Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago gave $5K to ADLP's PAC before arrest

The campaign finance reports filed last week by Coral Gables Vince Lago are pretty boring. He hasn’t raised any money either in his 2025 campaign account or in his political action committee in months, according to the most recent campaign finance records.

Not that he needs to. He has more than $656,000 in the PAC bank for an election in April of 2025.

One notable expenditure of the Coral Gables First PAC, however, is a $5,000 check to arrested and suspended Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla‘s PAC, Proven Leadership for Miami-Dade County. The contribution was made Aug. 1, six weeks before ADLP was arrested on public corruption charges that include money laundering, bribery and criminal conspiracy.

The PAC and how ADLP uses it as his own slush fund was a big part of the investigation.

Dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres.

Political Cortadito has already reported that ADLP “helped” Lago in his race against Commissioner Pat Keon two years ago. Diaz de la Portilla and his harem of Latina What’sApp groupies manned polling places on election day and the commissioner looked quite his happy hour self at the victory party. BTW, that’s Oscar de la Rosa, Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo‘s stepson and one of Lago’s real estate partners, in the victory photo with ADLP.

More recently, Lago and lawyer Bill Riley — who was arrested alongside ADLP in a pay-for-play scheme to give away a public park — worked together in the realty firm owned by de la Rosa, Rosa Commercial Real Estate, which sold the 1505 Ponce de Leon property for $35.5 million to Rishi Kapoor, the same developer paying Miami Mayor Francis Suarez $10,000 a month to “consult” while pulling permits for a project in the city of Miami. The FBI is investigating.

The sale by netted Rosa Commercial Real Estate a brokerage fee of $640,000. It’s normal to wonder how that money was split up between Lago, Riley, de la Rosa and Lago’s chief of staff Chelsea Granell, who was also listed as a realtor at the firm.

Lago won’t answer phone calls or text messages about this or anything. He is too busy going on the radio and playing victim, saying that he is being defamed while he defames three commissioners who don’t vote his way.

Meanwhile, as he paid the Miami mayor his “consultant” fee, Kapoor also “rented” a space across the street from the 1505 building that was supposed to be the sales office for the condos, a storefront at 1424 Ponce that had “coincidentally” just been purchased, according to property records, by Lago and a group of investors that include Steve Suarez, the cousin of the Miami mayor. “Rented” is in quotes because it never became a sales office. It sat vacant forever while Lago, Suarez and company were paid $12,410 a month after an initial $14,600.

That’s more than $150,000 for a space that was never used.

Or was it for something else?

Alex Diaz de la Portilla, PACs, Vince Lago

Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago gave $5K to ADLP’s PAC before arrest added by Ladra on October 17, 2023
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