About a month ago, Hoskins called him and demanded another $150, Molina said.

"I said, 'Yeah? Where am I going to get the money? Xavier hasn't reimbursed me for anything, ' " Molina said, explaining that he has not asked Suarez for reimbursement.

PAYMENTS UNREPORTED
Molina: It wasn't Suarez campaign money

The payments made by Molina do not show up on Suarez's campaign reports, as required by law. Molina admitted the oversight.

"It's not Xavier's campaign money, " he said. "He doesn't know I did it."

Molina said he did not keep a calendar during the campaign so he didn't know where he was Nov. 12, the day of the vote-buying operation. But Molina said he is certain he was nowhere near the St. John church.

"This is somebody's agenda, " Molina said. "I would have to be a magician to understand what is behind this.

"You don't know who you're dealing with when you're in a campaign, " he said. "All the cockroaches come out of the sewers."

Jorge Alvarez, Suarez's chief of staff and campaign chairman, said that Hoskins never did any work for Suarez, and that Molina was not directly involved in the mayor's campaign.

"Raymond got involved in the end of the day. He was not in the inner circle. He was someone who latched on toward the end, " Alvarez said.

Molina, now serving as Suarez's unpaid economic liaison, accompanied the mayor on a taxpayer-funded trip to Washington, D.C., Feb. 10-12. He was part of a delegation that met with federal housing administrators to discuss ways to bring economic development to Miami's inner city.

Molina said he hopes to become a paid consultant working for Suarez, trying to lure new companies and federal dollars into the city. He said he'd like to be paid $120,000 a year. He already has an office in the city's Riverside Center and is negotiating with companies interested in relocating to Miami.

Molina, 61, is a public affairs consultant and former real estate developer. He has lobbied in Washington for an umbrella anti-Castro group called Cuban Unity. He spent two years in one of Cuba's most notorious prisons, El Príncipe, for his part in the Bay of Pigs invasion.

A MAYORAL CANDIDATE
Judge's ruling forced Molina from the race

Molina ran for mayor last year but was forced to leave the race because a judge ruled he had not lived in the city long enough.

Last Oct. 10, he announced he would give up his legal fight to get on the mayoral ballot and would throw his support behind Suarez, a candidate he said had the "vision and integrity" to restore the city.

"Miami has been through too much scandal, " Molina said then. "The residents need a mayor they can trust."

In his statement, Suarez said Molina had little to do with his campaign.

"Mr. Molina was involved in only one operation in regards to my campaign. That operation concerned a reception given in the Wynwood area a few days prior to November 4, 1997, " Suarez wrote.

"Other than that operation, Mr. Molina acted as an adviser on matters affecting the Nicaraguan community and the Nicaraguan-American media in Miami. Neither I nor my campaign staff involved him in any operation in the area of Overtown on election day."

But Molina had a different account. He said he was something of a free agent for Suarez -- working independently to coordinate volunteers in northwest Miami neighborhoods like Allapattah, Wynwood, Little Haiti and Overtown.

Molina also was often photographed with Suarez at rallies and was a spokesman in paid ads for Suarez on Spanish-language radio.