In what could seem like a hasty and behind-closed-doors decision, the Miami Lakes Council agreed to pay former Mayor Michael Pizzi — who was arrested in 2013 on federal bribery charges but acquitted a year later — for $1.7 million for the legal fees he incurred in his defense.
Wasn’t this supposed to come back for a hearing with public input?
That’s what Ladra inferred when newly-elected Councilman Bryan Morera said after the divided May 14 council vote — that the public had not been shut out because there was still an opportunity for input. “All we did was give our attorney the instruction to go and negotiate that settlement,” Morera said back then.
Today, he says, eh, whatever.
“I thought it would come up as a stand-alone item on the agenda in the June meeting. It didn’t,” he texted Ladra late Thursday. “Instead it came up as a part of the carry forward budget item, which included funding for the first payment. Anyone against the item could have spoken out against passing the carry forward budget with that allocation.”
Read related: Miami Lakes votes to pay Michael Pizzi $1.7 million in legal fees in bribery case
He said the earlier post on Political Cortadito and in the Miami Laker had alerted everyone. But nobody published when the council would consider it again. It was not an agenda item so nobody knew until the end of the meeting. How could the public comment on it?
Ladra doesn’t know what budget allocation he was talking about but on Tuesday, at the end of a nearly 7-hour meeting, just before the council adjourned, Town Attorney Raul Gastesi brought up the Pizzi settlement in his report.
“We made the offer. They accepted it,” Gastesi said, adding that “the first payment will be made in 30 days,” meaning 30 days from the agreement — that’s $625,000 on or about July 7. Another half million is payable in January 2025 and another half million in January 2026. Just in time to pay the holiday bills.
Mayor Manny Cid, who voted against negotiating a settlement last month — when the council voted to offer the deal without it being on the agenda then either — immediately tried to dissuade his colleagues.
“I personally believe that we are grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory,” said Cid, who is running for Miami-Dade mayor and has been hit on the $1.7 million payout by Daniella Levine Cava‘s political action committee as if the settlement was his doing. Again: He voted against it.
“I was there. Nobody can tell me what happened because I was there. The facts are on our side,” Cid said.
Pizzi was caught in 2013 conspiring with FBI agents posing as grant facilitators willing to steal U.S. funds meant for economic development. In a separate but equal sting, Sweetwater Mayor Manny Maroño, was also arrested on the same charges. Maroño pled guilty and was sentenced to three and a half years. Pizzi, who took a $3,000 cash payment from a lobbyist in the closet of his office and another envelope in the bathroom of a pool hall, was acquitted in 2014 after his team of eight of the county’s most prominent attorneys was able to sell the jury on the slightest shadow of a doubt.
In 2015, Pizzi sued to regain the seat he was suspended from after his arrest and won. He then turned around and sued the town for his legal fees in both the civil and criminal cases.
Cid the case was clear cut: Pizzi took the money for his campaign, so he was not acting on behalf of the town.
“I believe we would win in the long run. Just because one judge ruled against us it doesn’t mean we have to fold,” Cid said.
Councilman Josh Dieguez, who is running for Miami Lakes mayor, was a little patronizing in his response. “This is exactly what I expect a lay person who is not in the law to say,” said the attorney who works at his dad’s small firm in Miami Lakes. Dieguez meant it as a dig, but nobody likes attorneys.
“At the end of the day, it’s about what you can prove. One thing is what you know and another thing is what you can prove,” Dieguez said, adding that it was two judges who have ruled against the town in the litigation, after Pizzi sued for the reimbursement in 2015. He said he did believe that the facts were on the city’s side, but that the protracted legal battle was costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Read related: Miami Lakes votes to pay Michael Pizzi $1.7 million in legal fees in bribery case
“In essence, 12 or so police officers we could have hired,” Dieguez said. “This is an argument about money.”
He also said that there are many items that pass in council meetings without sufficient notice, which is something weird for an elected to admit on the dais. He’s okay with that?
This vote lends credence to las malas lenguas who were saying before the election that Morera would be the swing vote needed to make the settlement happen.
Cid said something Tuesday about transferring wealth from the working class to the powerful, to get it on the record because, well, that’s his campaign theme.
“I know for a fact that the facts are on our side and we would win in the long run.”
But facts didn’t matter in Pizzi’s criminal trial, either.
Miami Lakes votes to pay former Mayor Michael Pizzi $1.7 million for legal fees added by Ladra on
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