Hialeah AB update: Boletera to turn herself in

• Tweet
• Sumo

• Tweet

Daisy Cabrera, the Hialeah boletera caught red-handed Wednesday with 19 ballots in her possession, not 12 as I first reported here, met with her Coral Gables attorney, Eric Castillo, Thursday morning at her apartment on West 41st Street in Hialeah. Some reporters who got there before Ladra reported that she had left with him but others are telling me that she is still there as of 1 p.m. — holed up inside.

She is expected to turn herself in at some point today either to the Miami-Dade Public Corruption Unit — who had stopped and questioned Cabrera and herapparent driver, Matilde Martinez — or the State Attorney’s Office to be charged with a third misdemeanor crime of collecting more than two ballots at once. I’ve left Castillo a message with his answering service, who said he was out to lunch.

Details also surfaced overnight that she does have connections to the campaign for Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who has embraced the evil endorsment of the Hialeah hoodlums and their political machinery and deserves all the flack he gets for this AB transgression. While the private detective who was following them said he caught them on tape going into the Gimenez campaign office in Hialeah, the only video we have seen, which aired on Univision 23 Thursday, has her going to the post office and the elections department. The video does show Cabrera at his campaign office opening party earlier this month. Why didn’t anyone point her out to me when I was there?

Did she also happen to go to the celebration of the unholy alliance at La Carreta, like dentist Victor Verjano, one of the other ballot collecting soldiers? Or the meeting at the ballroom the night before, with Emelina Llanes, yet another ballot collecting soldier? Does the Gimenez campaign have the entire Hialeah boletero family working for them?

This is what happens when you deal with criminals, embrace their unholy alliance and legitimize their bull, Mr. Mayor. Three words: Told ya so.

Sources tell Ladra that more arrests may follow. After all, either the cops or private investigators that work with the cops were following her and Martinez for a few days.

But Ladra has one question. Why are the cops so hot on Cabrera today? They’ve known about her at least since last year, when Hialeah Council candidates Frank Lago and Cindy Miel went to the public corruption unit with a story about how Cabrera offered to get them hundreds of AB votes in exchange for thousands of dollars. Why didn’t they do anything about Emelina Llanes, caught red-handed and also on video as she collected absentee ballots in public housing units during the Hialeah election last year? They had the video. Heck, everyone had that video. They had all my info on connections. They knew she was driving the mayor’s car with her license plate on it. They knew that last year. We have so much documentation — me and the Hialeah firefighters and former Hialeah Chief Rolando Bolanos. They didn’t move on it.

Are they moving on it this year, less than three weeks before the Aug. 14 primary, because the PBA endorsed Commission Chairman Joe Martinez?

And why is Miami-Dade State Attorney Kathy Fernandez-Rundle finally moving on absentee ballot fraud? She and her department also knew about these operations last year. Ladra has spoken with both Fernandez-Rundle herself and Assistant State Attorney Johnnie Hardemon about these things?

Could it be that as she faces a real challenge to her re-election in Rod Vereen, she wants a public corruption arrest to make her look good?

Joe Carillo, the private investigator who caught the women on tape going into the Gimenez campaign headquarters on West 68th Street said he didn’t care about any of that.

“We were trying to investigate crimes and tell the police about them,” Carillo told me over the telephone this afternoon. The P.I. — who was involved in the 2006-2007 Hialeah election fraud investigation, said some of the people he met back then called him about these ladies.

“They said something fishy was going on and that these people are known to collect absentee ballots,” Carillo said.

It didn’t take long for him to link Cabrera and Martinez to the Gimenez campaign.

“This lady led us to homes where there is Carlos Gimenez literature and to the campaign office on 68th Street,” Carillo told me.

He insisted that he was not working for any candidate or for the police department.

“My agenda is not to get to anybody. I don’t know Joe Martinez. Carlos Gimenez is a friend of mine. We went to high school together,” Carillo said. “He’s not my target. He’s my friend. I don’t want to do him any harm. I don’t want to mess up any candidate.”

Carillo said he was — like Ladra — just sick of the manipulation and outright fraud he has seen with absentee ballots and decided to do something on his own.

After being burned by one pretending P.I. last year, Ladra has a hard time trusting those Magnum types. But sources say that the U.S. Postal Inspector is also involved and actually has possession of the ballots that Cabrera was holding. That makes me feel a little better.

Ladra could not be happier that the AB machinery is finally being busted wide open. But she questions the motives behind the moves now.