In another example of selective enforcement, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle announced Tuesday that it had charged Sweetwater Commissioner Sophia Lacayo with perjury for swearing that she lived inside the city — where she was elected in May of 2019 — when she really lives in unincorporated Miami-Dade.
Lacayo was forced to resign as part of her plea deal (no time) and sentenced to one year probation for the first degree misdemeanor (perjury when not in an official proceeding), with no eligibility for early release, during which time she is forbidden from running for office.
Her three-sentence resignation letter, submitted Monday before the news broke about the perjury charge, does not mention the reason why she resigned. And Mayor Orlando Lopez — who did not respond to texts from Ladra — told Univision it was a surprise.
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“It is with a heavy heart that I formally resign my position as Commissioner of the City of Sweetwater effective immediately,” Lacayo wrote in the resignation letter dated Aug. 31.
“It has been my honor and privilege to serve the people of Sweetwater and I thank them from the bottom of my heart for the faith they placed in me through their vote. I will continue to serve and fight for our community in my unofficial capacity and will strive for a better quality of life for every resident of Sweetwater,” the letter said.
Last year, with the documents presented to run for commissioner — beating Manuel Duaso and Isolina Marono with 51% of the vote in the first round — Lacayo provided a sworn statement that she lived at 11132 SW 7th St. She said in the affidavit that she had lived there since August 2018 and, furthermore, that she had lived at the address next door the two years prior. She also stated her spouse, from whom she said she was separated, lived at 7701 SW 147th Ct. Miami-Dade property records show she co-owns the 4-bedroom, 3-bath house worth $332,000 in Kendale Lakes.
An investigation, that apparently took a year, found that she did not live on 7th Street. Seems they could have closed this sooner, seeing as how the landlord at the Sweetwater address verified that Lacayo did not live there.
Late Tuesday, Lacayo returned a text message and said that her “press team” would contact Political Cortadito on Wednesday.
“Deliberately swearing to false information in order to run for a City Commission seat, as occurred here, deceived those voters who believed in the candidate,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement. “Such a deliberate action can never have a good result for a city.”
Ya think?
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Lacayo is low hanging fruit. Easy pickings. Because Miami-Dade is thick with electeds who don’t live in their required city/district. Why hasn’t Fernandez Rundle charged Miami-Dade School Board Member Larry Feldman, who lived outside his district for decades? Is it because he is a Democrat like her? Or is it because his name does not end in z or a vowel? Because the only people who seem to get in trouble for living outside their electoral districts are Hispanics (remember former State Rep. Daisy Baez?).
But seriously, is she protecting his election machinery because it’s hers, too? Why are some people allowed to get away with this and some aren’t?
As part of the plea deal, Lacayo will be required to take an ethics course with the Miami Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust — talk about too little, too late — and pay various investigative cost recovery fees.
As per the city charter, Sweetwater’s other commissioners have 90 days to appoint someone or have a special election, said City Clerk Carmen Garcia.
Sweetwater’s Sophia Lacayo charged with perjury for living outside city added by Ladra on
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