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.
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Third World L’il Cuba Miami with the bananero politicians fighting over a banana peel. LOL
Building on what The Truth said…
Michelle and Alejandra are also best friends, for decades now. This is why 16 years worth of invoices are “missing” at MPA, particularly those that were paid to Michelle’s company while Art/Michelle the married.
Also, Art used to do this, now Alejandra, but they make MPA facilities available to Pradere Design to host industry events. I doubt Pradere pays a dime for that.
Not only are tax payer dollars being funneled to Pradere, but they also use MPA facilities for free!! See for yourself.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Couw917sMTF/?igsh=MTUyb3RmOXRrNng1YQ==
I also want to know how they got the contract for the newly remodeled Coral Gables library given all the players involved there.
LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK….
This is not about HER company’s legacy with the City of Miami (btw, her parents walked away from it DECADES ago when the daughters became REAL GOOD AT THE HUSTLE, very broadly defined and said with a wink) but the number of no bid deals (and the dollar amount $$ of those deals) SOARED since she hooked up with Noriega circa 2010-2012 (timeline is nebulous as he was married at that time). You read between the lines.
Ladra,
You do not explain anything to Evan. It seems Evan has own skeletons in his closet.
Art’s conflict existed even when he was at the Miami Parking Authority. The moment he entered into a personal relationship with Michelle all business with her company should have ceased. Any reasonable person would believe that business at the Miami Parking Authority or the City is being generated to steer it her way and to benefit them both.
As a matter of fact, it did occur, and it benefitted their family. Art and Michelle knew this and it could be proven. After all, why do you think she removed her hyphen name, Pradere-Noriega, from her invoices? Why the cover up?
And now comes the bombshell. Alejandra Argudin who is now the Executive Director at the Miami Parking Authority has followed in the same footsteps as Art. Art Noriega, her former boss, and Larry Spring, a former Miami Parking Authority Board Member are steering business to Alejandra’s husband’s firm, ADA Engineering.
Ladra, check yourself. I’m feeding you a bone. Run with it.
Dear Evan…as Ladra has pointed out before, Art Noriega spent 20 years as head of the Miami Parking Authority before he was named City Manager.
“Noriega Next” couldn’t be farther away from the truth. Michele Praderes’s company has been doing business with the City of Miami since 2008, under her father’s direction, and ages before Mr. Noriega ever got appointed as City Manager right before the pandemic started. You all sound like the typical hardcore liberals looking for a crime that fits the individual you want to bring down. I’d love to see how many of you have their own ass so clean as to pass the smell test… Yeah, that’s right: I didn’t think so.
Alex DLP stole 7 acres of a public park for the crazy Centeners who used Bill Riley as a bag man to pay off Alex. Biscayne Park should be returned to the public AND Art Noriega should be indicted and fired. AND con man Francis Suarez should be indicted and removed from office.
Ahhh, pobrecito. In the last 6 months he has been:
Arrested
Indicted
Suspended from office
Lost his parents house to foreclosure
Lost his re-election bid
Lost his social climbing wife (guy has nothing to offer without a title)
“Noriega Next” is right, Karma is a b…h. Word on the street is that he hasn’t left his brother’s apartment since his election loss and is lashing out at everyone. Clearly a sad mam without any future. The added benefit of him getting divorced is that our community is almost assured that he will never procreate. His bloodline ends with him.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he is committed and Baker Acted within the next few months. He was almost Baker Acted a few times in 2016 when he spent months at Jackson fraudulently claiming indigent status, essentially defrauding the federal government.
And his BFF Noriega is next. When that money pot of stolen taxpayer money dries up, Michele will move on to another cash cow. So funny — both couples were seen cozying up at the LBA fishing tournament in July. But when the attraction is power and money, then there isn’t much left to hold on to when you’re stripped of it all. Karma is a bitch, karma is an arrested commissioner, karma is a disgraced city manager.