Campaign $pending $tays a $ecret

We still don’t know, with one day left to choose, how much really has been invested in the frentic and expensive bid to become the recall replacement mayor of Miami-Dade for the next 16 months. Together, and as of the last report filed earlier this month, both candidates had more than $3.5 million to put […]

Campaign emails & wasted time

Both candidates in the big Miami-Dade mayor’s race are making last minute pleas and appeals for votes, sometimes in the unlikeliest of places. Like Julio Robaina with cabbies who can’t vote and Carlos Gimenez with 20-somethings who can but won’t. Supporters for both candidates have sent mass emails out asking their friends to vote and […]

1st Hialeah Bank of Julito, Part II

Former Hialeah mayor Julio Robaina keeps saying he is the best man to oversee the county’s $7-billion budget. But his own 1st Hialeah Bank of Julito seems to be in financial trouble. Robaina’s bank is apparently $1.7 million in the hole on personal high interest loans made in the past few years, some of which […]

Robaina booted from illegal event

When former Hialeah mayor Julio Robaina — who we hear owns several taxi cab medallions himself — rallied with cabbies at Miami International Airport on Tuesday, he violated a county ordinance that prohibits campaigning at MIA. And he was kicked off the property. Miami-Dade Aviation Department Director Jose Abreu told Ladra that he heard about […]

Ladra’s open letter to Julio Robaina

Mr. former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina: With little more than a week to go before Election Day, I write this open letter so that you know that I am still very much interested in an opportunity to hear personally from you on any issues or concerns you have about this race and coverage of both […]

Prediction: Centorino gets post

No wonder there seems to be little activity on the loud and outraged accusations of bribery, usury or mortgage or tax fraud against one of the mayoral candidates or on complaints about absentee ballot fraud: Assistant Miami-Dade State Attorney Joe Centorino, chief of the public corruption unit, has one foot out the door. Centorino is […]

Meek trumps Luke for Gimenez

Mayoral candidate Carlos Gimenez might have hoped the now-nefarious Luther Campbell nod would have been enough to let him concentrate on his core constituency of supporters. But when that went south, he started doing other things and spending time (and money) in the black community. Last weekend, he visited several African-American and Haitian churches and […]

Luke’s lame excuses don’t jive

Former mayoral candidate and musical empresario Luther Campbell can rap until he is blue in the face and say that he didn’t ask for a job for his friend and campaign ally in return for his endorsement of county mayoral run-off candidate Julio Robaina, who just a few weeks ago was an “overlord” who bought […]

Redfern backs Gimenez, at last

Who needs Uncle Luke? Carlos Gimenez has snagged himself the sister! While it may not come as a surprise, Gabrielle Redfern has become the third of the former candidates in the May 24 mayoral race to endorse the former county commissioner in the June 28 runoff. With endorsements from former State Rep. Marcelo Llorente (REP, […]

Questions re the Bank of Julito

We’ve heard for months now that state and federal authorities are investigating former Hialeah mayor Julio Robaina, a candidate for Miami-Dade mayor, for possible loan sharking activities (or “usury” like the feds call it or “shadow banking” like the media calls it) as well as possible tax evasion from the, naturally, non-reported income of such […]