Suicidal Rick Sanchez Was Once Sick Of "Pansy Reporters”

In our second citation from a marvelous old Miami Herald profile of Rick Sanchez, the future CNN anchor is fuming about media coverage of his years-long personal relationship with Florida gangster Alberto San Pedro.

Details of the duo’s bromance surfaced when the underworld kingpin was arrested--bribery, murder conspiracy, cocaine trafficking, etc.--and secretly recorded conversations revealed how Sanchez was San Pedro’s wingman. For more than two years, the recordings revealed, Sanchez allowed the hoodlum to pay for lavish dinners and $2000 nightclub tabs. Sanchez traded favors with San Pedro (pictured at left) and partied at his sprawling home, which was outfitted with bulletproof windows.

The resulting press criticism of Sanchez and his ethical lapses did not please the TV personality, as he told Herald reporter Juan Carlos Coto:

“These pansy reporters who go around judging the people that they write about have no business. I felt there were a lot of reporters who hadn’t had enough life experience who wanted to know about it because they were getting a vicarious thrill from my experience.”

Sanchez also claimed the San Pedro episode frequently left him in a veil of tears and pondering suicide. He claimed to even have asked a friend where he could get a gun. But on the brink of ending it all, he was talked down during a visit to the home of a friend, to whom he supposedly said, “You know, the only answer I see out of this is to kill myself. I’ve really thought about it. I was going to do it tonight, but I came over here instead.”