Here is the Washington Post story about his arrest. It doesn't go into details because most details aren't available, somehow the actual records were destroyed. It does say there were 3 in the car, but doesn't say anything about the 3rd person OR what any of them were doing. But read it for yourself....
Rubio’s summer of ’90: An arrest, then newfound purpose
Rubio’s summer of ’90: An arrest, then newfound purpose
MIAMI — Marco Rubio’s first year of college at a small school in Missouri ended badly. His grades were awful. A neck injury dashed any hopes of achieving greatness on the football field. He was hurting for money.
He resolved to go back to Florida and get his life on a path to success. Instead the 18-year-old added to his troubles after returning to Miami for summer break: He was arrested one night in May 1990 for being in a crime-plagued public park after closing time, according to police records and an interview with a friend who was cited with Rubio that night.
The previously unreported misdemeanor, which eventually was dismissed, tugged Rubio into the criminal-justice system just one year after the conviction of his brother-in-law in a major drug-trafficking case had exacted a devastating toll on his family. But that summer also marks a turning point for Rubio, the moment when a somewhat aimless young man found a direction and purpose that shaped the highly focused politician who now sits among the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.
Rubio, who has no history of criminal convictions, has never discussed his arrest publicly, and he did not mention it in his 2012 memoir, “
An American Son.”
Rubio declined an interview request. Todd Harris, presidential campaign strategist for the senator from Florida, dismissed the episode as a minor infraction with no relevance today.
“When he was 18 years old, he violated a municipal code for drinking beer in a park after hours,” Harris said. “He was never taken into custody, never hired a lawyer and never appeared in court. Why The Washington Post thinks that is a story is beyond me.”
There’s no indication that Rubio was involved in any illegal activity other than drinking beer and being in a public park after closing. The police incident report, which does not mention alcohol, states that drug activity was “not applicable.”
The arrest took place after Rubio had completed a difficult first year in college in Missouri and was looking to make a shift in direction by transferring to a community college in his home state of Florida. In his memoir, Rubio wrote about getting more serious about his studies that summer and leaving behind his football aspirations.
It was not far from there that Rubio’s arrest occurred. At 9:37 p.m. on Wednesday, May 23, 1990 — five days before Rubio’s 19th birthday and an hour and a half after sunset — a police officer was dispatched to Alice C. Wainwright Park, a shaded stretch of grass along Brickell Avenue where the neighborhoods of Brickell and Coconut Grove meet, according to a Miami police incident report. The park, studded with palms and gumbo limbo trees, offered a stunning vista of Biscayne Bay, a “millionaire’s view for the masses,” according to one newspaper review.
The bayside park, named for the first woman to serve on the Miami City Commission, had been established in 1965 at the site of a dilapidated estate. It is flanked on three sides by ornate mansions and pricey condominiums. Madonna and Sylvester Stallone would own homes there in the early 1990s.
Despite the high-priced real estate nearby, the park had become a notorious locale in the late 1980s and early ’90s, a haven for drug dealers, prostitutes and gang members.
A local homeowners association’s newsletter documented the complaints of neighbors: “Gang warfare, gunfire, prostitution (straight and gay), drug dealing and muggings.” Police were attuned to the complaints because of a pattern of problems at the park, said Delrish Moss, a Miami police public information officer and a 32-year veteran of the department.
“It was very dark and had lots of trees,” he said. “People went out there to smoke illegal substances, have sex, drink.”
A full account of what led to Rubio’s arrest and the dismissal of the charge are not included in available public records. The court file has been destroyed, according to Miami-Dade County court clerk’s records.
According to the Miami police incident report, a police officer arrived at the park at 9:47 p.m., 10 minutes after being dispatched. The report notes that Rubio and two other teenagers were inside the park after hours. In a recent interview, Angel Barrios — one of the men arrested with Rubio — said they were sitting in a car when they were approached by an officer.
Authorities said they had more serious issues to worry about at the park.
With Rubio’s legal issue resolved, he packed his Firebird the next month and drove to Gainesville to start classes at Santa Fe College. Barrios would share a townhouse with Rubio there, he said.
In Gainesville, Rubio wrote in his memoir, he immediately set about checking out “the party scene.” Barrios remembered buying Keystone beer, an inexpensive brew, for their parties.
“We came from regular working parents,” Barrios said. “There was nobody that was rich.”
Rubio attacked his courses with a newly found intensity and sense of purpose.
“We were all really focused into the studying,” Barrios said. “Our group, we would just study like heck.”
That summer, an important letter arrived for Rubio. His new focus had paid off: He had been accepted at the University of Florida. He was on his way.
