrow awards and won two more Emmys. After three years she went to the CBS O&O station in Minneapolis as Chief Investigative Reporter. There she won a National Gracie for Best Large Market Investigative Series about the nation's largest airlines and how they failed to properly care for "unaccompanied minors" or children flying alone. Her report prompted a Congressional investigation and a major overhaul of Northwest Airlines unaccompanied minor program, which they unveiled one year later. After returning to WPLG in 1999, she unleashed her unrelenting passion for justice on a school district that was largely ignored by most media outlets. Unruh exposed the dark side of the Miami-Dade School Board, which is at the heart of the book In Cahoots, due to launch September 21st.Horton, Bob: - Bob Horton is a career educator with the Miami-Dade Public School District. He retired after 39-years. Horton first met Jilda Unruh, when, as part of her on-going investigations into school district corruption, she walked into his office with cameras rolling to confront, the then Principal of Miami Beach Adult Education Center, about illegal aliens receiving taxpayer-funded adult education classes. Horton was able to prove that he was in full compliance with board rules and state statues. But it was that encounter that started a long-lasting friendship. The mutual trust and respect for one another took on even greater meaning, when the two decided to collaborate on "In Cahoots" years later. Bob Horton graduated from St. Bonaventure University and started his teaching career in Miami when the beginning salary was $5,300. He taught English, Social Studies and Civics in an all-white, segregated, upper-class neighborhood. In 1969, the school district was under federal orders to desegregate the schools, and Horton was looking for a change. So he volunteered to transfer to one of the desegregated high schools to teach. After years of being in the classroom, Horton began his journey into the world of school district administration. He worked in a Region office handling the Federal Title I program. He then went to work at district headquarters in the office of dropout prevention and was the right-hand man to one of the district's Superintendents. This is when he began to experience, and witness first-hand, the inner politics of one of the country's largest school systems. It's during this time that he became intimately familiar with the "smoke and mirrors" culture that permeated the politics, people and policies of a school system infected with secrets and paranoia. "Jilda's doing her job and if you were doing yours, you wouldn't have to worry," Horton once told his fellow educators, who were hunkering down in fear of ending up on Unruh's radar. Bob ended his long career as Principal of Miami Beach Adult Education Center. Both he and Unruh have written "In Cahoots," a work of fiction, based on each of their experiences and knowledge of the people and places where Horton worked and that Unruh exposed.

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