A Million is Not Enough

It’s tempting to declare 2009 the year that Broward County replaced Miami-Dade as South Florida’s hottest spot for corruption. But lead us not into temptation yet. While it’s true that Broward has made great strides in that sphere this year, Miami-Dade is still way ahead. I think.

Just look at the pathetic sums of money in three of the four federal indictments that rocked Broward in September:

• $5,840. The amount undercover FBI agents posing as construction company lobbyists gave to former Miramar City Commissioner Fitzroy Salesman. In exchange, Salesman introduced them to city officials and helped them win jobs building two gazebos and a gym floor.

• $12,500. The sum Broward School Board Member Beverly Gallagher is charged with taking from two agents posing as construction company owners. In exchange, according to the indictment, Gallagher agreed to steer school construction work to the company.

• $23,000. The total in cash fees that Broward County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion is alleged to have received from undercover agents posing as corrupt investors. In exchange, Eggelletion is accused of helping them hide money in accounts at First Caribbean International Bank in Nassau, Bahamas.

In Miami-Dade elected officials have tended to think bigger. In 2005, federal agents indicted Miami City Commissioner Art Teele for receiving “in excess of $59,000” in bribes from 2001 to 2004 for his help in a fraudulent scheme involving a minority-owned shell company and an electrical contractor at Miami International Airport. (Teele’s suicide in July 2005 preempted his prosecution.) In 2006, former Miami-Dade commissioner Miriam Alonso pleaded guilty to stealing more than $100,000 in campaign contributions back in 1997 and 1999.

By now everybody in Miami-Dade knows the big public money is made via the private sector, unless one gets caught and is asked to give it back. Developers Oscar Rivero and Reynaldo Diaz used, respectively, about $700,000 and $900,000 in Miami-Dade County housing funds to finance homes for themselves and other items. (They pled guilty and are now free.) Another developer, Raul Masvidal, still faces trial on charges of embezzling about $950,000 in county housing funds.

Of course, the really big public money is in Medicare fraud. In August, a federal judge sentenced Heriberto Camacho-Garcia, the president of Best Choice Medical Services, to seven and a half years for submitting $8.2 million in bogus Medicare claims for nonexistent foam wound dressing and such. (Medicare actually paid only $1.3 million of them.) That month, another medical equipment entrepreneur, Adonis Ortiz, was convicted of trying to obtain $13.2 million from Medicare for goods and services his companies, Daky Medical Supply and Reny Medical Equipment & Supply, never delivered. (Only $2.7 million made it to Ortiz.)

In September, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced an indictment involving $3.5 million in fraudulent Medicare claims by a purported provider of oxygen concentrators, wheelchairs, mattresses, and other durable medical equipment. More such cases are sure to come.

Then again, Broward can lay claim to former Davie resident Daniel Martinez, recently sentenced to 12 and a half years for $22 million in phony Medicare billing for Hialeah-based Med-Pro and five other medical equipment companies he ran in Miami.

And now, Browardites can boast of Dr. Alan Mendelsohn, the Hollywood opthamologist and political fundraiser who served on Gov. Charlie Crist’s health issues transition team. FBI agents arrested Mendelsohn on September 30 on charges of spending the lion’s share of $2 million in political donations on items he shouldn’t have: a house, a luxury car, a mistress, his son’s college tuition, bribing a public official (unnamed at press time).

According to the indictment, much of the dough came from Mutual Benefits, a Broward-based financial firm that bilked $837 million from 30,000 investors before the federal government closed it in 2004. The indictment alleges one donor intended Mendelsohn to use contributions to bribe state officials into halting an investigation of Mutual Benefits. Mendelsohn is pleading not guilty.

Since his is the first arrest from a long inquiry, Broward may be stealing the spotlight with this tale for a while.