Read more about the sprawling criminal case against Díaz de la Portilla here.
City of Miami Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla was arrested Thursday afternoon on counts of money laundering, bribery, and criminal conspiracy in an alleged scheme to conceal political contributions.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) claims that among other misconduct, Díaz de la Portilla accepted bribes from William W. Riley Jr., a lobbyist working for wealthy Miami tech entrepreneur David Centner and his wife Leila.
Investigators claim Riley's company illegally funneled tens of thousands of dollars to Díaz de la Portilla's political committees while the Centners were pushing the City of Miami for the rights to build a Biscayne Park sports complex for their controversial private school, the Centner Academy.
"Riley Jr. controlled a bank account in the name of a Delaware-based corporation to launder approximately $245,000 in concealed political contributions made by a management services company in exchange for permission to build a sports complex in the city of Miami," FDLE alleges.
Díaz de la Portilla is also charged with four counts of official misconduct, three counts of unlawful compensation, and two counts of failure to report a gift.
Additionally, FDLE alleges Díaz de la Portilla directed illegal contributions to his brother Renier's Miami-Dade County judicial campaign in 2022.
Riley, a Miami-Dade County attorney, is charged in the case alongside the commissioner in connection with the alleged bribery scheme.
The commissioner's attorney, Benedict Kuehne, tells New Times the arrest is "an outrage and a political assault on the City of Miami voters timed to alter the outcome of the District 1 election."
"This action has been timed and executed for shock and awe purposes, to create the maximum damage to Commissioner Díaz de la Portilla's campaign and his family," Kuehne says in a statement. "This is nothing more than prosecutorial abuse of our court system, abuse of process, and the unfortunate weaponization of law enforcement targeting an effective and conservative Republican lawmaker by a Democrat state attorney for political purposes and career advancement."
Riley's attorney has maintained his client's lobbying activities were legal.
Díaz de la Portilla and Riley Jr. were held on $72,000 and $46,000 bonds, respectively. Officers booked them into Turner Guilford Knight Detention Center in Miami following their arrest. The case is being prosecuted in Broward County court.
Renier and the Centners have not been charged in the case.
FDLE says Díaz de la Portilla operated two political committees used not only to support his brother’s campaign, but for personal expenditures as well.
Alex Diaz de la Portilla, 59, was booked into Turner Guilford Knight Detention Center at 3:14 p.m. on September 14, 2023.
Miami-Dade Corrections photo
"Records showed that one of the committees reported total donations of approximately $2.3 million and the other reported total donations of more than $800,000," the agency says.
A source with knowledge of the investigation tells New Times a warrant was signed for Díaz de la Portilla yesterday. The source, who asked not to be named for fear of employment repercussions, says that prior to his arrest, Díaz de la Portilla was holed up in his office at city hall, where the commission held a September 14 meeting. FDLE agents descended on city hall in the early afternoon.
"There are more people involved, more to come on this," the source tells New Times.
Kuehne maintains the charges are an "obvious ploy to remove an effective and honored public servant from office." (The full statement is attached below.)
Díaz de la Portilla, who was raised in Little Havana, has been a longtime fixture in Miami politics.
He was a member of the Florida House of Representatives from 1994 until 2000 before winning a seat in the Florida Senate, where he served for ten years until 2010, ending his term as the senate's Republican majority leader.
Díaz de la Portilla lost a special election for the Miami-Dade County Commission in 2018 to Eileen Higgins. The following year, he was elected to a Miami city commission seat vacated by term-limited Wifredo "Willy" Gort.
The commissioner's brother, attorney Renier Díaz de la Portilla, ran for a Miami-Dade County judgeship in 2022 and lost by a 13 percent margin to Fred Seraphin. The race was marked by a level of mudslinging uncommon in judicial contests, as mailers were sent out blasting Seraphin while referencing his "arrest record" on a charge of which he was cleared in the 1980s.
The conflict led to a bar complaint against Renier, who said Alex was the one behind the mailers. The commissioner stood by the mailer campaign, saying it was fair game after Seraphin made a disparaging remark about Renier at a Cuban lawyers' association meeting.
Renier previously served on the Miami-Dade County School Board and succeeded his brother for one term in the Florida House of Representatives
The brothers hail from a family of Cuban-American exiles.
Alex Díaz de la Portilla was recently sued by lobbyist and former state lawmaker Manuel Prieguez over allegations that the commissioner, former City of Miami commissioner Humberto "Bert" Hernandez, and real estate agent Anibal Duarte-Viera improperly pressured Prieguez's client in negotiations for a contract to redevelop the Rickenbacker Marina.
According to Prieguez, his client was pressured to add Duarte-Viera as a party to the potential deal.
Díaz de la Portilla characterized the civil case as a politically motivated stunt.
According to Díaz de la Portilla’s City of Miami profile, he has "championed an improved quality of life for the residents of District One through investments in infrastructure, parks, and cleanliness."
Read the full statement from Díaz de la Portilla's counsel:
Commissioner Díaz de la Portilla has done nothing wrong.Editor's note 9/15/2023 9:30 p.m.: This article was updated to include statements from Alex Díaz de la Portilla's attorney along with details of the criminal case that were not included in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's initial media release.
This arrest without notice or an opportunity to show that the charges are false and unsupported is an outrage and a political assault on the City of Miami voters timed to alter the outcome of the District 1 election.
This action has been timed and executed for shock and awe purposes, to create the maximum damage to Commissioner Díaz de la Portilla's campaign and his family. This is nothing more than prosecutorial abuse of our court system, abuse of process, and the unfortunate weaponization of law enforcement targeting an effective and conservative Republican lawmaker by a Democrat state attorney for political purposes and career advancement.
These false charges by the outsider Broward State Attorney's Office [are] an obvious ploy to remove an effective and honored public servant from office.
Rest assured, Commissioner Díaz de la Portilla will win this battle and continue his fight on behalf of the citizens of Miami.
