Prosecutors say now-suspended City of Miami Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla was not shy about his willpower to get a $10 million Biscayne Park sports activities complicated accepted for the Centner Academy, a Miami non-public college owned by tech entrepreneur David Centner and his spouse Leila.
“I would like 4 votes right here. I do not need any deferrals. I need it finished right now,” Díaz de la Portilla allegedly stated when a decision to approve the mission got here to the town fee’s desk final 12 months.
Díaz de la Portilla later summoned senior metropolis employees to debate delays in finishing a deal that may enable the Centners to construct out the leisure middle. He allegedly directed metropolis officers to work with Miami-area lobbyist and lawyer William Riley Jr. till the late-night hours one night in November 2022 to finalize the mission.
Arthur Noriega, Miami’s metropolis supervisor, would go on to inform investigators that his employees felt they weren’t free to depart that night time till the deal was finished, in accordance with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).
Investigators declare Díaz de la Portilla had ample incentive to push the deal by means of for the Centners. They say the controversial Miami energy couple bankrolled the commissioner’s high-priced keep on the luxurious East Hotel in Miami and funneled tens of hundreds of {dollars} to him and his political committees whereas the sports activities complicated was into account by the City of Miami. The funds have been routed by means of Riley, a lobbyist engaged on behalf of the Centners, investigators say.
Two days earlier than a fee vote on the mission, the Centners’ lobbyist wrote a $50,000 examine to Díaz de la Portilla’s political committee, FDLE says.
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Two days earlier than a fee vote on the mission, Riley’s firm wrote a $50,000 examine to Díaz de la Portilla’s political committee, in accordance with FDLE.
The claims are specified by a 26-page affidavit charging Díaz de la Portilla with a number of felony counts associated to alleged acts of bribery and corruption. Charges of unlawful marketing campaign funding are additionally included in reference to Díaz de la Portilla’s funding of his brother Renier’s run for a county judgeship.
Neither Renier nor the Centners have been charged within the case.
Alex Díaz de la Portilla, who as soon as served because the Republican majority chief within the Florida Senate, was arrested September 14 shortly after he attended a public assembly at metropolis corridor. Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended him from workplace the next day.
Díaz de la Portilla’s lawyer, Benedict Kuehne, characterised the fees as a politically motivated farce.
“This motion has been timed and executed for shock and awe functions.”
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“This motion has been timed and executed for shock and awe functions, to create the utmost injury to Commissioner Díaz de la Portilla’s marketing campaign and his household,” Kuehne stated in an announcement offered to New Times. “This is nothing greater than prosecutorial abuse of our courtroom system, abuse of course of, and the unlucky weaponization of regulation enforcement focusing on an efficient and conservative Republican lawmaker by a Democrat state lawyer for political functions and profession development.”
The FDLE alleges Díaz de la Portilla was lower than a 12 months into his time period as Miami metropolis commissioner when he started receiving unlawful compensation and items from Riley, a lobbyist who was incomes a $500,000 wage on the Centners’ payroll.
Riley allegedly paid for an election-night “watch social gathering” on the East Hotel throughout Renier’s failed run for a Miami-Dade County Commission seat in 2020, amounting to $6,700 in room fees that included the decked-out penthouse suite. The lobbyist informed investigators he had volunteered to foot the invoice and believed the contributions can be reported by political committees managed by Alex Díaz de la Portilla, in accordance with the affidavit.
Investigators declare they later decided the Centners paid again Riley for the high-priced lodge social gathering.
“Contrary to his assertion to investigators, Riley was reimbursed for the funds on the East Hotel by the Centners, who on the time have been looking for to realize the affect and assist of Alex Díaz de la Portilla in furtherance of no less than one among their aims — the best to construct an indoor leisure facility on city-owned land at Biscayne Park,” FDLE claims.
According to his skilled profile, David Centner grew up within the Miami space earlier than heading off to Wharton Business School in Philadelphia. He made his fortune by means of early ventures in web promoting and the sale of his toll-processing firm, Highway Toll Administration LLC.
In 2019, Centner and his spouse Leila opened the Centner Academy, a high-end non-public college that at the moment teaches pre-Kindergarten by means of highschool, with elementary-grade tuition at greater than $27,000 a 12 months. The college would make world headlines in 2021 by the use of a radical anti-vaccine coverage below which lecturers have been barred from lecture rooms if that they had obtained a COVID-19 shot.
Centner stated in an announcement that he’s refraining from commenting on the felony case on the request of prosecutors.
“With that being stated, we want to guarantee everyone that we’re not being accused of any wrongful acts nor have we finished something fallacious,” Centner stated.
David and Leila Centner attend Haute 100 Dinner Brickell City Centre on November 7, 2019 in Miami, Florida.
State investigators declare that between June 2020 and August 2022, cash from the Centners was funneled to Díaz de la Portilla’s two political committees through a Delaware firm arrange by Riley: Pristine DE LLC. The political committees obtained $245,000 in contributions from Riley’s firm and the Centners, in accordance with the affidavit.
Most of the contributions cited by investigators have been allegedly directed to the political committees within the months main as much as a 2020 vote on the Biscayne Park sports activities complicated, together with the $50,000 examine payable to one among Díaz de la Portilla’s committees two days earlier than the vote.
On October 22, 2020, the Miami metropolis fee adopted the decision authorizing the town supervisor to barter with the David and Leila Centner Family Foundation to construct out the leisure facility, in accordance with the affidavit.
Final approval of the Centners’ proposed facility didn’t come till April 2022, when the fee waived a aggressive bidding requirement and gave the mission a inexperienced gentle at a metropolis assembly attended by Riley.
FDLE says that Díaz de la Portilla didn’t file a public discover of his battle of curiosity for each the October 2020 and April 2022 votes.
Riley was booked alongside Díaz de la Portilla at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami. He faces counts of felony conspiracy, failure to reveal lobbying bills, and supplying illegal compensation.
Riley’s lawyer, Kendall Coffey, maintained that Riley’s lobbying actions have been authorized. The lawyer stated in an announcement to the Real Deal that the arrest affidavit is “fraught with error” and that they might show as a lot in courtroom.
FDLE says Díaz de la Portilla didn’t file a public discover of his battle of curiosity
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Díaz de la Portilla, a longtime Florida state senator and fixture in Miami politics, is charged with cash laundering, bribery, felony conspiracy, official misconduct, illegal compensation, and failure to report items.
He’s additionally going through a cost stemming from his political committees’ allegedly unlawful funding of his brother Renier’s 2022 marketing campaign for a county choose seat. The committees funded “tens of hundreds of mailers that includes ‘assault adverts'” in opposition to Renier’s opponent, Miami-Dade County Judge Fred Seraphin, FDLE alleges. The mailers demanded the discharge of the choose’s “arrest file,” an obvious reference to a decades-old never-prosecuted case in opposition to Seraphin whereas he was pursuing a regulation diploma within the Eighties.
The mailers led to a bar criticism in opposition to Renier, who maintained on the time that Alex was the one behind the adverts.
FDLE says one among Díaz de la Portilla’s committees paid a printing firm $72,000 on behalf of Renier’s marketing campaign in “an unlawful subsidy” to supply assault adverts in opposition to Seraphin.
If the contribution had been deemed an “impartial expenditure,” the committee can be within the clear, in accordance with the courtroom paperwork. But investigators declare Alex coordinated immediately with Renier’s marketing campaign, which means there was a $1,000 statutory cap on expenditures below Florida regulation.
Kuehne claimed that his shopper Díaz de la Portilla “has finished nothing fallacious.”
“Rest assured, Commissioner Díaz de la Portilla will win this battle and proceed his struggle on behalf of the residents of Miami,” the lawyer informed New Times on the heels of the arrest.