Fall River Mayor Documentary ‘Run This City’ Now on Roku
In our digital office, we get alerts of interesting things to talk about, and when I had first heard about Run This City, I wasn’t sure I was local enough to write about it. Being new to the area, I wasn't aware of the saga of former Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia II.
The documentary originally premiered last year on Quibi, but that service has folded, so we can now see this documentary series on Roku. Today I found the trailer, hit play, and as soon as I heard Michael Rock's voice say "Fall River’s youngest mayor," I was in. All these questions started racing through my mind like, how easy is it to become mayor, what’s pay-to-play, and how hardcore did things get?
As an outsider looking in, it seems this 23-year-old was absolutely nailing the mayoral game, and into his second term in 2017 things started getting real Wolf of Wall Street. It began with charges of wire fraud amounting to $231,000 and filing false tax returns. The mayor essentially pitched an app called SnoOwl designed to connect local businesses with their target consumer market. As vague as that description is, he got seven people to invest $363,690. Instead of app development, he allegedly used the funding to buy cars, clothes and gambled some of it.
With all that surrounding him, he was still able to maintain his position as mayor, until 2019, when things got even sketchier. He was arrested on 11 new charges included extortion conspiracy, extortion aiding and abetting, and bribery. At this point, while trying to maintain his place as mayor he eventually announced a temporary absence as mayor, suspended his campaign, and the rest is history.
Someone call Scorsese because the Wolf of Fall River is going to be a hit. Especially the part when he promises to pay back investors then doesn’t. I can’t wait to see how this ends when Correia's trial begins on February 22.