Closing arguments begin today in the trial against former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina and his wife on federal tax evasion and fraud charges. Then the jury will begin deliberations and we could have a verdict as early as Wednesday.
But has Robaina already been judged by his peers? Because there has been very little if any public outpouring of support.
Here is a guy who was favored to win the countywide mayoral election in 2011, who had the points according to all the polls, and who had an entourage approximately the same size as Prince’s. And yet the federal courthouse downtown has not been the celebrity-like scene that many expected for Robaina’s trial, as his friends and supporters have pretty much stayed away. That is, if he has any left.
There have been no protests exclaiming his innocence, no rallies for him, no vigils.
Former State Rep. Ralph Arza showed up for a couple of hours on the afternoon that Raiza Robaina testified. The disgraced ex lawmaker — who was forced to resign in 2006 after he left an expletive-laced, threatening message with racial slurs on a colleague’s voice mail — worked behind the scenes on Robaina’s mayoral campaign with his brother Hugo.
Reina Guanche, one of the city’s more active residents who helps during city elections with the distribution or gathering of absentee ballots at elderly homes, came by one day with a small busloads of seniors, like it was early voting or something.
Julio Ponce, the head of the Hialeah Housing Authority where the bulk of the City of Retrogress absentee ballot fraud occurs, a man who owes his career and paycheck to Robaina, has been in and out a couple of times only.
Even Robaina’s brother in law has not caught the whole trial.
At least he showed up.
Where is Sasha Tirador, Robaina’s trusty Absentee Ballot Queen, or his former campaign manager Ana Carbonell? Where are the brothers Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart? The retired and current Congressmen, respectively, who endorsed Robaina over then Miami-Dade Commissioner Carlos Gimenez, who went on to win the mayor’s race? For that matter, where is former rapper and New Times Miami columnist Luther Campbell, who ran in the primary and then surprisingly endorsed Robaina for the general? Or his favorite absentee ballot collector, Emelina Llanes?
Ladra guesses these people are not in his tight circle anymore.
The one person who has been to the trial most often is former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez, who is no friend of Robaina’s.
But Martinez told Ladra he is not there to gloat, as unlikely as that may seem.
“Why shouldn’t I be here? Why should I have to hide? Why not be here to hear the facts as they are presented in the trial? I do not want to have to read it in the newspaper,” Martinez said, adding that he has, indeed, learned things.
“A lot of interesting things are coming out that I was not aware of, things that happened in 2005 when I was still mayor,” he said.
One example: The friendship between current Mayor Carlos Hernandez — who testified that he also loaned money at illegal interest rates — and convicted Ponzi schemer Luis Felipe “Felipito” Perez.
“I thought the were old family friends and it turns out they met in 2005 or 2006,” Martinez said.
“I have the right to be here,” he added. “So nobody can tell me stories. I want to hear it myself.”
Ladra thinks it’s telling that so many of Robaina’s “friends” don’t.
Julio Robaina federal trial draws few friends, supporters added by Ladra on
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