Psycho Cartoonist Storms Miami Herald building

MIAMI · Co-workers and friends puzzled over what prompted cartoonist José Varela to bring a knife and what appeared to be a machine gun to the El Nuevo Herald newsroom Friday, holing himself up for more than three hours before surrendering to police. Varela, 50, worked on a freelance basis for the Spanish-language paper, which is a sister paper to The Miami Herald. Police said Varela used to be a full-time employee at El Nuevo Herald.

Police said Varela arrived at the building around 11 a.m. wearing a black polo shirt with the letters "FBI" written on the back. He strode past a security checkpoint with what police later said resembled a MAC-11 submachine gun with a laser scope and 30 rounds of ammunition. Authorities determined after his arrest that the gun was made of plastic. It wasn't clear how he got through the checkpoint with the gun or whether he concealed it. Varela ran his coded employee card past a turnstile at the main entrance on the ground floor and continued unimpeded to the sixth floor. Once there, he brandished the gun, started to throw things on the floor, and said, "Someone has to pay for what's happening," recounted El Nuevo Herald reporter Alejandra Chaparro on the paper's Web site. The online story quoted Varela as saying he came "to unmask the true conflicts" at the paper. Varela did not elaborate.

He then took over the office of Humberto Castelló, El Nuevo Herald's top editor. Castelló was on vacation, but arrived at the building and talked to police. In a story posted on El Nuevo Herald's Web site, Varela was quoted as saying, "Today they're going to see it as violence. But somebody has to pay and that is going to be Castelló." At some point, security evacuated the majority of employees from the building.Tomás García Fusté, who has a show on the Telemiami cable network where Varela worked occasionally as a commentator, said Varela called him to say he was taking over the newspaper. Fusté thought he was joking.

Varela, who has addresses listed in Miami and Jupiter, surrendered at about 2:40 p.m. after talking to a hostage negotiator. "He kept repeating he wanted the truth to be told about the Herald and the conflict of interest editors there have," said Joe Garcia, a board member of The Cuban American National Foundation, who received two calls from Varela during the incident. Garcia said he has known Varela for years and does not consider him a violent man.

Some Herald employees told police Varela felt censored because the paper did not run some of his cartoons. In a mini-biography he supplied to El Nuevo Herald, he described growing up in Cuba, where he spent his school days drawing caricatures of his teachers, and leaving on a boat from Mariel.

Commentary: Another story in the local rag says that Varela had lost his home in foreclosure and his wife had filed for divorce after The Miami Herald fired him as a salaried cartoonist and used him as a freelance stringer. Apparently Varela had several jobs for various local media and yet they were paying him so little that he was in a deep financial hole.

Meanwhile, the corrupt politicians in Miami regularly steal millions of dollars without any trouble.

School Candy Machines Rob Taxpayers

After a yearlong investigation, Miami-Dade officials still can't say whether the county has been ripped off by Gilly Vending, which supplies sodas and snacks at county facilities in the northern half of Miami-Dade, in addition to many Miami-Dade and Broward schools and other public places. In court documents and police files, a former Gilly partner claims the company routinely skimmed profits, twice helped former Miami-Dade Commissioner Miriam Alonso launder money and plied county procurement officials with gifts to protect its contract.

Gilly's owner, Gilda Rosenberg, denies it all. She says the allegations were contrived by her ex-partner, Ileana Morales, in an effort to ''extort'' money in a protracted legal battle over the company. Rosenberg founded Gilly Vending in 1983 and gave Morales a 50 percent stake in the company a few years later. ''It was generosity; it was stupidity,'' Rosenberg said in an interview with The Miami Herald.

Their nasty split in 1998 spawned five lawsuits, five appeals and a criminal assault charge against Rosenberg for ramming her car into Morales' sister's car. (Rosenberg pleaded guilty, and her conviction was withheld.) Eight years later, the two remain tied together in one way: Both are listed as possible witnesses in the money-laundering case against Alonso, whose top aide was Morales' mother.

Last year, the head of Miami-Dade's General Services Administration recommended banning Gilly from county business, saying the company's financial reports were "neither reliable nor accurate.'' Last week, county officials agreed to continue doing business with Gilly, after the company promised to provide better financial records -- and pay the county more money. Despite the allegations, Gilly is now poised to win a new contract expanding its business to all county facilities. That deal must still be approved by county commissioners.

''I didn't do anything illegal,'' Rosenberg said. "I wouldn't be doing business for 25 years if I was doing anything wrong.'' Under its current contract -- first awarded in 1995 and renewed several times since -- Gilly Vending is supposed to pay the county 30 percent of the income from the snack and soda machines at county buildings north of Flagler Street.

The county received $95,441 in commissions from Gilly last year.
But in court hearings four years ago, Morales said the company routinely skimmed the nickels and dimes taken from machines before adding up the company's income -- concealing Gilly's true profits and lowering its payments to Miami-Dade.

''Gilly Vending never paid 30 percent in commission,'' Morales testified. Rosenberg and her lawyers deny Morales' claims. Rosenberg noted that she used the nickels and dimes to buy supplies from a wholesaler.

Gilly attorney Tim Crutchfield said that many company records could have refuted Morales' charges -- including detailed meter reports generated by the vending machines -- but they have disappeared. However, a financial expert Rosenberg hired to determine the value of the company also concluded that Gilly had underpaid the county, court records show. Crutchfield said the expert's findings were wrong, and argued in court papers that the nickels and dimes added up to only about $500 a week.

County Auditor Cathy Jackson told The Miami Herald that Gilly's income reports before 2003 were not verified with meter reports -- and some of the records the company did provide contained "a lot of discrepancies. She admitted her record-keeping was not as good as it should be,'' Jackson said. Rosenberg and her accountant insist they provided all the records requested by auditors, and said the report found only minor bookkeeping flaws.

Morales talked to the Miami-Dade police. She described Gilly Vending's role in Alonso's alleged scheme to steal campaign money. She said checks to Gilly from Alonso's 1996 campaign were converted to cash for Alonso and her husband. Rosenberg told detectives she provided two fake business receipts for the Alonso campaign at the request of Morales' mother -- but she said she didn't know how the receipts were used, records show. In campaign-finance reports, Alonso said Gilly Vending was paid $14,000 for ''phone bank'' work. Alonso and her husband are accused of using bogus business receipts to conceal their theft of about $105,000 from three campaign accounts -- but not for the 1996 campaign.

Miami-Dade County is just one of Gilly Vending's many public clients. The company also has machines at the Port of Miami and Miami Dade College and in many Miami-Dade and Broward schools. Rosenberg has offered to increase her payments to Miami-Dade from 30 to 41 percent if she wins the new countywide vending contract. She also has guaranteed the county a minimum of $250,000 a year, and tossed in an extra $37,500 to the county "as a good corporate citizen.''

Wendi Norris, the director of Miami-Dade's GSA, said in a memo that the arrangement ''repays the county for any potential undercounting in the past.'' But Rosenberg and her lawyer, Alex Heckler, insist that Gilly never cheated the county in the first place. ''It in no way is restitution,'' Heckler said of the $37,500.

Rosenberg said political connections have not played a part in her success. "I am straight as an arrow. I don't need any favors.'' But one county worker described Rosenberg to Miami-Dade public-corruption detectives as "aggressive in her business contacts.'' The police were investigating accusations -- again raised by Morales -- that Rosenberg gave county employees gifts to protect her contract. Morales told investigators that she passed sealed envelopes to three GSA employees for Rosenberg. One employee admitted receiving ''trinkets'' from Rosenberg years ago, but the police closed the investigation with no arrests. Rosenberg called these accusations "a plain bullshit lie.'' ''We give out a lot of baskets'' of slow-selling chips and chocolate, ''to try to keep momentum,'' Rosenberg said.
But ''nobody is going to sell themselves for a basket of chips,'' she said. (excerpted from the Miami Herald)

Commentary: First of all, in Miami, any government official will sell their ass for a bag of potato chips. So what's this all about? A couple of lesbians split up and then their matrimonial property dispute leads to allegations of widespread corruption in the Candy Machine business? Is there nothing above corruption in Miami??? Is Miami the ultimate cesspool of corruption? Can't even the school candy machines be free of the taint of public corruption?

Oscar Rivero Screws The Poor

Oscar Rivero, charged onto Miami's affordable-housing scene four years ago with spectacular promises to build houses for poor families who have languished for years in crumbling and unsafe homes. He amassed an elaborate web of properties, pledging 24 units on the banks of a canal north of Miami; 54 in a midrise in Little Havana; 42 on a tree-lined corner of South Miami.

With his lofty plans and key connections to County Hall power brokers, Rivero quickly became a favored developer of local housing agencies, collecting nearly $3 million in public money. As an aide to Mayor Alex Penelas, Rivero hobnobbed with political elites and snared coveted spots on public boards.

But with the public funds that Oscar Rivero got for building houses for the poor, he is building an 11,000-square-foot Coral Gables estate that includes a wine cellar, library, billiard room, elevator, pool, spa and fountain -- plus a grand foyer, three stories high, fixed with Mediterranean columns and a spiral staircase. It is Oscar Rivero's dream house; and the only thing that he has built in the past four years.

The land where Rivero promised dozens of homes for the poor is still vacant, cordoned off by fences; eyesores in already distressed neighborhoods. Rivero hasn't delivered a single house even though he's held on to millions of dollars in public money -- while buying personal properties and an office for more than $4.9 million.

Rivero and his wife purchased five houses in the past two years in South Miami, plus the estate. One of Rivero's companies also bought a $1.2 million office building in Coral Gables where he would oversee his growing enterprises. Rivero is at the center of a scandal rocking county government and a community desperately in need of decent housing for the working poor. Miami-Dade prosecutors are poring over his financial records to track how he spent the public dollars. Rivero is scrambling to come up with cash -- he's put up three houses for sale and is borrowing from banks and family members, records and interviews show.

So far, Rivero has returned $1.5 million, about half of what he owes. But State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle says the return of money does not absolve Rivero and other developers if public funds were used fraudulently.

Community leaders and housing advocates are incensed. At rallies organized after The Miami Herald's recent investigation revealed a cadre of developers have not repaid the Housing Agency for houses never built, protesters have held up pictures of Rivero as emblematic of all that's gone wrong in public housing. ''The harm is so deep,'' said lawyer Jorge Luis Lopez, who was chief of staff to Penelas when Rivero was an aide in the office. "Sometimes people believe they are above the law. They're not -- and they need to be held accountable.''

During his college years, Rivero landed a $550-a-week job as a junior aide to Penelas, then a county commissioner -- a connection that would serve him for years and introduce him to the key County Hall figures now involved with Rivero in the unfolding housing scandal. Penelas declined to comment.

In 2000, Rivero himself landed in public office, becoming a board member at the Miami Parking Authority, run by longtime friend Art Noriega. The job for the first time gave Rivero the power to approve multimillion-dollar government contracts. As chairman, he would vote for contracts for business partner Alben Duffie's development company and a security firm that employs County Commission Chairman Joe Martinez as executive director, The Miami Herald found.

Gov. Jeb Bush selected Rivero to join then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in the back of the Versailles restaurant in Little Havana to dine with a small group that included legislators, lobbyists and activists to hash out issues affecting the Cuban community. He even was appointed to Miami's prestigious Orange Bowl Committee. He also landed a spot on the county's Housing Finance Authority, which provides tax-exempt bonds for affordable housing. His sponsor: newly elected County Commissioner Rebeca Sosa. ''They told me he was an attorney, a respected person,'' said Sosa, who said she cannot recall who recommended Rivero.

He began pushing to fund Ward Towers, an elderly housing complex being developed by the Miami-Dade Housing Agency and the nonprofit MDHA Development Corp., created a year earlier by county commissioners.
At the time, Housing Finance Authority Executive Director Patricia Braynon said she was puzzled at Rivero's insistence to release the cash. What she didn't know at the time was that two of Rivero's associates were on the receiving end of the deal, Braynon said. One was Rene Rodriguez, who had been appointed to lead the Housing Agency in 1996 under Penelas, then the county's influential mayor and Rivero's former boss. Rodriguez was not only the director of the Housing Agency, but president of the county-funded Development Corp. Rivero's other tie to the deal: Duffie, a longtime county employee and board member of the Development Corp. A year after he joined the Housing Finance Authority, Rivero left to become a member of the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, appointed by Jeb Bush.

With Rodriguez at the helm of the Housing Agency, Rivero quickly became a player at a department brimming with tens of millions of dollars from Miami-Dade's affordable housing construction fund. In 2002, Rivero created a company called Riverside Homes of South Florida and promised to build 24 houses along a canal in a poor neighborhood in the shadow of Interstate 95. He told the Housing Agency in his application for the money, "Riverside Homes is ready to proceed NOW!''

The first check: $500,000, dated Sept. 25, 2002. Records show Rodriguez ordered the payment even though the move violated Housing Agency policy, which prohibits advances to developers who have not started construction. At least two Housing Agency administrators say they objected, but Rodriguez wouldn't budge. Rodriguez and Rivero had been golfing buddies.

''The circles are very tight there, in government,'' said Lopez, Penelas' former chief of staff. "There's a line that often gets crossed.''
Money continued to flow to Riverside Homes, with the Housing Agency sending three more payments for a total of $360,000, including the most recent allotment of $96,000 in December. That money came just months after a Housing Agency staffer warned that no work had begun on Riverside Homes -- three years after the first $500,000 was paid. ''The project has not started,'' the Housing Agency's Alberto Diaz wrote.

Despite the setbacks with Riverside, another one of Rivero's companies -- this one called Rivers Development Group -- received $816,000 from the Housing Agency for the proposed 54-unit Las Rosas Apartments in Little Havana. Again, the money was paid before construction started. Again, the project never materialized.

In Rivero's four-year run with the Housing Agency, which continued even after Rodriguez resigned in mid-2004, he pitched at least five more projects and was approved for $4.9 million, records show. But the projects went nowhere.

While Rivero was wheeling and dealing, he was living in a Brickell Avenue condo, attending political bashes and teeing off at charity golf tournaments. In 2003, he met Yvette Aleman, from a prominent Cuban-American family. They married a year later and bought the land for their 11,000-square-foot estate.

At the same time, Rivero was turning to three new agencies for affordable housing money. One of them was the city of Miami, which paid $530,000 in 2005 for the Las Rosas project.

''It was a promising, feasible project,'' said Barbara Gomez-Rodriguez, who runs Miami's Department of Community Development. She is married to Rene Rodriguez from the county Housing Agency. Rivero also tapped the county's Office of Community and Economic Development and was awarded a total of $750,000 in 2003 and 2004 for Riverside Homes.

Finally, Rivero turned to the MDHA Development Corp., founded by Rene Rodriguez, with Duffie as a longtime board member. Rivero and Duffie had worked and invested together in earlier ventures, partnering in at least two development projects at Metrorail stations, The Miami Herald found.

Rivero convinced the Development Corp. to contribute $750,000 for a 46-unit project called Sunset Pointe Apartments in South Miami. As the dollars poured in for his affordable housing ventures, Rivero and his wife bought six houses between 2004 and 2006, including the estate property, records show.

The Housing Agency began demanding its money back. So did the city of Miami, which learned four months after Rivero received the $530,000 that he no longer could build the elderly rental complex because of rising construction costs. Finally, his failed projects were detailed in July by The Miami Herald, sparking a public outcry. Prosecutors subpoenaed Rivero's bank and land records to trace the money. (excerpt from Miami Herald)

Commentary: So another scumbag robs the taxpayers of Miami and gets away with it. Even if he returns all the money, he has been using that money without paying any interest on it for the past four years. Not to mention that all the poor people that were promised houses got screwed. This is the legacy of the prominent Cuban families. The same corruption and abuses that brought communism to Cuba. These corrupt abusers of the public trust belong in prison.

Update: Oscar Rivero was arrested a few days after this post. Now the question is whether he gets convicted and sent to prison for several years (like the shitbag deserves) or whether the fix is in and his expensive lawyers get him some bullshit probation deal. Fuck him and hopefully he will do hard time. The houses he promised to build for the poor never got built (not a single one). The only house that got built was the luxury home he paid for with the 4.9 million taxpayer dollars that he got from various government agencies.

Gay Love In Miami Corruption Scandal

Doral Pharmaceuticals millionaire Carlos De Cespedes does not mince words when he explains why he gave Jose ''Pepe'' Diaz a hard-to-define, $80,000-per-year job after Diaz's election to the Miami-Dade County Commission. ''I hired him so he won't steal from you and me,'' De Cespedes told The Miami Herald during an interview this week at the Coral Gables restaurant he owns, Chispa. The temptation for fraud is just too great, De Cespedes argued.

Commissioners get a $6,000 annual salary to oversee a $7 billion county budget. A ballot measure in September will ask voters to raise that salary to approximately $89,000. The ballot language will not include any mention of the $55,100 in annual cash perks that commissioners have added over the years, however. If the measure passes, commissioners' total annual compensation would increase to $144,000.

''Those fringe benefits are not outrageous, in fact, they are normal for a job at that level,'' De Cespedes said. "I might still hire him as a consultant for certain jobs'' In recent months, federal prosecutors have contacted him at least twice to discuss the well-known elected official on his payroll. De Cespedes said he has cooperated fully with investigators and has nothing to hide. Diaz could not be reached for comment Thursday evening. Both federal and county authorities are examining Diaz's ties to De Cespedes and prominent developer Sergio Pino. One focus is a fishing trip the three men took to Cancún, Mexico, aboard Pino's private jet in May 2004.

''Their theory is that I'm a pass-through for money from Sergio to Pepe,'' De Cespedes said. 'I tell them, "Subpoena my records, subpoena everything. There's nothing there.'' Diaz did not disclose the fishing trip on gift forms filed with the state ethics commission. But he did disclose his job with the De Cespedes-controlled venture capital firm Astri Group, a $206,000 loan in 2004 from another De Cespedes venture called CJDC Investments and a $19,795 ''bonus'' in 2004 from Kaufman Medical, also controlled by De Cespedes.

Diaz, refers to himself as ''director of corporate affairs'' for the Astri Group. De Cespedes said that he didn't know Diaz's exact title, saying it was not significant: "Pepe can call himself whatever he wants.'' Earlier this year, Diaz co-sponsored an amendment to an existing county ordinance that requires all county departments to give preference to local bidders when awarding contracts. Diaz's change extended the policy to the Public Health Trust, which oversees Jackson Memorial Hospital, a key client of De Cespedes' company Pharmed. All of Pharmed's $3.7 million in sales to Jackson in 2005 was in such medical-surgical supplies, Alonso said.

De Cespedes said he didn't know about Diaz's ordinance change until a reporter left a message about it on his voice mail last week. ''I applaud it. I have been trying to get them to keep their dollars local for a long time,'' De Cespedes said, referring to Jackson Memorial. But he didn't put Diaz up to changing the ordinance, De Cespedes said.

De Cespedes said he, Diaz and Pino spent most of their time together on Pino's boat in Cancún. ''What do three guys talk about on a boat? We talked about women, we talked about Cuba, we talked about politics,'' De Cespedes said. (Miami Herald- August 18, 2006)

Commentary: Why should we think that when one man gives another man an $80,000 a year gift (non-working job); it is because of political corruption? Why not look at the obvious? Maybe these two guys are just in love? Perhaps the reason they like to vacation together is in order to fuck each other up the ass?
Take a close look at their photos. One of them looks like Richard Simmons and the other one looks like he is fingering his bunghole (maybe he is constipated?). Since they both deny being corrupt, then let's give them the benefit of the doubt. If they are just gay for each other, then more power to them! Perhaps they will take their next vacation in Hawaii and get married? We Miamians need to be more supportive of our homosexuals in positions of power, and let them enjoy their lives. Vivan los grandes maricones!

Corrupt Building Code Officers

Thousands of home and business owners throughout Miami-Dade County have spent millions of dollars the past two years unwittingly having illegal work done on their homes. They're victims of a county contractor's licensing scam involving at least 178 companies, stolen computer pass codes and shoe boxes full of money for three county employees -- one of them now a fugitive. Officials have recovered $250,000 from the men.

County officials say the three workers in the Building Code Compliance Office created the fake licenses and sold them to companies that couldn't obtain them or didn't want to wait to be licensed. Contractors paid $2,000 to $15,000 for each fake license. After getting licensed and finding work, the companies received building permits and final inspections from the county. ''They made a mockery of the entire system,'' State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle said.

In Coral Gables, building and zoning officials planned today to stop construction on about 45 properties being worked on by 21 contractors.
Sweetwater, Miami Beach and several other municipalities were compiling lists. So far, Miami-Dade police have identified about 3,300 victims in unincorporated parts of the county. Detectives said there is no telling how many others have been affected in the county or in its 34 municipalities. In an average year, the Building Code Compliance Office issues about 1,800 contracting licenses.

The alleged mastermind of the scheme, Lazaro Herrera, a compliance office network administrator earning $89,400 a year, failed to turn himself in to police Thursday as promised, Miami-Dade Police Director Robert Parker said. The director said officers are watching Miami International Airport should Herrera try to leave the country.

Herrera, Joaquin Barros and Jerry Hernandez have been charged with racketeering, conspiracy, scheme to defraud, unlawful access of a computer network, official misconduct, grand theft and unlawful compensation. If convicted, they could face 20 years in prison. Barros, a building office contractor making $26,600 a year, and Hernandez, a department analyst making $61,600, turned themselves in to Miami-Dade police Thursday and are being held at the County Jail. Barros' bond has been set at $250,000; Hernandez's at $350,000.

According to Miami-Dade police, the sequence of events that led to the charges began in November when a woman named Maritza Bermudez was cited by the county for doing work without a contractor's license.
In March, she told Building Code Compliance Supervisor Jose Lezcano she had been issued the citation in error -- and bragged that she knew where she could buy a license, anyway.

Lezcano then checked a contractor's license number given to him by Bermudez that wasn't hers. He noted that it was issued in only five days without a host of requirements like proof of insurance and a credit check, according to a police affidavit. Most licenses take four to six weeks. Miami-Dade police were notified and set up visual surveillance. A search of their homes turned up about $250,000 in cash, much of it in boxes throughout Herrera's home. Some $60,000 was found in shoe boxes owned by Hernandez, police said. (Miami Herald, Aug.18, 2006)

Corrupt GSA Administrator Arrested

Police arrested a high-ranking city of Miami employee today after an undercover sting operation caught him accepting a $1,000 bribe on videotape at a Starbucks coffee shop across the street from the Miami-Dade Courthouse. Police say Miguel Angel Mejia, employed by Miami's General Services Administration, tried to shake down a contractor who had received an $11,500 air conditioning installation job from the city.

The contractor didn't want to pay the bribe, and called police. The contractor then took part in the sting operation, meeting Mejia at the Starbucks in March, police said. Police say Mejia, who was still in custody, has already confessed to his crime. Mejia was the acting superintendent of the GSA's Property and Maintenance Division.

On prosecutors' surveillance video shot at the Starbucks, Mejia and Patrick Kerney -- owner of Kerney and Associates, Inc., the contractor hired for the air conditioning work -- can be seen sipping coffee and chatting at an outdoor table. As narrated by prosecutors, Kerney is then seen pulling out a large wad of cash from one of his pockets and handing it to Mejia, who nonchalantly reaches across the table and accepts it.

Mejia faces one count of unlawful compensation, which carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison. ''He wanted to put that money -- your money, taxpayer dollars -- in his greedy little hands,'' Miami--Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said.

Corrupt Public Housing Authority

The Miami-Dade grand jury issued a report Friday calling the county's Housing Agency ''an utter and complete disaster,'' and condemning what it called ''cronyism, corruption'' and "gross mismanagement.'' The jurors commended The Miami Herald for its series House of Lies, an investigation that found the Housing Agency had awarded millions of dollars to developers who over a period of years had failed to build any affordable homes. The investigation also found that Housing Agency officials misused taxpayer money and diverted $5 million to pay for a new headquarters, complete with a $287,000 statue.

''As jurors, we, too, were disgusted and embarrassed by the misfeasance and gross mismanagement of many of our public servants,'' the grand jury wrote. The report, titled House of Cards: Built on Mismanagement and Cronyism, said that some Housing Agency employees 'seemed more interested in greasing their friends' palms by funding inept, nonperforming entities than being concerned with the goals of assisting our neediest citizens.'' The jurors also said that they had intended to ask county officials to fire all of the top management of the Housing Agency. But County Manager George Burgess, after reading just half of The Miami Herald's series, removed seven Housing Agency officials last week.

Burgess said Friday he had mounted a national search for a new director for the troubled agency and expected more staff changes. Several Housing Agency programs have already been moved to other departments. ''We just move forward and we fix the problems,'' he said. "Quite frankly I think it's an opportunity to make it better than it was, an opportunity to just cleanse.''

The grand jury noted that an agency program for helping low-income families afford their first home was also rife with problems. The program provides buyers who have obtained a mortgage for 80 percent of the cost of a home to finance the remaining 20 percent at a cheaper, subsidized rate.
''Senior administrators within the Miami-Dade Housing Agency routinely approved mortgage loan applications for ineligible homeowners who either made too much money to qualify or were not first-time home buyers,'' the report said.

Miami-Dade Police Department's office of public corruption, the State Attorney's Office and the county's inspector general are all investigating the Housing Agency. ''The outrage and frustration that the grand jury expressed over cronyism is something I think everybody in the community feels,'' said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle.
The term of the current grand jury, which began nine months ago, is over. But Fernández Rundle said her office would help the next grand jury continue to look into management problems in the Housing Agency. She also said her office was moving forward with the criminal investigation.
Inspector General Chris Mazzella said he expected to issue a report in the next two weeks. ''That report will focus on a significant program and should impact many other programs in the Housing Agency,'' he said Friday. "Every day, we find something new.'' Check out the Miami Herald investigative report!

FIU violates Lobbyist Laws

Florida International University has paid a high-powered lobbyist as a full-time employee for six years, even as he was representing 30 additional clients, including two other local universities, in front of the Legislature.
The arrangement appears to violate a 1974 law that forbids universities from using taxpayer dollars to pay outside lobbyists. FIU officials said they discovered the problem involving longtime lobbyist Fausto B. Gomez last month and are researching how to fix it.

The state ethics commission could subject both the school and the lobbyist to a two-year ban on lobbying the governor and the Legislature, which would be a crippling blow at a time when FIU attempts to build a new medical school. ''We're talking about an error here,'' said FIU Provost Ron Berkman. "We're not talking about any attempt to deceive.'' FIU has spent $517,820.88 in taxpayer dollars since 2000 on Gomez, according to FIU records.

Most of the time, Gomez was officially listed as a ''practitioner in residence,'' according to a letter that served as his contract. Gomez's responsibilities included ''guest lectures in political science and/or public administration courses, possible seminars and workshops for students, faculty or staff,'' the contract said. His primary job, though, was advising FIU's administration on dealing with state and local government issues.
Gomez's contracts were signed by former Provost Mark Rosenberg and authorized by President Modesto ''Mitch'' Maidique, according to a 2001 letter written by Rosenberg. In October 2005, Rosenberg left to be the chancellor of the entire state university system, which includes 11 universities.

''Clearly, I didn't know the rules and I'm very unhappy about this,'' Rosenberg said this week. Rosenberg said he didn't know if Gomez ever lectured during his time as provost. His successor, Berkman, says Gomez may have given some lectures, and perhaps even taught a class, but FIU officials could not find records to indicate when or where. Gomez, who earned a bachelor's degree in political science from FIU in 1977, declined to comment, referring all questions to university administrators.

His clients include Miami-Dade County, the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, Barry University and Carlos Albizu University, according to a recent compensation report filed with the state. The report says Gomez and his partner, Manuel Reyes, earned between $250,000 and $499,999 from their lobbying clients during the first three months of 2006.

Marcos Perez, FIU's vice president for administration, discovered that the arrangement ''may not be in compliance'' with the state law, according to a draft of a July 14 letter addressed to Gomez. The letter has not yet been sent because Perez is on vacation. The law -- passed in 1974 and toughened in 1993 -- prohibits state agencies, including universities, from using tax money on outside contracts to lobby the Legislature or the governor. Universities can legally pay lobbyists with money from their charitable foundations, though.

They also can use full-time employees to lobby, but Perez determined that Gomez should not have been considered a full-time employee because he has so many other lobbying clients. ''Your list of clients makes me believe that it is unlikely that you are fulfilling your duties as a full-time practitioner in residence,'' Perez wrote.

As Perez reviewed arrangements with six other school lobbyists, he found the school had paid $24,500 to the consulting firm of former FIU provost James Mau, also a registered lobbyist. Mau could not be reached for comment. The issues with Gomez were discovered just as he began making plans for what he deemed ''one of the most significant legislative sessions in FIU's history,'' according to a July 10 e-mail he sent to Perez. He wrote that the meeting should be held soon ``to afford us time to impact and influence executive and legislative contests.'' It is illegal in Florida for state employees to participate in elections while they are on the job.

Miami Catholic Church Pays for Raping Boys

The Archdiocese of Miami has agreed to settle six separate sexual abuse cases, including two involving Neil Doherty, a Broward priest accused of drugging and raping boys in incidents dating back to 1973.

The civil suits were settled in the past few weeks for $750,000. The cases include alleged sexual abuse that occurred in Broward and Miami-Dade counties mostly in the 1970s and 1980s. Doherty, 64, raped a boy over a five-year period, starting when the boy was 11. Doherty has a court hearing today to ask a judge if he can remove the electronic ankle bracelet he has been wearing since he was released from jail on bond pending his trial. Doherty's lawyer said his client is having difficulty sleeping with the device.

Among the civil suits that settled:
• Two male victims alleged that they were drugged and raped by Doherty when he was a drug and alcohol counselor for the Archdiocese in the 1970s.
• A woman said she was abused in 2005 by the Rev. David Dueppen, who at the time worked for St. Francis De Sales in Miami Beach.
• The Rev. Don Walk, who at one point was chaplain for the Miami Dolphins, was not assigned to a particular church at the time -- in the '70s and '80s -- of the alleged abuse of a male teenager.

''This is the church's effort into moving forward and bringing closure and resolution,'' said spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta.

Corrupt Miami Schools Change Failing Grades

Lakechea Melvin was stunned when a student walked up after Christmas break and thanked her for the C he got in a computer business class.
Melvin was sure she had given him an F. So she logged into the district's electronic grade book, then gasped. ''For every kid I gave an F, the principal overrided it to a C,'' said Melvin, who has three years of teaching experience and was in her first year at Charles Drew Middle School in Liberty City. She said that more than 100 D's and F's had been changed for students in seven of her classes. ''I was never notified that my grades were being changed and never consulted,'' Melvin said.

When Melvin asked about the changes, she said, principal Gwen Coverson told her "there was no way I was going to fail her kids in a business class.''
Coverson, through her secretary, referred questions to district officials, who said Coverson told them she can substantiate the changes. Melvin is one of five teachers at Drew Middle who told The Miami Herald that administrators at the school have changed their grades without proper authorization. They offered dozens of documents -- grade sheets, failure notices and change-of-grade forms -- to support their claims. Following inquiries from the newspaper last week, Miami-Dade school district officials launched an investigation into the complaints. It is ongoing.
''These are very serious allegations, and the district is not taking them lightly,'' said district spokesman Joseph Garcia. Principals are permitted to override a teacher's grade for several reasons, but they must consult with the teacher.

Robert Morris, a 10-year veteran teacher, said he also had a problem with his grades being changed in March by Drew administrators. Like Melvin, he said he discovered by chance that about 50 of his F and D grades were changed to C's for the third semester. ''If I didn't see my student's report card, I would have never known my grades were changed,'' he said. "I wasn't going to allow them to just change my grades and pass students who didn't earn it.'' Morris complained to the teachers union, which set up a meeting with Coverson. According to district officials, Coverson said she authorized the grade overrides because Morris did not turn in required failure-notice forms -- explanations of why a student is getting an F or D -- that are sent to the parents and the school counselor.

Morris insisted that he had and produced copies of the notices. Coverson agreed to switch the grades back. An assistant principal asked him to sign off a change-of-grade form, Morris said. He said no. ''I believe she has asked me to sign the grade-change form so that it will look like I agreed with the grade change,'' he said. Morris showed The Miami Herald dozens of grade-change forms that he had refused to sign. Melvin's complaints are also under review by the district. Documents she provided to the newspaper focused on the second semester, which ended Dec. 21, but she said the grade changes occurred in every semester without her knowledge.

According to Garcia, Coverson said that Melvin "did not submit mandatory failure notices in any of the nine-week grading periods.'' In addition, Garcia said after talking with Coverson, "her grades were changed because, in the professional judgment of the principal, Ms. Melvin was not in a position to render grades on students she was largely not present to teach.'' Melvin told The Miami Herald that her attendance was nearly perfect for most of the year and slacked off only at the end of the year because of what she found to be an "abusive atmosphere caused by Coverson.'' Regarding the failure notices, Melvin alleged that Coverson ignored her request to look in the counselor's office, where the school's copies are kept, she said. ''She said she didn't have time to look for any failure notices,'' Melvin said.

Garcia said the district has not determined whether Coverson violated the grade-change policy. ''Coverson says she has the paperwork to substantiate any grade change and is providing it to the Region III'' office, he said. He said that while Coverson did not perform the actual grade changes, she authorized the assistant principal to do so. Melvin said she, too, has paperwork. She showed the newspaper more than 100 copies of failure notices signed by students that they were supposed to take home. The notices were dated between Nov. 18 and Nov. 21, a month before the end of the second grading period. The documents included a host of reasons that a student was getting a failing grade in one of Melvin's business classes:
• Does not complete assignments.
• Does not bring materials to class.
• Does not complete home learning assignments.
• Poor test scores.
• Frequent absences.

''I gave the students the grade they deserved because many of them weren't even showing up to class,'' Melvin said. Upon learning about the failure forms from The Miami Herald, Garcia said: "I hear that you have the notices. . . . That's compelling.'' In addition, Melvin said she sent out interim progress reports earlier in the semester to warn students that they were doing poorly. ''The failure notices are a second notice sent to parents as a courtesy,'' she said.

When asked what criteria are used to determine a student's grade on an override, Garcia said the district leaves it to the principal's discretion.
''The principal is the person who in the end is responsible at that school, and she gets to make that call in the case where a teacher is unable to,'' he said. "Somebody has to give those kids grades.'' Three other Drew teachers also complained that their grades had been changed without their knowledge. But they did not provide The Miami Herald with the documentation that Morris and Melvin did. The five teachers said they were so frustrated that they decided to go public. Coverson has been ''changing grades every year,'' said social studies teacher Tammie Thurman. "We only find out what happened when we see a student promoted that we gave an F to.'' "Sometimes you hear the students bragging, `I got an A!' when you know you gave them an F,'' said language arts teacher Tiffani Lawson. ''It's pretty much expected that [Coverson] will change your grades,'' math teacher Thomas Harper said with a sigh. "People have just gotten used to it. The kids even throw it in your face.''

The teachers allege that teachers who don't comply with the grade changes are threatened or harassed, such as being assigned to the most disruptive classes. Teachers at other schools have also spoken out about feeling pressured to change grades. Last month, several teachers at Miami Springs Middle School complained that their principal called an emergency faculty meeting to urge them ``to shorten the failure list.'' Principal Gail Quigley said she held a faculty meeting to discuss grades but strongly denied telling teachers to pass failing students.

At Drew Middle, Lawson said teachers have heard similar requests. ``The principal says she wants shorter failure lists, and when we don't shorten them, she just goes in the computer and changes the grades.'' The Drew teachers say there is low morale among faculty members and apathy among students. ''It's just discouraging,'' Melvin said. "I'm not sure if I even want to teach next year. The students aren't motivated to work hard because they know they'll pass anyway.'' (excerpt from Miami Herald-by Peter Bailey)

What a typical crock of corruption from the Miami-Dade School Board. The School Board has the Principals changing failing grades in order to give the appearance that the kids are making progress. According to the newspaper, this is going on in more than one school, and it is probably the result of pressure that is coming down from the top rungs of the festering pile of corrupt trash known as the Miami-Dade School Board.

FEMA Hurricane Aid Fraud

WASHINGTON - Houston divorce lawyer Mark Lipkin says he can't recall anyone paying for his services with a FEMA debit card, but congressional investigators say one of his clients did just that. "I do Katrina victims all the time," Lipkin, the divorce attorney, told The Associated Press. "I didn't know anybody did that. I don't think it's right, obviously."

The $1,000 payment was just one example cited in an audit that concluded that up to $1.4 billion - perhaps as much as 16 percent of the billions of dollars in assistance expended after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita - was spent for bogus reasons.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency also was hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and a sex change operation, the audit found. Prison inmates, a supposed victim who used a New Orleans cemetery for a home address and a person who spent 70 days at a Hawaiian hotel all were able to get taxpayer help, according to evidence that gives a new black eye to the nation's disaster relief agency.

Government Accountability Office officials were testifying before a House committee Wednesday on their findings. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the subcommittee overseeing an investigation of post-hurricane aid, called the bogus spending "an assault on the American taxpayer. Prosecutors from the federal level down should be looking at prosecuting these crimes and putting the criminals who committed them in jail for a long time," he said.

To dramatize the problem, investigators provided lawmakers with a copy of a $2,358 U.S. Treasury check for rental assistance that an undercover agent received using a bogus address. The money was paid even after FEMA learned from its inspector that the undercover applicant did not live at the address.

FEMA spokesman Aaron Walker said Tuesday that the agency, already criticized for a poor response to Katrina, makes its highest priority during a disaster "to get help quickly to those in desperate need of our assistance. Even as we put victims first, we take very seriously our responsibility to be outstanding stewards of taxpayer dollars, and we are careful to make sure that funds are distributed appropriately," Walker said.

FEMA said it has identified more than 1,500 cases of potential fraud after Katrina and Rita and has referred those cases to the Homeland Security Department's inspector general. The agency said it has identified $16.8 million in improperly awarded disaster relief money and has started efforts to collect the money.
The GAO said it was 95 percent confident that improper and potentially fraudulent payments were much higher - between $600 million and $1.4 billion.

The investigative agency said it found people lodged in hotels often were paid twice, since FEMA gave them individual rental assistance and paid hotels directly. FEMA paid California hotels $8,000 to house one individual - the same person who received three rental assistance payments for both disasters.

In another instance, FEMA paid an individual $2,358 in rental assistance, while at the same time paying about $8,000 for the same person to stay 70 nights at more than $100 per night in a Hawaii hotel.

FEMA also could not establish that 750 debit cards worth $1.5 million even went to Katrina victims, the auditors said.
Among the items purchased with the cards: An all-inclusive, one-week Caribbean vacation in the Punta Cana resort in the Dominican Republic. Five season tickets to New Orleans Saints professional football games. Adult erotica products in Houston and "Girls Gone Wild" videos in Santa Monica, Calif. Dom Perignon champagne and other alcoholic beverages in San Antonio.

"Our forensic audit and investigative work showed that improper and potentially fraudulent payments occurred mainly because FEMA did not validate the identity of the registrant, the physical location of the damaged address, and ownership and occupancy of all registrants at the time of registration," GAO officials said.

FEMA paid millions of dollars to more than 1,000 registrants who used names and Social Security numbers belonging to state and federal prisoners for expedited housing assistance. The inmates were in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida.

FEMA made about $5.3 million in payments to registrants who provided a post office box as their damaged residence, including one who got $2,748 for listing an Alabama post office box as the damaged property.

The GAO told of an individual who used 13 different Social Security numbers - including the person's own - to receive $139,000 in payments on 13 separate registrations for aid. All the payments were sent to a single address.

Drunk Commissioner Winton beats police officers

His breath smelling of alcohol, the Miami City Commissioner Johnny Winton last night angrily reminded airport police officers of his elected position before telling them ''Go fuck yourselves,'' according to a newly obtained police report.
After being led away in handcuffs, Winton hit a police officer's jaw with his shoulder and kicked another in the groin before losing his balance and falling on the marble airport floor, police said. Winton's face smashed into a wall.
Winton is charged with two counts of battery on a law enforcement officer, disorderly intoxication and resisting arrest with violence. He was released early this morning after posting bond, authorities said. The charges filed against him stemmed from an incident that began about 7:30 p.m. Monday night when American Airlines ticket agents summoned officers from Miami-Dade's airport district station to Gate A-3, where Winton, awaiting a delayed flight to Houston, had grown "loud and abusive.''

Winton told them he didn't have to calm down, reminding them he was a city commissioner before cursing at them, according to the report. The commissioner ''had a strong odor of alcohol on his breath, had slurred speech and had been seen consuming alcohol at the bar at Concourse A,'' according to the police report.

After refusing to calm down and continuing to use foul language, Winton had to be handcuffed, police said. He attacked the officers -- and fell -- as he was being led to a squad car, police said. One officer sustained a chipped tooth, police said.

The commissioner refused treatment and was taken to the airport police station. As a precaution, he was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital's jail ward before being booked into Miami--Dade County Jail.

''Johnny what?'' City Commissioner Angel Gonzalez said last night when told of Winton's alleged actions. "Wow. That's pretty bad. Those are pretty bad charges. I don't know what to say.''

''It's very regrettable that once again more colorful stories and unfortunate stories are coming from City Hall,'' neighborhood activist Horacio Stuart Aguirre said. "They exercise such power that they begin to believe that they are powerful, and they forget that they are citizens -- subject to the laws that apply to all other citizens.'' (Miami Herald excerpt by Michael Vasquez & David Ovalle)
Here is a photo of Commissioner Johnny Winton after he got his beat-down from the Police. Apparently a corrupt scumbag politician can't always get what he wants. Hurray for Law Enforcement! Winton looks like he got a night-stick to the side of the head.

Fidel Castro Abuses Elderly Woman

Several U.S. senators -- including two who are considering running for president -- on Monday condemned Cuba for the ''beating and intimidation'' of well-known dissident Martha Beatriz Roque in late April.

The effort began in Coral Gables' Biltmore Hotel, where -- in separate visits -- many of the senators got word of the attack on Roque from activists including Ana Navarro, the former Nicaraguan ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, whose boyfriend, Gene Prescott, is the hotel's proprietor. ''It was all a matter of coincidence and really talking to them with the truth,'' Navarro said. "When policy makers are faced with the truth, they take action.''

U.S. senators Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Bill Nelson of Florida led the charge to introduce a resolution Monday blasting the attack on Roque and demanding that Cuba allow its citizens to exercise their rights. Also listed as co-sponsors are potential presidential candidates Democrat Joseph Biden and Republican John McCain.

''The Senate condemns the brutality of the regime of Fidel Castro toward Martha Beatriz Roque, a 61-year-old woman in frail health,'' the resolution reads. It also says the Senate "calls on the regime of Cuba to release the hundreds of political prisoners still held today and to stop the intimidation of dissidents and their families.''

If approved, it would be a rare boost to an individual in Cuba's dissident movement, said Mauricio Claver-Clarone, director of the anti-Castro U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC. ''Few people outside of Miami can name a leading Cuban dissident,'' said the Washington, D.C.-based Claver-Clarone. "The hope here is to personalize it.''

Roque was leaving her Havana home April 25 to meet with Michael Parmly, head of the U.S. Interests Section, when a mob of Cuban government supporters swarmed her, knocked her down, punched her and dragged her.

During a call to a Miami radio station after the incident, Roque made an emotional plea for international support. ''They kicked me, a strong young man punched me in the eye with his fist,'' she said. "I thought my eye had popped out. They knocked me down and dragged me . . . The world must know this. To my brothers and sisters in Miami, please let the world know.'' (excerpt of story by Oscar Corral, Miami Herald)

Perverted North Miami City Attorney

Seven months after authoring a sworn statement admitting he had sex with an underage teenager, North Miami City Attorney Barry Kutun surrendered to police after detectives sought his arrest Tuesday on related charges. Four plainclothes detectived had tried to arrest him Tuesday at North Miami City Hall but he was not in his office.

The married former state representative is accused of having sex for money with a 16-year-old in a tryst arranged by a Hollywood woman named Roberta Orenbuch. Hollywood police arrested Orenbuch last month for arranging sexual encounters for the teenager.

Orenbuch signed an affivadit -- notarized by Kutun's city-paid paralegal at City Hall -- which was later leaked to police and reporters. In the Oct. 28, 2005 affidavit, Orenbuch says she arranged for Kutun to have sex with teen about eight times, telling Kutun the girl was 18. State law allows a person to be charged with having sex with a minor, even though they did not know he or she was underage.

Kutun briefly left his $170,000-a-year post at North Miami City Hall, but had returned despite the buzz of the scandal. Detectives executed a search warrant in January. They found sexually explicit photos. Kutun admitted to having sexing relations with a 17-year-old, taking photos of them having sex and e-mailing them to Orenbuch, according to the warrant.

The affidavit was prepared to protect himself from a friend of Orenbuch was allegedly blackmailed the attorney with the photos. Kutun paid the man $2,000.

Excerpted from Miami Herald article by David Ovalle

Cuban Lawmaker accused of racial slur

Schools chief Rudy Crew said a state legislator called him racial epithets, and four public officials said they heard the lawmaker use such language.

TALLAHASSEE - State Rep. Ralph Arza, a top education leader in the Legislature, has repeatedly used racial epithets in English and Spanish to describe Miami-Dade's African-American schools superintendent, according to the schools chief himself and four public officials from the Miami-Dade area.

''They were very disparaging remarks made in a very, very ugly ethnic tone'' for more than a year, Superintendent Rudy Crew said Wednesday. Four other sources, both elected and appointed officials, some of whom are Republicans like Arza, told The Miami Herald they had heard the lawmaker use the language when talking about Crew.

Crew, who did not hear the remarks but relied on what he called ''a number'' of reports, and the four officials said Arza has repeatedly used the word ''nigger'' in English to refer to the schools chief. In Spanish, for which there is no direct translation, they said Arza called Crew a negro de mierda, using a word for excrement.

The four officials said they heard Arza's comments individually at different times over the past year, the most recent a few weeks ago in Tallahassee.
Crew said he is considering filing a complaint against Arza with the House Rules Committee, which governs lawmakers' conduct.

Arza, of Hialeah, denied using any disparaging language to describe Crew. He said he had ''no idea'' who would have said he made those statements, but added that he had heard ''rumors'' that Crew and others claimed he used the language.

''I'm shocked by it. I'm shocked. I have not spoken publicly against him. I have supported him publicly. He has a lot of good ideas,'' Arza said.
''In Spanish, the word negro is black. But it's not disparaging. I never said anything disparaging,'' Arza said.

Arza, chairman of the House's Pre K-12 Committee, and Crew say they're both dedicated to schools. And both agree on one thing: Neither feels the need to speak with each other about it. ''It's a rumor. It's false. There's nothing more to say,'' Arza said.

Said Crew: ''I really don't think that conversation would have been productive.'' And when he first heard of the alleged slur a year ago? ''I did not want to be confrontational about that,'' Crew said. "I thought the work itself was the greater part of valor and that it would fall by the wayside.''

Two of the sources who said they heard Arza use the ''N-word'' believed Arza was not really bigoted, but that he likes to ``talk tough and intimidate.'' Crew said he knew the job in Miami-Dade was tough. But he was surprised by Arza. ''I'm basically a street kid. But I know, there are some rules you never break,'' Crew said. "You don't ever cross that line, not in our schools, not in our government, not from our elected officials.'' (exerpt of story by MARC CAPUTO)

Court Croney Controls Judge

Another complaint against Juan F. D'Arce Jr., judicial assistant to Miami-Dade County Judge Ivan Hernandez. Criminal defense attorney Philip Reizenstein says D'Arce refused Wednesday to schedule a court matter for a client.

Reizenstein says there's a story behind that story: D'Arce, he says, displayed ''inappropriate'' behavior by showing up at his house Feb. 26 -- uninvited on a Sunday -- demanding to speak to him.

Reizenstein's wife and law partner, Jacqueline Woodward, talked to D'Arce but did not let him in. Reizenstein says D'Arce was upset that he hadn't returned two phone calls. Reizenstein, furious about the surprise visit, called D'Arce at the courthouse the next day and chewed him out.

D'Arce says Reizenstein threatened him, saying: ''Look, mother fucker, if you ever come to my house, I'm going to put a bullet in your head and drag you out in a body bag.'' That, D'Arce says, is why he didn't calendar Reizenstein's motion. "I'm fearful of my life.''

Reizenstein, 43, denies threatening him. ''I chose my words carefully.'' He says he warned D'Arce that if he "came to my house again I would take it as a threat and I would defend my family.''

Reizenstein says D'Arce has no right to refuse to calendar a case. ``I don't know what makes this judicial assistant think he can interfere with the administration of justice. I don't care if he doesn't like me. This guy is a self-appointed king.''

D'Arce, 34, is under investigation for allegedly running a consulting business on court time, and using bullying tactics to solicit clients. Prosecutors have seized D'Arce's courthouse computer.

D'Arce says he went to Reizenstein's home to talk about who is authoring an anonymous blog on courthouse goings-on. Says D'Arce: ''I kept on hearing rumors that people thought I was writing that stupid blog.'' He says some people told him they suspect Reizenstein is the blogger. ``I just wanted to ask him if he knew who the blogger was.''

D'Arce says Hernandez's bailiff, Josh Estevez, heard Reizenstein's alleged threat via speakerphone. ''I told Juan to file a police report,'' Estevez says. D'Arce did not: "I don't want to ruin his legal career.''
(excerpt from Miami Herald; by JOAN FLEISCHMAN)

Corrupt Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, Joe Arriola, Johnny Winton?

Miami Herald Editorial Opinion:
DIAZ, ARRIOLA, WINTON PARTNERSHIP A CONFLICT

Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, City Manager Joe Arriola and City Commissioner Johnny Winton saw nothing wrong in forming a business partnership that conflicts with their duties as city officials.

But there is plenty wrong with the deal, starting with Mr. Arriola's failure to disclose his involvement in the partnership, apparently in violation of city law. If Mr. Arriola is found to be in violation of the law -- and in view of his handling of the fire-rescue fee settlement -- it will be time for the mayor to ask him to step aside.

With the real-estate partnership and the lack of disclosure, Messrs. Diaz, Arriola and Winton put personal enrichment above their public duties. We're not alone in saying so.

Here's what the International City/County Management Association says about such conflicts in its Code of Ethics: 'Members should not invest or hold any investment, directly or indirectly, in any financial business, commercial, or other private transaction that creates a conflict with their official duties. . . This guideline recognizes that members' official actions and decisions can be influenced if there is a conflict with personal investments. Purchases and sales that might be interpreted as speculation for quick profit ought to be avoided.''

A quick profit is exactly what Messrs. Diaz, Arriola and Winton will realize if they sell the 1.3-acre property in Coconut Grove for anything close to their asking price of $5.7 million. They paid $3.1 million for the property last May.

Since the purchase, Mr. Diaz and Mr. Winton have made decisions as public officials that prove the wisdom of ICMA's warnings and demonstrate why there is a conflict. Mr. Diaz has refused to heed calls that Mr. Arriola be fired for incompetently managing the fire-rescue fee settlement.

In that debacle, Mr. Arriola steered the city into a $7 million deal with seven plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit, which, as a result, denied compensation to thousands of other city residents with similar claims. Mr. Arriola testified that he did not know the settlement benefited only seven plaintiffs -- but he should have known.

Mr. Winton introduced a ''pocket item'' resolution to the commission in December that gave Mr. Diaz a $53,000 raise in pay, pushing his salary to $150,000 per year. As a ''pocket item'' the resolution never appeared on the meeting agenda and no notice was given to elicit public discussion. Mr. Winton later apologized.

Modesto Maidique abuses University System

In August 2002, Modesto Maidique was invited to attend George Mason University's annual planning conference in Fairfax, Va.

George Mason officials offered to pay for his trip and suggested that Maidique fly to Dulles International Airport outside Washington. However, Maidique's secretary, Anet Saumell, explained that Dr. Maidique prefers to fly American Airlines and there are not too many choices going to Dulles airport.'' Melton wrote back: "Realizing that Dr. Maidique likes American . . . here is a nonstop roundtrip from Miami to Dulles for $266. Would he consider it?''

In the end, Maidique's secretary booked a first-class ticket that cost $2,060. George Mason paid $1,544, based on a sample coach fare provided by Maidique's secretary. The FIU Foundation picked up the rest, $516. In retrospect, Maidique said Wednesday, "it would have been wise for me to take an economy flight.''

Other trips were covered by state tax dollars and money from FIU's charitable foundation:
• A four-day trip to Paris in March 2003 cost $6,700, paid for mostly by tax dollars. The trip -- which included meetings with French business-school leaders -- coincided with one organized by Maidique's then-wife, Leah, for FIU graduate business students.

Graduate students spent $55 to $164 a night on hotels. Maidique spent $516 a night.

The students spent $472 for the off-season airfare. Maidique spent $4,587 on his plane ticket.

Maidique said the purpose of his trip was different and the travel arrangements were made separately, "at a place I prefer to stay.''

• During a February 2003 trip to the inauguration of John Lombardi as head of the University of Massachusetts, Maidique took two limo rides for a total of $534, charged to the foundation.

• For a March 2003 trip, he spent $3,494 for a plane ticket to San Francisco. The federal government reimbursed the school $830, what it considered reasonable. The FIU Foundation and the state picked up the rest of the tab, which included a one-way first-class ticket.

• In February 2003, Maidique spent $462 to hire a limo for seven hours during the Miami International Film Festival, of which FIU was the sponsor. The FIU Foundation paid the bill. ''It was part of the whole patina and the whole style of the film festival'' to travel in a Lincoln Town Car with dignitaries, he said.

• In April 2004, Maidique spent $216 for a limo to attend a Fort Lauderdale dinner meeting with former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, a member of the Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system.

Maidique has the use of a Buick plus a $5,000 annual stipend that he uses to lease a Lexus, although he says the stipend covers less than half of the lease payments.

Maidique said he uses limos because it allows him to work as he rides -- and besides, taxi drivers make him "spend most of your time worrying about your life rather than the work you have to do.'' (excerpt of Niel Beirman's article which appeared in The Miami Herald)

Modesto Maidique shows himself to be white trash by his actions.

Arabs to control 21 ports & Coast Guard

While drug addict Rush Limbaugh claims that the United Arab Emirates are our friends and he endorses their control of the 21 U.S. Ports, the fact is that when the Arabs control those ports they also control the security. No more profiling of Arabs.

The UAE will also control the Coast Guard at each port, and the UAE will have access to the Coast Guard's emergency procedures, and other important information. Since the UAE will control the ports, they will also control the security of each port.

You can imagine that they will probably hire Arabs to do most of these jobs, if not all of the jobs. After all, an Arab company that is run by Arabs will probably hire or promote Arabs to all of the top positions at every port. You can bet that the UAE won't be using any Jews for important jobs.

All it takes is one terrorist infiltrating the management and/or security system of the UAE or any of the individual ports and they can do anything they want. They can easily bring weapons and terrorists into the U.S. on designated ships.

Here is an excerpt from UPI: "The Marine Transportation Security Act of 2002 requires vessels and port facilities to conduct vulnerability assessments and develop security plans including passenger, vehicle and baggage screening procedures; security patrols; establishing restricted areas; personnel identification procedures; access control measures; and/or installation of surveillance equipment.

Under the same law, port facility operators may have access to Coast Guard security incident response plans -- that is, they would know how the Coast Guard plans to counter and respond to terrorist attacks."

Catholic Church rapes children more than one way

An advocacy group criticized the Archdiocese of Miami, saying it is blaming a young man for an alleged rape by a priest in its response to a lawsuit.

A group for survivors of assaults by priests urged the Archdiocese of Miami on Thursday to stop blaming a young man for his alleged rape by the Rev. Neil Doherty -- a crime the man claims happened when he was a child.

Six members of the group tried to hand-deliver a letter to Archbishop John Favalora blasting the archdiocese's legal response to a civil lawsuit filed by the young man that suggested one possible defense could be that the alleged victim's ''own negligence'' caused the abuse. The protesters were turned away by security guards who monitored closed gates around the archdiocese's headquarters on Biscayne Boulevard in Miami Shores. " (end of excerpt)

What happened to the Catholic Church? Did child molestors become the majority of the Cardinals? When all these kids were getting molested (some at least as far back as the 1930s) the Church's Bishops, Cardinals, etc. should have been the first ones contacting the Police and Law Enforcement and demanding that all pedophile priests be investigated and arrested.

Instead, the evidence clearly shows that time after time, year after year, in numerous different parts of the USA, the Church has protected the child molestors. Any settlement with the Church has required silence by the molested victims. The Church has never accepted responsibility for its criminal actions. The Church has at all times put its billions of dollars into hiring lawyers and getting politicians to help them silence the victims.

Why is the Catholic Church so evil? Why does it act in a manner that allows sin and evil to continue to be done to children? Where are the Christians in the Catholic Church? (the excerpt of the story was by Lisa Arthur, The Miami Herald)

Sleazy Politician Joe Martinez gets white-washed by pals

Another scumbag Miami politician uses his power to get special favors. This kind of thing used to be called influence peddling, but here in Miami no politician is ever arrested or convicted for any corruption. The FBI is too busy and local law enforcement is too corrupt.

(excerpt from the Miami Herald story by Naomi Schwartz and Matthew Haggment:) The Miami Herald had calculated that the commission chairman got a $4,000 to $6,000 break on the land's price and in an interview last year, developer Carlos ''Charlie'' Martinez did not dispute those figures. Still, Charlie Martinez, whose family owns Caribe Homes, had said the sale was still a good deal for his company.

Joe Martinez is not related to Charlie Martinez.
The property, which was not marketed to the public, was one of a handful of larger lots in the 431-lot development.
Joe Martinez put $1,000 down on the land, or just over 1 percent of its $85,000 cost, signed no contract and paid the remainder more than 18 months later -- a delay that Charlie Martinez attributed to the time it took to install water and sewer lines on the property.

The Miami Herald compared the commissioner's cost, roughly $8 per square foot, with nine other built-out lots in the subdivision that had average land costs of about $14.55 a square foot by the time the commissioner closed. Those lots were sold by both Caribe and Lennar Homes, another major housing developer.
Though The Miami Herald consulted real estate experts in drawing its comparisons, Mazzella said his office had accepted Charlie Martinez's comparisons without consulting any other experts.

''He basically made the calculations as to the value of that property and asserted that it was a fair price based upon the size of it,'' Mazzella said. In addition to reviewing the land purchase, Mazzella's staff also checked the contractors building Martinez's 5,300 square-foot house. It found that none currently had any county contracts.

However, the report notes that the commissioner is getting some free services from longtime friends. This includes Juan Buade of Buade Construction, a company that is constructing the foundation and shell of the new house for free. Buade has done business with the county in the past and received his last payment in December 2001 for work on a county park, the report said.

The report says that Jorge Guerra Sr., the head of Design Drywall Inc., has acted as the project's general contractor and supplied his services -- lining up subcontractors, obtaining quotes, negotiating agreements and scheduling inspections -- for free.

WORK WAS `A FAVOR'

Guerra told the inspector general that he has known Joe Martinez for 15 years and helped him get elected to the commission. His work on the house is ''a favor for a personal friend'' Guerra told the inspector general.

Guerra's son Jorge Guerra Jr., a current Latin Builders Association board member who helps Design Drywall develop new business according to the association's website, is also providing some of the services. He signed the master permit on the company's behalf as well as another agreement with the commissioner to oversee the project. He is also helping to oversee the construction of the commissioner's home, the report said.

Womanizer Modesto Maidique wants a BIG PAYOFF

This lowlife who shielded, befriended, and employed Cuban spies wants nearly a million dollars in order to go away from his job in the State University system. The Maidique is 65 years old, instead of retiring with dignity, he wants to steal more money from the public University system. Once again, the taxpayers get fleeced by a well-connected, unethical slimeball.

(excerpt from Miami Herald story) FIU's leader wants perks if he quits. Florida International University President Modesto Maidique requested a bonus and a lucrative retirement package in his next contract.
BY NOAH BIERMAN, The Miami Herald
Florida International University President Modesto Maidique is asking for a $250,000 bonus in his new contract and a slew of perks in case he resigns.


His proposed contract would expire July 31, 2008. But it would also allow him to resign before that and still reap the $250,000 bonus ``in recognition of his 20 years of faithful, dedicated and exemplary service.'' It would also grant him a year-long sabbatical after stepping down at his current salary of $326,340.

Or he could forgo the sabbatical, take a lump-sum payout and retire. After a sabbatical, he could return to FIU as a professor at his present salary, which would make him the highest-paid, full-time professor by more than $100,000.

But the past year has been tough -- with fallout from a federal grant investigation that forced the school to return $11.5 million, a faculty senate resolution expressing ''grave concerns'' with his leadership, a divorce and, most recently, criminal spy charges against two close friends who work at the university.

His current contract, signed in 2002, brought his salary up to $285,000 in the first full year. ''It is only in the past three or four years that I have been paid even close to competitively,'' Maidique said.

''They may be a large enterprise but that doesn't mean they should run like a for-profit business,'' said John Curtis, director of research for the American Association of University Professors.