Former State Rep. Eddy Gonzalez, who everyone knows really wants to be Hialeah mayor more than anything else in the world, seems to be riding this city election out on the heels of last year’s loss in the property appraiser’s race. But he’s not staying out completely. And neither is former Mayor Julio Robaina, who […]
Nothing really happened when Hialeah Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez swore to tell the whole truth and then testified in court that he was, indeed, a loanshark charging illegal interest rates in a shadow banking industry ruled by Hialeah politicians. He was either past the statute of limitations or granted immunity for his testimony against former […]
Maybe he got immunity from criminal prosecution when Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez testified in the federal tax evasion case that the U.S. government ultimately lost against former Mayor Julio Robaina. But he’s not getting off totally scot-free. In the very first case where the the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust has enforced the […]
In his bid for U.S. Congress, Miami-Dade School Board Member Carlos “Crybaby” Curbelo likes to bring out his GOP establishment endorsements over and over again and parade them in front of us: Jeb Bush, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, Mitt Romney. But he has other endorsements or backers — contributors to his campaign coffers […]
The Hialeah hoodlums who snub their nose at state Sunshine Laws and collect absentee ballots like some folk collect stamps got away with it again Tuesday. A jury returned after less than a day of deliberations on the federal tax evasion trial for former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina and his wife, Raiza, and said the […]
Among the revenue that federal prosecutors say former Mayor Julio Robaina did not declare on his income taxes is an $800,000 lobbying fee in 2006 for a project in Hialeah Gardens. The Vicenza at Hialeah Gardens multi-unit development proposed by 84A Holdings LLC was never developed as presented. Maybe it was because of the real […]
Closing arguments begin today in the trial against former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina and his wife on federal tax evasion and fraud charges. Then the jury will begin deliberations and we could have a verdict as early as Wednesday. But has Robaina already been judged by his peers? Because there has been very little if […]
Former Hialeah First Lady Raiza Robaina took the stand Wednesday in the federal tax evasion trial against her and her husband, former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina, and said, basically, that it was the accountant’s fault. She said the failure to disclose somewhere between $1 million and $2 million were errors or typos maybe. “Mistakes,” she […]
Robert Gewanter’s public poetry in neon hit the nail on the head. Again. The owner of M&M Liquors is already famous for the rhymes he writes on the sign outside his store on Southeast 8th Street in Hialeah. Gewanter, who has swiped at presidents and senators and world leaders from beyond, struck closer to home […]
Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez — who has been denying allegations for years that he committed felony usury — took to the stand in his predecessor’s trial and admitted that he loaned money at 36% interest to a convicted Ponzi schemer who is now the feds’ star witness in the tax evasion and fraud trial against […]