Related Content

• Nonprofit agency had role in vote collections
• Suarez adviser investigated in vote buying
• Felons vote, too - but it's a crime
• Some Miami employees crossed the line to vote
• Suarez's right to hold office goes on trial
• Dubious tactics snared votes for Suarez, Hernandez
• The outsiders

Suarez adviser investigated in vote buying

A campaign volunteer and key adviser for Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez oversaw a vote-buying operation in Overtown during last November's mayoral election, witnesses told The Herald and state investigators.

Raymond Molina, a former mayoral candidate who is now a close Suarez adviser, supplied the cash and personally kept watch over the $10-a-vote scheme at St. John Baptist Church last Nov. 12, two witnesses said.

One witness is Jeffrey "Pop" Hoskins, 34, who allegedly recruited homeless and poor voters from the streets of Overtown to vote absentee the day before the runoff. In a sworn statement to state investigators, Hoskins said Molina promised him $500 cash and a city job if he helped round up Suarez votes.

Dubious tactics snared votes for Suarez, Hernandez

The campaign workers used a variety of tactics: They registered people to vote at addresses where they didn't live. They punched voters' absentee ballots without permission. They cast ballots in the names of people who insist they did not vote. They cast questionable ballots themselves.

And they signed dozens of ballots as witnesses, even though they weren't present when the voters signed the envelopes, as state law requires.

Among the campaign workers collecting and witnessing questionable ballots were members of Hernandez's family and his closest aides.

Suarez's right to hold office goes on trial

In the minds of grand jurors, state authorities and former Mayor Joe Carollo, there is no doubt: Miami's Nov. 4 mayoral election was tainted by absentee ballots cast in the names of dead people, out-of-towners and the absent-minded.

There have been three arrests in the widening Florida Department of Law Enforcement probe and a tersely worded Miami-Dade grand jury report citing "evidence of outright fraud" in the city's election.

None of that will come into play today, when Circuit Judge Thomas S. "Tam" Wilson Jr. gavels Courtroom 6-1 to order, beginning a closely watched nonjury trial to determine whether there was sufficient fraud to call a new election or put Carollo in office. The trial could take weeks.

The outsiders

A Homestead janitor did it. So did a Miami Beach widow, a Kendall anti-porn activist and a high school teacher from Miramar -- in Broward County.

The Herald, after reviewing just 3 percent of the votes in the November elections, has so far found 105 illegal votes for Miami's mayor and commissioners.

Of those, 68 votes came from people who lived outside the city. State law says that citizens cannot vote in a city election unless they actually live there.

Nonprofit agency had role in vote collections

All five employees of the Allapattah Business Development Authority -- a private, nonprofit agency that has received about $2 million in loans and grants from the city since 1990 -- engaged in an unusual all-out effort to help the campaigns of Xavier Suarez and Humberto Hernandez.

The vote-gathering came at a time when ABDA staffers and an affiliated consultant were lobbying for an infusion of city money to embark on new housing projects in Allapattah and expand their reach into the adjacent neighborhoods of Model Cities and Wynwood. Those projects had been stymied while Mayor Joe Carollo occupied the mayor's seat on the City Commission.

ABDA employees collected and witnessed absentee ballots at all hours -- including during the business day -- before the controversial Nov. 4 election, interviews with dozens of voters indicate. Employees of nonprofits are barred from engaging in political activity during work hours under federal and state rules.