Becki sent him romantic songs and inspirational quotes, and Granda posted benign pictures of himself with the Falwells on social media: emerging from their private jet, celebrating at their sons’ weddings.
If anyone ever asked about their relationship, Jerry told Granda to say the Falwells were mentoring him, Granda recalled.
Then in mid-2014, Granda received a phone call from someone representing the Fernandezes. The father and son would later claim in court that they had been promised a stake in the South Beach property deal by Granda and Jerry Falwell. But, according to Granda, the call focused less on the deal than his relationship with the Falwells.
Granda said he called Jerry, who told him they needed to “normalize” the relationship by posting photos of the two families together. As they sat in the Italian restaurant across from the Falwells in 2014, Granda’s parents still didn’t know how their son had actually come to be a part owner of the lucrative property, he recalled.
“Dinner with the family,” Granda wrote on Instagram under a picture of the six of them.
With the Fernandezes threatening to sue, Granda said he met with the Falwells in May of 2015 at the pool of another South Beach hotel. Trump was going to announce his campaign for president, Jerry said. Then he offered to buy Granda out of the real estate project, Granda recalled.
In January 2016, while running for president, Donald Trump delivers the convocation at Vines Center on the campus of Liberty University.
In January 2016, while running for president, Donald Trump delivers the convocation at Vines Center on the campus of Liberty University. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Granda had recently started dating someone and wanted to cut ties — sexual and professional — with the Falwells, he said. But Jerry told him he had to wait until the legal threat was over, Granda recalled.
A few weeks later, the Fernandezes sued the Falwells and Granda over the real estate deal, claiming fraud and breach of contract and seeking unspecified damages. The complaint alluded to the co-defendants’ “friendly relationship.”
“The lawsuit was basically insinuating that there was a strange relationship,” Granda recalled. “So in my mind, I’m like, people are going to find out. This is terrible.”
Inside Liberty University’s ‘culture of fear’
It was around that time that Michael Cohen got involved.
The Falwells had met Cohen during Trump’s visit to Liberty University in 2012. In his new book, “Disloyal,” Cohen claims that Jerry called him and asked for help in dealing with an unnamed young man who was suing the Falwells and had photos of Becki “half-naked” atop a tractor.
Cohen called the man’s attorney and threatened to go to the FBI if the photos became public, he wrote, adding that Falwell would later repay the favor by shocking his fellow evangelicals and endorsing Trump in 2016.
Falwell confirmed to The Post that Cohen helped keep the photos quiet, but said he didn’t ask Cohen to get involved, wasn’t aware of his role until after Trump was elected and always planned to endorse Trump.
Last month, Falwell claimed someone stole the photos of Becki from his phone. In a later interview, he accused Granda of selling the photos to the Fernandezes — something Granda denies.
Jesus Fernandez Jr., who has changed his name to Gordon Bello because of the case, declined to answer questions about the lawsuit or the alleged photos.
“The Falwell, Granda and Cohen families must be going through very distressful times,” he said in a text message. “It’s not easy when the chickens come home to roost.”
The lawsuit dragged on 4? years.
On July 14, 2016, four days before the Republican National Convention, Jerry texted Granda suggesting they sign a letter of intent to sell the South Beach property, promising him a sizable payout.
“Trey says there is enough for you and he to net $600,000 each after taxes,” Jerry wrote, according to a copy of the message Granda shared with The Post.
Granda agreed, the text messages show, but the sale never occurred, leaving Granda increasingly frustrated.
Still, Granda and Becki continued to exchange affectionate texts.
“I miss you so much my heart hurts,” she wrote after seeing him in May 2017. “I couldn’t take my eyes off of you.”
“Good morning beautiful,” he replied the next day.
“Good morning gorgeous,” she texted back.
And when he applied to a graduate real estate program at Georgetown in 2018, Granda asked Jerry for a letter of recommendation.
“I became acquainted with Mr. Granda in early 2012 when he was working his way through college in Miami Beach,” Falwell wrote, adding that Granda was a “quick study.”
Falwell, then president of Liberty University, speaks during the final day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in 2016.
Falwell, then president of Liberty University, speaks during the final day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in 2016. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
A month later, however, a reporter from BuzzFeed began calling Granda.
“We just need everyone to go silent and avoid creating a story where one does not exist,” Falwell texted Granda. The article came out three weeks later, with the headline: “Jerry Falwell Jr. And A Young Pool Attendant Launched A Business That Sparked A Bitter Dispute.”
Granda tried to restart his life in D.C., but the “pool boy” stories kept coming.
“My life is absolutely ruined,” he texted Becki in December of 2018 along with a photo of the coverage. He threatened suicide.
“When they find my lifeless body hanging in the woods, please make sure Logan is returned to my family,” he wrote, referring to his dog. “Goodbye.”
“Stay off social media,” Becki replied. “It’s all left wing nut jobs. That’s from Jerry.”
Granda said he believes he missed out on internships because of the notoriety. Even when the lawsuit was finally settled in October, the scandal still clung to him.
Granda began demanding the Falwells buy him out last year. When they wouldn’t, he decided the only thing left was to go public.
“Since you’re okay with ruining my life, I am going to take the kamikaze route,” he wrote Jerry in June. “It really is a shame because I wanted to reach a peaceful resolution and just move on with our lives but if conflict is what you want, then so be it.”
Granda texted a photo of himself in front of a microphone, recording a podcast.
“You should by now understand that I will not be extorted,” Falwell replied. “I have always treated you fairly and been restrained in response to your threats because I did not wish to ruin your life. Going forward stop contacting me and my family.”
'So proud of you!'
Granda collapsed into a chair on the rooftop of his apartment building in the D.C. suburbs, rubbing his eyes with one hand while nursing a can of iced coffee in the other.
It had been four days since Jerry Falwell stepped down as president of Liberty University, a move that will earn him $10.5 million in severance.
After years of hiding his relationship with the Falwells, Granda was now in the middle of a media blitz. He awoke before dawn to go on “Good Morning America,” had an interview with the Associated Press in the afternoon and had a trip that evening to CNN to talk to Anderson Cooper.
Giancarlo Granda went on a media blitz in August with his allegations against the Falwells.
Giancarlo Granda went on a media blitz in August with his allegations against the Falwells. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)
The interviews were being arranged pro bono by Kurt Bardella, a former Republican congressional aide whose ties to the Lincoln Project have led to accusations that Granda is getting paid by the anti-Trump outfit.
But Granda insisted he hadn’t been paid to go public. Instead, he said his decision to step forward now was because of Falwell’s increasingly erratic behavior.
In early August, Falwell took an indefinite leave from Liberty after apologizing for a photo he posted on Instagram showing him with his pants unzipped, stomach exposed and his arm around a young woman.
“That’s what allowed me to be like, okay. I think if I come forward, people are going to believe me,” Granda said.
After Jerry Falwell Jr.’s departure, Liberty University faces questions about faith, power, accountability
He had tried to prepare his parents and girlfriend. But now there were news vans outside his parents’ house in Miami and his girlfriend would begin getting Instagram messages from Becki, warning her not to trust Granda.
In the days before the Reuters article was published, Granda said the Falwells’ attorneys produced his texts mentioning suicide as proof of his instability, and a letter he’d once written at Jerry’s behest denying anything inappropriate as evidence he was lying.
“The Falwells are trying to say I preyed upon them,” he said. “But they’re the ones that approached me. . . . They’re the ones that sucked me in.”
He hoped speaking up would help him find a job and move on with his life. But he remains tied to the Falwells through the South Beach property.
On Aug. 14, he texted Becki a photo of his Georgetown diploma as a reminder, he said, that he was no longer the 20-year-old she’d approached at the side of the pool.
“Congratulations,” she wrote back. “So proud of you!”
Her tone changed 10 days later, when the Reuters article came out.
“I hope you’re happy and that you were paid very well,” she wrote that night. “Jerry just resigned.”