Miami-Dade sheriff candidate ‘James’ Reyes is really Jems Reyes on paper

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What’s in a name?

For Miami-Dade Public Safety Director James Reyes, a longtime employee of the Broward Sheriff’s Office working in corrections who was appointed six months ago to the new position just before he threw his hat into the Miami-Dade sheriff’s race, it’s an extra vowel. Because James Reyes is also Jems Reyes.

Reyes, if that is his real last name, is Jems Reyes on his driver’s license. His 2008 marriage license to Amanda Blake Lee is also in the name of Jems Reyes, and records show their $642,000 home (market value) in Miramar is owned by Amanda Lee and Jems Reyes. Not James Reyes.

He was Col. Jems Reyes at the BSO as recently as 2019, according to a memo he sent requesting $129,000 in appropriations for various community organizations.

His voter’s registration, which is in Broward County, is in the name Jems Reyes.

Read related: Miami-Dade Sheriff’s race expands with Dem Broward candidate James Reyes

Ladra recognizes that the pronunciation could be similar, especially when said with a Spanish accent. And there are plenty of Cubans whose English-sounding names are spelled phonetically. Who doesn’t have a primo or know a balsero named Mykel?

But wouldn’t the right thing to do is to put “James” in quotes? One could think that Jems Reyes trying to hide something.

The campaign says it’s the result of a technical error when Reyes first came to the U.S.

“As a former political prisoner in Cuba, James’s father took pride in giving his son an American name — a subtle act of protest against the Castro regime,” said campaign consultant Christian Ulvert. “When James was a young boy and his family fled communism to find freedom and a new home in Hialeah, some of his documents were misspelled.

“As an immigrant, it’s a reality that James embraced and has been navigating since leaving Cuba as a child,” Ulvert said.

Reyes told Political Cortadito that the documents were misspelled way before that, as a child on the island — likely intentionally by the government — and he is proud of the history that both his names come with. He does not want to give up either one.

“My father named me James. It was his way to protest against Castro and communism,” Reyes said. The Cuban government, naturally, poked back, spelling the name Jems on school certificates and other official documents, he told Ladra. Challenging that was useless. But now, he’s come to appreciate the fact that his name rubbed Cuban government officials the wrong way.

“Part of my identity has always had the Jems, going back as far as I can remember. It’s part of who I am,” Reyes told Ladra. “It’s become part of my struggle, my story. It’s a constant reminder of what my parents went through to get me to this country, and I’m proud of it.”

Ladra wonders if his parents know that Ulvert went to Cuba in 2016 with his then client, former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, and was given a tour of Havana by by government officials. They practiced tai-chi in Revolutionary Square. They got official gifts and returned the favor with a commemorative Miami Beach coin. Levine and then commissioner Ricky Arriola — the first two electeds from the 305 to visit Cuba in more than 50 years — had a sit-down, face-to-face interview with senior KGB-trained Cuban spy Gustavo Machin.

They liked it so much in Cuba, that they came back and proposed that the Cuban regime open a consular office in Miami Beach. Does Jems Reyes’ parents know about that?

Read related: Miami Beach mayor invites Castros to open Cuban consulate

Reyes is considered the Democrat frontrunner in the race, likely to win the primary without much fuss. He only has three opponents, as most of the 17 candidates for the new constitutional office are Republican. Reyes has raised $400,000, as of the last campaign finance reports reflecting the first quarter of the year. He is way ahead of most candidates. And he has the endorsement of Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who also works with Ulvert.

Las malas lenguas say that Ulvert and La Alcaldesa knew that Reyes was going to run for sheriff (read: that they were going to run Reyes for sheriff) — or recruited him after Freddy Ramires tried to blow his head off and blew his political career, instead — and his November appointment to his current position has its strategic advantages.

He will move his family to Miami-Dade after the election, Reyes told Ladra. He doesn’t have to move first. Nothing says the Mami-Dade sheriff can’t live in Broward or Monroe or Palm Beach for that matter, and other candidates (Republican Rosanna Cordero-Stutz and Demorat John Barrow) also live in Broward.

“But, for me, [moving] is the right thing to do,” he said.

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Reyes, who went to public school in Hialeah, says he doesn’t want to interrupt the school year for his three children, a 10-year-old and 8-year-old twins. But it’s close to the end of the school year. Wouldn’t the right thing to do is move this summer, before the election? Would he still move “back home,” as he says, if he doesn’t win?

The 46-year-old also admitted that he’s never patrolled a street in his life. But he says it doesn’t matter. “I’m the only candidate in this race who has executive leadership experience in a sheriff’s office. I’m not running to be the police chief,” Reyes told Political Cortadito.

He says none of the other candidates have overseen everything he does in Miami-Dade day to day — fire rescue, the 911 center, police, corrections. “I’m trying to run on my track record.”

His entire career is in Broward because that’s where the opportunity was, he said.

“They were growing exponentially, signing contracts with municipalities and building a jail. It was an opportunity for professional growth and personal growth,” Reyes said.

Now the opportunity has brought him to Miami-Dade. “I love challenging the status quo.”

  James Reyes, Miami-Dade sheriff