Her office sits shuttered, high weeds and wrecked cars littering the decaying business strip north of Liberty City. The state of Florida forbids her from hiring employees until she pays her taxes. A judge says she is liable in a $150,000 embezzlement scheme.

Yet Linda Forrest retains a piece of the largest public works contract in Miami-Dade County history. Every month, she is wired nearly $50,000 for her role as one of eight partners overseeing Miami International Airport's $5 billion expansion.

What, if any, work Forrest has done as part of the Dade Aviation Consultants team is murky. How she has remained in the airport job even as her own employees accused her of fraud is another question.

What is clear, The Herald found: Forrest won her share of this coveted contract as she was cutting a quiet deal to pay an estimated $77,000 a year from her airport earnings to the brother of former Miami-Dade Mayor Stephen P. Clark.

Mayor Clark seconded the motion to award the contract to Dade Aviation Consultants. While Forrest and the seven other DAC partners stood to reap a windfall, the vote also steered money to Richard W. Clark, the late mayor's brother and one-time business partner.

The deal shows how an inexperienced firm was able to earn millions from the public construction contract after cutting in a politician's brother. It also raises questions about whether political ties, rather than the public good, influenced who was chosen to oversee the expansion of MIA, one of the largest airport construction projects in the United States.

At the dawn of the job in 1993, Forrest agreed to pay Richard Clark a 7 percent cut of her MIA revenue in return for his help opening doors at County Hall. The deal was not publicly disclosed, and Clark kept his name off the initial paperwork.

Forrest, a black contractor, was included in the DAC contract ostensibly to help boost minority business development at the county-owned airport. She had not previously run a business.

Yet a portion of airport money meant for a minority-owned company actually went to a wealthy white businessman and former state legislator who was Democratic majority leader in the 1970s. Her agreement with Richard Clark and her company's subsequent bankruptcy illustrate how side deals can undermine the intent of a program meant to cultivate local minority businesses.

"The money should go to the companies that are contracted to do the work and do the work, no one else, " said Christopher Mazzella, Miami-Dade's inspector general. "Our concern is that firms that are duly qualified have an opportunity to do business in Miami-Dade County." Forrest was, no doubt, a real contractor looking to expand her business. Yet her Forrest Construction Management became buried in debt, forcing her to work from her Surfside home.

Clark, by contrast, is able to afford a vacation home on Florida's Gulf Coast and a lakeside estate in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Clark declined all requests for comment. At the door of his Hendersonville, N.C., home, his wife said he would have nothing to say. Clark later declined to respond to written questions sent to his Miami attorney.

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Forrest won't talk, submits brief statement

When reporters knocked on Forrest's door recently, she said she couldn't talk and turned away. She later provided brief written answers to questions from The Herald.