Employee favored by city commissioner is fired by Omni CRA amid questions about her job
When Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla wanted to hire someone to “keep an eye” on administrators managing $68 million in taxpayer funds at the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency, he turned to an old friend who had just gotten out of federal prison for mortgage fraud.
Jenny Nillo, 54, had served time for taking what prosecutors called a “leading role” in a fraud scheme. Díaz de la Portilla said he asked the agency’s director, Jason Walker, to hire Nillo as a community liaison in April. He said he wanted to give Nillo a second chance. Even though spying on her bosses was not in her job description, the commissioner said he asked her to serve as his “eyes and ears“ at the CRA because, he told the Miami Herald in a recent interview, he did not trust the agency’s leadership — for reasons he refused to disclose.
Less than a year later, authorities opened a criminal investigation into how Nillo spent her time at work, where she made $53,000 a year. Walker and Assistant Director Anthony Balzebre said in the past 11 months, Nillo rarely came to the office even though the eight-person staff only worked from home for a few weeks in March 2020.
While no charges have been brought, Nillo was fired from the agency Tuesday morning without an explanation — days after police pulled her over for reasons still unclear while she was driving a city vehicle.
Nillo is a longtime associate of the Díaz de la Portilla family, one of Miami’s most powerful and well-known political clans. She worked for several years as an aide to Miguel Díaz de la Portilla, Alex’s brother, when he served as a Miami-Dade County commissioner.After Nillo’s dismissal Tuesday, Alex Díaz de la Portilla said he immediately hired Nillo to work in his commission office.
The controversy surrounding Nillo has lit up City Hall with political feuding and the scrutiny of investigators — enough to scorch the relative peace that has marked Miami politics since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
What exactly happened after police on Thursday night stopped Nillo, who was driving a city vehicle assigned to Díaz de la Portilla’s office, is unconfirmed — no official report has been provided to the Herald. Díaz de la Portilla said she made an illegal U-turn. Nillo declined to comment for this story.
The controversy has exposed the boiling tension between Díaz de la Portilla, a former state senator and first-term city commissioner, and the semi-autonomous, tax-funded agency he has chaired for about a year. Díaz de la Portilla told the Herald on Monday that he wanted Nillo to watch Walker because he suspected “improprieties,” but he refused to offer any evidence.
Tuesday morning, Walker rebutted the commissioner’s comments.
“It’s untrue and unfortunate, and the facts are the facts,” Walker said. “Our work speaks for itself.”
Walker retains the strong support of Commissioner Ken Russell, who chaired the CRA before Díaz de la Portilla.
“Jason Walker has my absolute confidence as an ethical and effective director of an agency that has been truly serving its mission to redevelop the Omni area,” Russell said Tuesday morning.
A CRA controls a percentage of property taxes for use inside the agency’s boundaries, and the money is supposed to be spent to eliminate blight and increase affordable housing.
Investigating Nillo’s position
Beyond the internal fight, the authorities got involved.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office reviewed a claim that Díaz de la Portilla hired Nillo for an alleged “no-show” job but decided not to open a corruption investigation, according to a spokesman. The state attorney’s office determined that it was not a corruption matter and instead referred the claim for an ethics review by the Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics & Public Trust, said the spokesman, Ed Griffith.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is “reviewing” a complaint involving Nillo’s employment, FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said Tuesday.
When a Herald reporter reached Nillo by phone, she declined to answer questions.
“I can’t talk to you right now. It’s not going to happen,” she said before hanging up.
Blogger Elaine de Valle first reported on a possible inquiry into Nillo.
Díaz de la Portilla said Nillo is a model employee and is being unfairly scrutinized for her past conviction. He said outside of the office, she has worked tirelessly for him on discussing a potential expansion for the CRA into Allapattah and helping out with food distributions sponsored by his district staff.
“She’s being attacked because she made a mistake,” Díaz de la Portilla said. “She served her time. She paid her dues. She wanted a second chance, so I gave it to her.”
Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo, a former political ally of Díaz de la Portilla, disagreed.
“This is not about giving someone a second chance. This is a comedy show,” Carollo said. “He’s going to put in someone who just got out of prison for mortgage fraud to be watching for what he’s calling ‘improprieties’ in a business that has to do with real estate deals. I mean, my God.”
Carollo said Walker went to authorities with his concerns about Nillo not showing up to work. The commissioner did not name the specific police agencies investigating the case. He called on the State Attorney’s office to release any surveillance video and other evidence from its inquiry.
Empty office
Nillo was hired as a CRA employee for a $45,000 annual salary and received two raises since being hired in late April 2020, according to records obtained by the Herald.
On her work application, Nillo disclosed she had been convicted of mortgage fraud. In 2017, federal prosecutors accused her and 16 others of conspiring to fraudulently obtain mortgage loans for unqualified buyers of units in two condominium projects on the west coast of Florida. They said she played a “leading role” in the fraud.
She pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud and was sentenced to 36 months in prison.
Nillo was released from federal prison in late 2019 and ordered to serve three years of probation, according to records from the Bureau of Prisons. The terms of her probation state: “The defendant shall not commit another federal, state or local crime.”
Nillo’s employment offer letter does not include access to a city vehicle as a term of employment because she is a CRA employee. She was expected to report directly to Walker, according to the letter. Díaz de la Portilla said he gave Nillo access to a municipal car that was formally checked out by his district staff to “create an efficiency and avoid duplication of resources.”
Carollo said letting Nillo drive a vehicle assigned to City Hall staff was inappropriate and absurd.
“He had no right to do that,” Carollo said.
On Monday, a reporter visited the CRA office and saw Nillo’s almost empty desk — the only things were a nameplate, an unopened box of business cards, motivational quotes, a Miami city flag, and one framed photo of Nillo and Díaz de la Portilla.
Nillo was known
In 2010, Nillo ran for a state Senate seat in a West Miami-Dade County district to replace Alex Díaz de la Portilla, then the Senate majority leader. Her decision raised questions about why she was in the race because one of her opponents was Miguel Díaz de la Portilla — for whom she had worked when he was a Miami-Dade county commissioner. She had also donated $500 to his Senate campaign before jumping in the race herself.
Nillo did not campaign, according to Herald coverage at the time, and raised no money besides loaning her campaign $2,000, state records show.
Nillo was also caught up in the scandal involving former U.S. Rep. David Rivera planting a ringer candidate in a 2012 congressional race. Nillo testified that she attended meetings discussing how she and Ana Alliegro, a GOP political consultant, could aid the ringer candidate, court documents show. The Federal Election Commission fined Rivera $456,000 last month.
This story was originally published March 23, 2021 at 1:55 PM.
