Miami City Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones stole $50,000 in county grant money in a scheme to benefit her family business, prosecutors charged Thursday -- plunging City Hall closer to chaos just hours after she was sworn into office for her second term.

Spence-Jones is expected to surrender Friday morning to face one grand theft charge. Prosecutors say she used forged letters -- including one in the name of former Miami-Dade Commissioner Barbara Carey-Shuler -- to steer the grants to a family business in 2004 and 2005, before she was first elected.

Some of the money later went to Spence-Jones and her brother personally, or was used to pay credit card bills for travel, clothes, satellite television and other expenses, according to an arrest warrant signed late Thursday.

Of the case against Spence-Jones, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle said: ``We have all been agonized over this. . . . This whole thing is sad, sad for the citizens of District 5 who suffer year in and year out.''

Spence-Jones, who earlier Thursday used her swearing-in ceremony to rail against the long-running criminal investigation, could not be reached for comment after the charge was filed. Her attorney, Michael Band, declined to comment.

Fernández Rundle, at a Friday afternoon press conference, is also expected to announce a misdemeanor charge against a second Miami commissioner, Angel Gonzalez, for securing a no-show job for his daughter with the politically connected Delant Construction Co. Gonzalez will resign Monday.

Delant's president, Juan M. Delgado, will also be charged with fraud and grand theft for his role in a separate allegedly bogus billing scheme on a county construction project.

Spence-Jones, 42, whose district includes Overtown and Liberty City, was reelected to a second term 10 days ago with almost 83 percent of the vote in a three-person race. At Thursday's swearing-in at Charles Hadley Park, she once again denied wrongdoing and drew a standing ovation as she lashed out at her accusers.

``No longer will we stand by and allow for this public lynching. They don't know this nappy-headed child of God has her armor on,'' Spence-Jones said, invoking the names of Arthur Teele Jr., Miller Dawkins and Carey-Shuler -- all local black leaders who faced criminal investigations.

Hours after Spence-Jones' fiery speech, a Miami-Dade judge signed the commissioner's arrest warrant. The governor will likely suspend her.

Strikingly, the warrant revealed Carey-Shuler -- whom Spence-Jones has described as her political mentor and ``other momma'' -- as a key witness for prosecutors.

ARREST REPORT

The arrest report focuses on a pair of $25,000 county grants to two nonprofits supported by Carey-Shuler, then the County Commission chairwoman, in 2004. The money was later distributed by the Metro-Miami Action Plan Trust, MMAP, a social-services agency managed by the county.

Prosecutors allege that Spence-Jones -- at the time an aide to then-Miami Mayor Manny Diaz -- submitted a letter in Carey-Shuler's name instructing MMAP to transfer the two grants to Karym Ventures, a company then owned by Spence-Jones and her family. Spence-Jones is no longer an officer with the company.

MMAP's board agreed to transfer the money to Karym the next day, Feb. 16, 2005.

Carey-Shuler told investigators that she never wrote the letter submitted by Spence-Jones. The letter, she noted, was written on old stationery that did not reflect her title as chairwoman.

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