Former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla lost his seat when he was suspended by the governor after an arrest for bribery and money laundering, among other charges. He lost his election when he tried to get back into office in November. He lost his house to a foreclosure auction.
And now he’s going to lose his wife.
Vanessa Garcia Azzam filed for dissolution of marriage on Monday. They didn’t even make it a year.
Read related: Miami’s Alex Diaz de la Portilla arrested on corruption, pay-for-play park deal
Garcia Azzam, who used to be his communications aide in the city of Miami, now works in Miami-Dade Commissioner Keon Hardemon’s office. The couple wed in May of 2023. Garcia Azzam, 41, was with him on a trip to Boston that he took with lawyer lobbyist Bill Riley, who was also arrested with Diaz de la Portilla, 59, in September.
This is ADLP’s second divorce. He initiated the divorce process the first time in 2009 with Tallahassee lobbyist Claudia Davant.
Diaz de la Portilla was arrested in September on money laundering and political corruption charges — including unlawful compensation, bribery and criminal conspiracy — after a yearlong investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Broward State Attorney’s office. These charges stem from a commission vote last year to basically give Biscayne Park away to a private school whose lobbyist paid for the commissioner’s accommodations and a vacation, among other things, and served as his baby brother’s judicial campaign fundraiser.
That lobbyist, Bill Riley, was also charged with money laundering and bribery after investigators found that he funneled more than $245,000 from a Delaware company with Riley’s address into ADLP’s political action committees .
Read related: Private Centner Academy gets to run Miami public park for $10 million
Riley represents Centner Academy, a private school that grabbed national headlines in 2020 when it threatened to fire any teachers that got the COVID vaccine. In the Spring of 2022, Alex Diaz de la Portilla sponsored an item, approved unanimously by the commission, to let Centner Academy build a “state of the art” sports facility on the 3.7-acre park and provide programming. They promised to spend no less than $10 million on the facility and then share 50% of revenue from programming and concession sales with the city, using the other 50% for maintenance and security for the first 10 years.
In exchange, they get to use 33% of the public park exclusively all the time and another 33% exclusively for some hours during weekdays.
The private school, where tuition can peak at almost $30,000, is across the street from the park and will use the facility for its own physical education classes and sports activities. In fact, one third of the once public park is expected to be off limits to the public all the time. Two thirds of the park will be available to the general population — but only after school hours.
Last week, Diaz de la Portilla was granted a continuance on his criminal case, which is being prosecuted in Broward because Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle has yet another conflict of interest that prevents her from doing it.
Maybe the next thing he loses is his freedom.
Alex Diaz de la Portilla’s wife sues for divorce after arrest, foreclosure added by Ladra on
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