Miami-Dade School Board Member Carlos “Crybaby” Curbelo may not want to disclose who the clients of his lobbying firm 
are, but public records may shed a little light on at least some of his business partners throughout the years.
His company, Capitol Gains — the one he has listed under his wife’s name — also employs lobbyist Roy Schultheis. He is one of the original members of the Capitol Gains “team,” along with Nicole Rapanos, who is now the campaign manager. Schultheis describes himself on LinkedIn as “Partner at Capitol Gains and Principal Broker at Investment Bankers Group Inc. DBA Capitol Gains Finance.”
Both Schultheis and Curbelo worked together on the Fred Thompson presidential bid in Florida n 2007 and each registered as lobbyists with the state in 2012 for Genting and it’s interests in a waterfront casino resort in downtown Miami. Schultheis also registered for XTec, a Miami-based manufacturer of sophisticated security and authentication systems that earlier this year was awarded a $102.8-million, 10-year contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and could be in line for work with the U.S. Navy.
That’s right: The wannabe congressman’s business partner lobbies a firm that got a $100-million federal contract.
Maybe this is why he doesn’t want us to know who his clients are.
Ladra called Curbelo and left him a voice mail message and also sent an email to him and one of his campaign aides regarding some of the people he’s done business with. I’ve gotten no response but I suspect I won’t since I haven’t heard directly from Curbelo — a coward who would rather falsely accuse me of extortion on TV — since Political Cortadito exposed the fact that he hides his business under his wife’s name.
Read related story: Carlos Curbelo hides lobbying client list under wife’s skirt
God bless public records.
Curbelo and Schultheis, who contributed $2,600 to Curbelo for Congress, only billed (or said they billed) between $40,000 and $60,000 in 2012 for their representation. That same year, Curbelo made $100,000 salary from Capitol Gains, his lobbying firm even though he put it under his wife’s name in 2009. One would imagine Schultheis made something also.
In 2009, when Schultheis first registered as a lobbyist for Capitol Gains and XTec, he also registered for Areas, USA, a subsidiary of a Spanish company which may be doing business in Cuba. Prior to having found that connection, Ladra was told by very good sources close to Curbelo that he himself had worked for Areas, securing a concession’s contract at eight Florida Turnpike rest stops the firm was recently awarded.
This does not provide a conflict of interest, necessarily, for Curbelo’s elected office at the School Board. But it could present a problem for his congressional campaign in a predominantly Hispanic district with a high number of high performing Cuban voters.
Maybe this is why he doesn’t want us to know who his clients are.
Schultheis, a fellow Belen Jesuit School Wolverine, is also president of Miami Commodity Group, Corp., a firm created in the summer of 2012. But before that, he used to be one of the principals in Florida Infrastructure Alliance. The other two directors were Curbelo and Jesse Manzano, the 2012 campaign manager for Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez — you know, the one in which the mayor sold his soul to the devil. Curbelo, Manzano and Schultheis formed the company in 2009 and let it be administratively dissolved when they failed to file an annual report.
Hmmmm. Wasn’t that around the same time that Manzano was working on the Miami Marlins deal with the county? It’s also around the same time Curbelo put his company in his wife’s name and decided to run for the school board.
Maybe this is why he doesn’t want us to know who his clients are.
Read related story: Surprise! Carlos Curbelo won’t disclose his client list
Curbelo also had two other firms called Capitol Creations and Capitol Concepts with partner Daniel O. Lopez, opened in 2006 and dissolved administratively in 2008, which is the year before he went to go work for then Sen. George LeMieux in 2009 and put his company, Capitol Gains, in his wife’s name.
He is still listed, however, as one of the principals in Centre Court Charities, Inc. — which is curiously a for profit company, not a 501c3 — also with his wife, Cecilia, and Daniel Lopez, who formed his own new company, Tupa Properties, last year. Centre Court Charities is listed as a “Boys Clubs” activity. The organization’s mission was to provide a youth basketball league and reduce juvenile delinquency, according to paperwork submitted to the Florida Department of State.
Specifically, the group stated on its annual report that it instructs “high school students, principally at-risk kids to develop their capabilities through sports such as basketball. The league furnishes all of the equipment and facilities at no cost to the students. All of this with the humble & charitable intent of reducing juvenile delinquency.”
Centre Court Charities reported $21,625 in earnings and $20,024 in expenditures from 2009 to 2011.
It is listed as a “social services and welfare” organization for which, in three years, Curbelo has only been able to raise about $20,000 for in total. Guess a basketball league for at-risk kids isn’t as important as his Congressional dreams.
Little wonder Curbelo didn’t put that on his resumé for the GOP primary.
Maybe it is also because Nildo Verdeja, listed as one of the directors of Centre Court Charities from 2002 to 2009, was sued in 2007 for defrauding 14,000 Investors and for the unlawful sale of $250 million in securities. In 2010, according to the South Florida Business Journal, Verdeja was orderd by the court to pay $993,515 in disgorgement and a $200,000 civil penalty.
You won’t see Curbelo bring out his business ties to Ariel Pereda, either. That is because Pereda is an anti-embargo exile whose business today is to advise other companies on how to trade with Cuba. In other words, he helps distribute potato chips to the dollar stores on the island.
Documents show that Curbelo resigned as a managing member of a different Pereda company, PM Strategies, in 2005.
But what we don’t know is if PM Strategies of Pereda’s other firms then became a paying customer of Capitol Gains.
Maybe this is why he doesn’t want us to know who his clients are.
Who are some of Carlos Curbelo’s business partners? added by Ladra on
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