Carlos Curbelo backers include a loanshark, a felon, a racist

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In his bid for U.S. Congress, Miami-Dade School Board Member Carlos “Crybaby” Curbelo likes to bring out his GOP establishment endorsements over and over again and parade them in front of us: Jeb Bush, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, Mitt Romney.

But he has other endorsements or backers — contributors to his campaign coffers — that never make it to his mailers or his press releases. Maybe because he doesn’t feel as proud about them and their felonies, official abuses or falls from grace.

The cast of characters includes:

• Former State Rep. Ralph Arza, the disgraced ex lawmaker, forced to resign in 2006 after he left an expletive-laced, threatening message with racial slurs on a colleague’s voice mail. Arza has been popping up here and there, working behind the scenes on the campaigns of former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina for county mayor in 2011 and Doral Mayor Luigi Boria more recently. Arza, who is also linked to the booming charter school industry, contributed at least $2,650 to Curbelo’s campaign.
• Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez — who admitted to usury as recently as this past April in federal court in Robaina’s tax evasion trial. Hernandez, who gave $1,000 to the campaign June, was already a known loanshark even before he admitted charging a 36% interest on loans in open court. He’s also a champion of the mafia-run maquinita industry and a violator of first amendment rights who is constantly helping his cronies, retaliating against employees who don’t support his political agenda and has been accused of several quid pro quos on the dais.
• Fausto and Remedios Diaz Oliver, millionaires who admitted to and were convicted of tax evasion and customs fraud 15 years ago. The Diaz Olivers hosted a fundraiser for Curbelo, starring Mitt Romney, on Monday night and Remedios contributed $2,600 to his campaign.
• Demetrio Perez, Jr., who pleaded guilty in 2002 to felony charges of defrauding three elderly tenants in his low-income Little Havana apartments. Shortly after he pleaded guilty, a Miami Herald investigation alleged he also pocketed more than $1 million in rent payments from public school funds that were meant to benefit a program for at-risk children. Oh, and he seemed to have a similar racket, er, I mean nice arrangement going on with his Lincoln-Martí charter school in Hialeah. In 2010, the Herald reported that Lincoln Marti paid $744,000 — about a quarter of the school’s $3 million budget — in rent to Perez’s own real estate company. No wonder Demetriquito — who gets hundreds of thousands of dollars in business from the school board — can afford to give Curbelo at least $5,600 for his campaign.

My mother always said “dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres.” And Ladra finds it a bit disconcerting that a candidate for Congress would count these people as his allies and look the other way as they perform their crimes and/or shenanigans.

What else would he tolerate in Washington?

And the whiny little pinhead has the nerve to attack Rep. Joe Garcia on his absentee ballot fraud scandal and fellow Republican David Rivera for his multiple investigations and alleged but still unproven role into the campaign finance fraud perpetuated by Justin Lenard Sternad? Even Ladra? Really? With that many glass walls in his house?

Curbelo hasn’t called Ladra back to comment on anything since I wrote about him hiding his clients by putting his company, Capitol Gains, in his wife’s name so he wouldn’t have to list them on his financial disclosure forms.

But doesn’t Crybaby seem like the second easiest candidate of the five Republicans in the primary — after embattled former Congressman David Rivera, of course — for Garcia to rip apart in the general election should he even get that far?

  Carlos Curbelo, Carlos Hernandez, julio Robaina