Miami-Dade commissioner facing criminal charge. Gov. DeSantis could name replacement

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Joe Martinez, a retired police lieutenant and potential sheriff candidate in 2024, is telling confidants he expects to face at least one criminal charge in a matter of days, sources told the Miami Herald.

If Martinez is charged with a crime, Gov. Ron DeSantis could name a temporary replacement on the county board.

Martinez is expected to surrender to authorities early in the week and faces a financial-crimes charge stemming from a public-corruption probe, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Details of Martinez’s potential legal troubles aren’t publicly known. The two-term commissioner, a former board chairman, did not respond to requests for comment. Privately, he was telling people close to him that he’s expecting to be charged in a criminal case and is lining up support and preparing his next steps, according to three people who communicated with him over the weekend.

“He said he’s expecting something from the State Attorney’s Office next week that may involve an arrest,” said Steadman Stahl, president of Miami-Dade County’s Police Benevolent Association, a police union. “He said the State Attorney’s Office is looking at him for something that is involving his office that he is innocent of. He wanted to know if we would support him. And I said yes.”

The possibility of Martinez facing a charge was first reported Sunday on the Political Cortadito blog. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

Prosecutors have been probing Martinez’s dealings as far back as the fall of 2019. At the time, the State Attorney’s Office declined to release any communications between his office and the prosecutors, citing an “active” criminal investigation.

Martinez losing his seat in a criminal inquiry probably wouldn’t alter the party makeup of the board if Florida’s Republican governor named a temporary replacement. But losing Martinez could scramble alliances on the officially nonpartisan board as it prepares for a wave of new commissioners after the November elections.

Martinez has been eyeing running for the new position of county sheriff. Miami-Dade will elect an independent sheriff in 2024 as required under a recently adopted amendment to the Florida Constitution. He had fought board legislation, passed earlier in the year, that keeps most police officers and resources under the authority of the mayor after the new sheriff is elected.

Martinez, 64, has been campaigning to be the board’s next chairman after the November elections. He served as chairman twice before, when he first held the District 11 seat. He was elected to the seat in 2000, and opted not to run for reelection in 2012 before winning the post again in 2016.

In office since 2016 after an earlier tenure as a commissioner, Martinez, a Republican, represents District 11 in western Miami-Dade and is a leader of the board’s conservative bloc of members.

Florida’s Constitution allows the governor to suspend a county officeholder for “commission of a felony” or other transgressions, including “malfeasance.”

County lawyers over the weekend told Miami-Dade officials that the provision gives DeSantis authority to suspend Martinez after an arrest, and then appoint his temporary replacement until the Florida Senate votes whether to remove the suspended commissioner permanently.

Since the Legislature is not set to return to session until 2023, such a vote could be months away or longer, depending on when the Senate opted to take up the matter.

In the past four weeks, DeSantis suspended five Democratic officeholders not facing criminal charges: Hillsborough County’s elected prosecutor and four members of the Broward County School Board. DeSantis claimed misconduct in announcing the suspensions, while critics called the ousters abuse of power.

Florida governors routinely suspend elected officials after arrests, but it’s not required. Gov. Jeb Bush was the last governor to suspend a Miami-Dade commissioner when he removed Miriam Alonso from the District 12 seat in 2002 after she faced charges of misusing campaign and county dollars.

Bush replaced her with Jose “Pepe” Cancio, who served briefly until Jose “Pepe” Diaz, the board’s current chairman, won the seat in a special election called after Alonso opted to resign while suspended.

If Martinez opted to resign, the county commission could either appoint a replacement or call a special election to fill the seat.

This story was originally published August 28, 2022 at 10:34 AM.