Michelle Spence-Jones has some new charges against her, bribery of a developer -- Armando Codina of all people. She was indicted today by a grand jury. She was recently the winner of a beauty contest on this blog for public officials that have been arrested. Grand theft and now bribery, she is a two time winner. The Miami Herald said of the most current charge:"At a March 23, 2006 commission meeting, project supporters asked elected officials to extend the designation for "Brickell Avenue" north across the Miami River -- a prominent address that would provide a potential boon in marketing the complex, now almost complete. The hotly debated item was delayed until April's commission meeting. But in between the meetings, prosecutors allege, Spence-Jones or a representative solicited $25,000 from Miami developer Armando Codina, whose company was handling the leasing of the project.
Codina agreed and paid $12,500 to a nonprofit organization later created by Spence-Jones, prosecutors say. He asked Ricardo Glas, of MDM Hotel Group, the project's chief builder, to pay another $12,500."
Since Codina didn't report it right away (if at all), the paper said prosecutors "stumbled upon it", you could surmise that political bribes are business as usual to a developer. Or, was it just a case of a developer giving to a 'worthy' cause, writing a check to a non-profit not yet established. The whole thing sucks.
Update: 3/6 -According to the Miami Herald, Armando Codina said he did not pay a bribe. He said he was donating to a gala for Carey Shuler and expected nothing in return. Former Broward Prosecutor John Hanlon said "the crime is the solicitation" and he said the bribe would be hard to prove since the developer didn't get anything for the money.
11 comments:
The article in the Herald said:
A Codina spokesman said that because of the active investigation, ``the state attorney's office has asked us, as the victim, to not comment.''
He is not a victim if what the Herald says is true. He paid a bribe and he didn't report it. According to the Herald: The prosecutors "Stumbled upon the latest case while poring over bank records."
You can't seriously expect Fernandez-Rundle to go after Codina, do you? He would buy and sell her.
I want to share my Herald comment with you, and I wonder if anyone will agree with me:
She's dead meat. The powers that be have probably decided that rather than continue to help and finance her defense, they are better off running one of their string-puppet candidates for her seat, and they decided to play "the Codina card" -- that probably would have remained dormant for the rest of three lifetimes. Spence Jones, who obviously doesn't have an honest bone in her body, is finally "out of grace"... and if she were truly smart, she would roll over, play dead, and start planning her revenge in a few years. But, it is doubtful that she has that many intelligent brain cells!
If these guys are willing to pay 25 grand to one commissioner ( as far as we know, just one) for a simple street name change, what in the world is the going rate for extra density or other mega-approvals or variances. The possibilities boggle the mind.
She should not have run for that seat in the first place. Had she walked away, and learned from her experiences in the City, she could have been free from all of this and planning her next adventure in life. And there are a lot of exciting things going on in the world. There are times in life, when we just need to move on. But we have to know when the time comes.
Interesting! So I wonder which wealthy developer is also lining Gimenez pocket with his sponsorship of the resolution to rename a portion of SE 1st Ave to “Brickell Plaza”? See: http://www.miamidade.gov/govaction/legistarfiles/Matters/Y2010/100508.pdf Hint: The insider word is “Gimenez has gotten with the program”.
Last anon.
The difference is, Gimenez didn't "shake them down" for $25,000 to sponsor a resolution asking the State of Florida to do it.
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Spence-Jones in handcuffs again. Imagine this crook was voting on $550 Mil budgets?
Who handles the money for her? Bagman? What did she spend the money on?
Doing the perp walk again. About time we saw Spence-Jones's enablers i.e. staffers doing the perp walk? Perp walk is nothing new for them.
I still think Spence-Jones' name came up when the State was investigating bigger game. They can't make it stick on the large-scale politician, so they'll settle for Michelle. There is so much more to all of this than meets the eye. I certainly hope that the Herald assigns someone besides a parrot to this entire affair--say an investigative reporter who is given the budget to really dig deeply into this entire mess.
Is Spence-Jones still getting a paycheck from the City of Miami?
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