More details were released after we first broke the story on Assistant Miami City Attorney Veronica “Little Miss Ultra” 
Diaz, the party girl and subject of two ethical investigations who has taken a leave of absence while she runs for judge.
And, from what Ladra hears, more is yet to come.
The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust released a close-out memo on their investigation that states Diaz intentionally steered work — and taxpayer dollars — to the lawfirm of her boyfriend, Ben Alvarez, who has multiple complaints before the Florida Bar for his ultra badness, too.
But while this inquiry closes, the investigation into the comp gifting of Ultra Music Festival tickets has expanded to multiple city employees — including Diaz and her bosses, former City Attorney Julie Bru and current City Attorney Victoria “Vicky” Mendez.
Sources tell Ladra that both got the pricy VIP tickets to the drugged-out rave at Bayfront Park. Bru took one complimentary ticket and, apparently sensing it was wrong to comp another, worked her email to get a ticket for her plus one. Maybe that is why she came out in defense of Diaz for the Alvarez thing. Investigators may also be looking at employees in other departments, particularly commissioners’ offices. So it’s not just the city attorneys office acting all unethical. It’s everyone.
Hopefully, we’ll hear more about that investigation before election day, but judging from the s
cope — there are thousands of comped tickets that are unaccounted for — it may take a bit longer.
But it doesn’t bode well for Diaz, who already has a strike against her in the ethical wars. It’s almost a slap in the face that she uses the word ethics in her campaign literature.
The Ethics Commission investigator said “the appearance of impropriety is strong” when Diaz — who was known last year as Veronica Xiques and apparently changed her name for the ballot — went through a third party in 2012 and 2013 to eventually steer thousands of dollars in real estate title work to Alvarez. She used an attorney at her boyfriend’s firm who had her own corporation and the necessary insurance and bonding that Alvarez lacked for title work on what became a complicated real estate transaction.
Read related story: For Judge: Renier DLP vs. Veronica D — promise vs. puppet
The ethics investigator called this third party attorney a “pass through for Alvarez.”
“What the city didn’t know at the time — and which nobody appears to have disclosed — [is] she was required to transfer its entire fee to the law firm run by Diaz’s live-in boyfriend, Alvarez, under the terms of [her] employment arrangement with Alvarez Carbonell,” investigator Lawrence “Larry” Lebowitz wrote in his final report.
Alvarez was the one who brought the work to the attorney at his firm, the investigator notes. She never met or spoke to Diaz.
“While there were legitimate reasons for the city to hire [the pass-through’s] solely owned affiliate firm…since it maintained all of the appropriate title insurance licenses and escrow accounts, it served to obscure the fact that firm would ultimately be required to pass through the entirety of its fees to Alvarez’s firm.”
Isn’t that called money laundering in other arenas?
The Miami City Attorney’s Office is allowed to by-pass the normal bidding process required of other departments and can award contracts without as much as a rotating contract system.
But Lebowitz wrote that “the appearance of impropriety is strong.” Ladra says he’s being nice. The appearance of undue influence and downright graft is strong. After all, Little Miss Ultra would been in violation of county code if she and Alvarez, who have lived together for four years, were married.
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