Who are some of Carlos Curbelo’s business partners?

Who are some of Carlos Curbelo’s business partners?
  • Sumo

Miami-Dade School Board Member Carlos “Crybaby” Curbelo may not want to disclose who the clients of his lobbying firm curbeloare, but public records may shed a little light on at least some of his business partners throughout the years.

His company, Capitol Gains — the one he has listed under his wife’s name — also employs lobbyist Roy Schultheis. He is one of the original members of the Capitol Gains “team,” along with Nicole Rapanos, who is now the campaign manager. Schultheis describes himself on LinkedIn as “Partner at Capitol Gains and Principal Broker at Investment Bankers Group Inc. DBA Capitol Gains Finance.”

Both Schultheis and Curbelo worked together on the Fred Thompson presidential bid in Florida n 2007 and each registered as lobbyists with the state in 2012 for Genting and it’s interests in a waterfront casino resort in downtown Miami. Schultheis also registered for XTec, a Miami-based manufacturer of sophisticated security and authentication systems that earlier this year was awarded a $102.8-million, 10-year contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and could be in line for work with the U.S. Navy.

That’s right: The wannabe congressman’s business partner lobbies a firm that got a $100-million federal contract.

Maybe this is why he doesn’t want us to know who his clients are.

Ladra called Curbelo and left him a voice mail message and also sent an email to him and one of his campaign aides regarding some of the people he’s done business with. I’ve gotten no response but I suspect I won’t since I haven’t heard directly from Curbelo — a coward who would rather falsely accuse me of extortion on TV — since Political Cortadito exposed the fact that he hides his business under his wife’s name.

Read related story: Carlos Curbelo hides lobbying client list under wife’s skirt

carlosroy
Belen buds and now business partners: Roy Schultheis, left; Carlos Curbelo, right

God bless public records.

Curbelo and Schultheis, who contributed $2,600 to Curbelo for Congress, only billed (or said they billed) between $40,000 and $60,000 in 2012 for their representation. That same year, Curbelo made $100,000 salary from Capitol Gains, his lobbying firm even though he put it under his wife’s name in 2009. One would imagine Schultheis made something also.

In 2009, when Schultheis first registered as a lobbyist for Capitol Gains and XTec, he also registered for Areas, USA, a subsidiary of a Spanish company which may be doing business in Cuba. Prior to having found that connection, Ladra was told by very good sources close to Curbelo that he himself had worked for Areas, securing a concession’s contract at eight Florida Turnpike rest stops the firm was recently awarded.

This does not provide a conflict of interest, necessarily, for Curbelo’s elected office at the School Board. But it could present a problem for his congressional campaign in a predominantly Hispanic district with a high number of high performing Cuban voters.

subsidiary of a Spanish parent company that may be doing business in Cuba.  And that’s only a problem for his Congressional campaign, not a potential conflict of interest with his elected office. More importantly, we don’t know, for instance, if Curbelo worked for any of the vendors or contractors he’s awarded millions of dollars to through the School Board taxes over the course of the last four years. – See more at: https://www.politicalcortadito.com/2014/06/12/carlos-curbelo-hides-client-list-wife/3/#sthash.NmwmVvWs.dpuf

Maybe this is why he doesn’t want us to know who his clients are.

Roy Schultheis
How much you wanna bet Curbelo was the one who got his partner a spot on this Fox News townhall on immigration?

Schultheis, a fellow Belen Jesuit School Wolverine, is also president of Miami Commodity Group, Corp., a firm created in the summer of 2012. But before that, he used to be one of the principals in Florida Infrastructure Alliance. The other two directors were Curbelo and Jesse Manzano, the 2012 campaign manager for Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez — you know, the one in which the mayor sold his soul to the devil. Curbelo, Manzano and Schultheis formed the company in 2009 and let it be administratively dissolved when they failed to file an annual report.

Hmmmm. Wasn’t that around the same time that Manzano was working on the Miami Marlins deal with the county? It’s also around the same time Curbelo put his company in his wife’s name and decided to run for the school board.

Maybe this is why he doesn’t want us to know who his clients are.

Read related story: Surprise! Carlos Curbelo won’t disclose his client list

Curbelo also had two other firms called Capitol Creations and Capitol Concepts with partner Daniel O. Lopez, opened in 2006 and dissolved administratively in 2008, which is the year before he went to go work for then Sen. George LeMieux in 2009 and put his company, Capitol Gains, in his wife’s name.

He is still listed, however, as one of the principals in Centre Court Charities, Inc. — which is curiously a for profit company, not a 501c3 — also with his wife, Cecilia, and Daniel Lopez, who formed his own new company, Tupa Properties, last year. Centre Court Charities is listed as a “Boys Clubs” activity. The organization’s mission was to provide a youth basketball league and reduce juvenile delinquency, according to paperwork submitted to the Florida Department of State.

Specifically, the group stated on its annual report that it instructs “high school students, principally at-risk kids to develop their capabilities through sports such as basketball. The league furnishes all of the equipment and facilities at no cost to the students. All of this with the humble & charitable intent of reducing juvenile delinquency.”

Centre Court Charities reported $21,625 in earnings and $20,024 in expenditures from 2009 to 2011.

It is listed as a “social services and welfare” organization for which, in three years, Curbelo has only been able to raise about $20,000 for in total. Guess a basketball league for at-risk kids isn’t as important as his Congressional dreams.

Little wonder Curbelo didn’t put that on his resumé for the GOP primary.

Maybe it is also because Nildo Verdeja, listed as one of the directors of Centre Court Charities from 2002 to 2009, was sued in 2007 for defrauding 14,000 Investors and for the unlawful sale of $250 million in securities. In 2010, according to the South Florida Business Journal, Verdeja was orderd by the court to pay $993,515 in disgorgement and a $200,000 civil penalty.

You won’t see Curbelo bring out his business ties to Ariel Pereda, either. That is because Pereda is an anti-embargo exile whose business today is to advise other companies on how to trade with Cuba. In other words, he helps distribute potato chips to the dollar stores on the island.

Documents show that Curbelo resigned as a managing member of a different Pereda company, PM Strategies, in 2005.

But what we don’t know is if PM Strategies of Pereda’s other firms then became a paying customer of Capitol Gains.

Maybe this is why he doesn’t want us to know who his clients are.

19 Responses to "Who are some of Carlos Curbelo’s business partners?"

  1. Last year I contacted Mr Curbelo’s office at the school board as a constituent seeking assistance for a friend- neither he or his staff responded to my requests.Not even an acknowledgment. Eventually,Raquel Regalado’s office was the one that assisted.For that reason alone he will not have my vote.If his staff cannot attend to the requests made by the constituents-he has no business being in public office.I understand that he personally cannot get involved directly in dealing with what perhaps are mundane bureaucratic issues encountered by constituents,but by the same token he better make sure who he selects to represent him in his office for the casework services that are provided to his constituency.

  2. Mike, MP, Pepito? I wonder if you’re the same person. Maybe one his supporters like: Mena or Pineiro possibly….smh!!!!

  3. Given your scathing articles about Joe Garcia I think it’s fair to say you’re willing to go after both sides of the aisle. However you name quite a few loosely connected people in the article and suggest nefarious links without any evidence.

    You also mention Mr. Curbelo’s business partners and the companies they registered to lobby for. The reason you know this is because they were required to make those disclosures, as per the rules for lobbying. That is why the rules are there. You are not unearthing anything that isn’t already public record, although you report it with an air of subterfuge that attempts to create an issue where there is none.

    By the way, I can state with certainty that the Daniel O. Lopez you refer to in your piece has no connection whatsoever to Tupa Properties. You might want to do a bit more research than a simple Sunbiz web search before making allegations about private individuals, as it diminishes the credibility of your other statements.

  4. Gentlemen, gentlemen… and I use the term loosely. Believe what you want. But actually, nobody really thinks you believe what you’re spewing. It is evident by the tone of that “smoking gun” text message that I did not actually EXPECT to get ads… I was just being smug. And, no, I do not regret it. I gotta be me. In fact, if you look at that photo from the text message, it was a follow up text after he failed to call me back the day before regarding another smug and sarcastic message I left daring him to call me back on a story I was doing on some of his contributors. I didn’t expect him to call me back either, but it is professional to give him the courtesy head’s up, in case he wants to comment. I was doing the story about the loanshark, the felon and the racist who had donated to his campaign.

    And I’ve never said I was unbiased. My bias, however, is born from the reporting I do and documents I uncover and questions I ask that go unanswered and lies that are told. It is hard not to take a position after you’ve covered a race for a while and someone’s resistance to transparency becomes evident time and again and his donors include someone who has admitted to usury and someone convicted of felony fraud who still gets millions of dollars from the school board for his charter schools. My bias is not responsible for the fact that this issue of hiding his business under his wife’s name, a legal loophole so he doesn’t have to disclose his clients as required of any elected official who doesn’t transfer his or her company to a spouse, has become something that “dogs” him, as your revered mainstream media has picked it up.

    In fact, it is vice versa.

    I had no reason to intentionally go after Curbelo. Remember, Carlitos and I started off very pally wally. He is the one who OFFERED to get me advertisers for my blog… I have emails to prove it but won’t send photographs here because it is not important and I am not as petty as he is. He followed up on it several times and I always said to contact my brother or business manager when he was ready. Never pressured him. And always told him, like I tell everyone, that it would not mean I won’t slam you if I find dirt.

    Really, I had nothing against Curbelo, until he said it was none of our business who his clients are. And then he made it worse when he lied and slandered me, but that just proves that that the story he is trying to deflect from is legitimate and it only makes Ladra dig more.

    By the way, the pageviews and unique visitors to Political Cortadito (100,000+ and 60K or so) are certifiable via my ad server which counts impressions. The screenshots of your IP addresses show it is YOU who are the same writer under different aliases, probably getting paid by Curbelo to respond with comments. Free advertising, I get it.

    And I like my cortaditos dark and strong, like my politics.

    Love, Ladra

  5. Actually, that is exactly what you said. Your quote speaks for itself and we can only take your word for it. To the actual issue, how is following the law considered “[finding] a way around it?” If you don’t like the rules, criticize those who make them, not those who follow them. Meanwhile, nary a mention of the Garcia campaign’s proven improprieties. Very balanced coverage. Bottom line, are you aware of any rules he has broken or are you really just griping about the rules themselves?

    Sour grapes make for sour cortaditos…

  6. Yes, yes. That text to Curbelo was just that, a suggestion as to where he can access the most voters within his district through online advertising. Just an objective piece of advice from a disinterested and apparently benevolent blogger, who provides pro bono political consulting to people who she excoriates in several lengthy blog posts. Not extortion at all! How dare anyone with even two neurons think such a thing? You have the credibility of the former Iraq minister of information. But hey, it’s great that it hasn’t affected this amazing blog, read by 14 people in the world and their various aliases. Congrats!

  7. Funny enough, but judging by your IP addresses some of you are the same person or persons — maybe in Curbelo’s camp — making these coments (Mike, mp, Pepito, et al).

    Yes, I would have still written this story if he had advertised on the site. Are you saying that Shark Tank then provides pay for play coverage? Because that is not what I was saying. All I was saying in that text was that he lost votes because more District 26 voters read Political Cortadito and he would have gotten more meaningful impressions. He knows this, because, if you look at the rest of our texts back and forth, we often speak in sarcastic tones with each other.

    And no, he does not have a right to private business when he is an elected official. That is what those disclosure laws and rules are EXPLICITLY created for, so that we the voters know who really pays for our public officials. Curbelo simply found a way around it by putting his business, which he readily admits is his, under his wife’s name. This should be of concern to everyone.

    How’s that for my English is pretty good?

    Love, Ladra

    • I understand the desire for transparency, but as you note in your article, the times when Mr. Curbelo worked as a lobbyist, he registered as such, as prescribed by law. There is no hiding the ball there. If you work in public relations, there is an obvious need to maintain the confidence of your clients and the issues for which you represented them.

      Once again, we have rules and laws our public officials must follow to prevent conflicts of interest. There does not appear to be any evidence that Mr. Curbelo has run afoul of any of them, in sharp contrast to the staff and campaign on his opponent.

  8. Joe Garcia’s chief of staff was indicted and convicted of campaign fraud, and this post is dwelling over the private business dealings of a candidate with a spotless record? His clients have a right to have their business relationships treated with confidence. There are laws and rules in place to ensure conflicts of interest do not arise. It does not seem anyone has alleged Mr. Curbelo has violated any of these. On the contrary, it seems he has followed all of them to a tee. This post is heavy on innuendo, but sparse on facts indicating any impropriety.

  9. What is this pathetic blog? The author can barely write in English. Is this written from somewhere in Cuba? If so, it’s a commendable effort to communicate in English. Otherwise, this is an abortion of journalism, and the author should be sent as an American donation to ISIS.

  10. Shady and cheap as can be. Won’t even pay (and has never paid) his $35 per year annual dues to our neighborhood voluntary homeowners association. Our HOA provides landscape upkeep, periodic cleaning and painting of 2-1/2 miles of perimeter walls, parties in our park for children, movie nights for families in the park, representation at zoning hearings…The list goes on and on and he doesn’t support his neighbors. But he sure had his campaign signs blanketing our neighborhood of over 1,000 homes. One more thing: He doesn’t get our emails which have been limited to paid members. Lots of luck, Carlos. I’ll be working to make sure that the incumbent, Joe Garcia, is re-elected!

    Diane Lawrence

    • Diane, you sound like a really normal, swell person. Probably super preoccupied by your career and personal life, and not like someone with too much time on their hands. It’s a miracle you found the time to even post on this blog, given your massive administrate workload on behalf of this really important HOA, funded by voluntary donations. Glad to hear from you!!!! Surprised you haven’t been appointed to the head of the OMB with all your experience in budget processes, etc.

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