Miami commissioner sued for alleged “shakedown” of Rickenbacker Marina’s operator
During an intense battle in 2020 over who would redesign and run Miami’s Rickenbacker Marina, Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla attempted to “shake down” the marina’s longtime operator by pressuring him to take on one of the commissioner’s associates as a partner, according to a newly filed lawsuit.
The complaint, filed Tuesday morning in Miami-Dade Circuit Court by former state representative and lobbyist Manuel Prieguez, accuses Díaz de la Portilla and two allies of squeezing the marina’s longtime operator, Aabad Melwani, in exchange for a vote in favor of his proposed redevelopment bid.
Working through surrogates, like former city commissioner and convicted felon Humberto “Bert” Hernandez, Díaz de la Portilla attempted to “shake down an upstanding member of the community in order to financially benefit himself,” Prieguez alleges.
The 23-page complaint states that Melwani and his team were repeatedly told that Díaz de la Portilla’s support was contingent on bringing in the commissioner’s associate, Anibal Duarte-Viera, as a partner in the marina project. It says Duarte-Viera, a lawyer and real estate agent, repeated his aspirations to participate in the marina redevelopment at least four times: during a lunch set up by the commissioner, before a dinner of local politicos, at a Brickell hotel and during a surprise office visit to one of Melwani’s partners.
Duarte-Viera and Hernandez are both named defendants, accused in the civil suit of participating in a criminal conspiracy with Díaz de la Portilla and “attempted bribery of an elected official.” Díaz de la Portilla also stands accused of racketeering and orchestrating an “unlawful bribery scheme.”
Prieguez, who was registered to lobby for Melwani in 2020, says in the lawsuit that he is now “persona non grata” with Díaz de la Portilla after he and Melwani refused to engage in the alleged scheme, damaging his lobbying practice. He is asking for unspecified punitive damages.
Melwani told the Herald he had nothing to do with Prieguez’s lawsuit and declined to answer questions regarding the allegations. Prieguez no longer works as a lobbyist for Melwani.
According to the complaint, Melwani directly rejected the overtures by Díaz de la Portilla and his allies in a brief meeting with the commissioner’s associates in the lobby of the East Miami hotel. Díaz de la Portilla ultimately threw his support to Melwani’s competitors.
The complaint does not say how the commissioner would have gained from Duarte-Viera being a partner in the marina redevelopment project, nor does it allege that the commissioner himself offered to trade his vote in exchange for Melwani partnering with Duarte-Viera.
But the lawsuit places Díaz de la Portilla in the middle of the alleged effort to pressure Melwani, and says the commissioner’s allies represented that he had given the scheme his blessing.
In an interview with the Miami Herald, Prieguez, who has known Díaz de la Portilla since childhood, said he had no doubt that his one-time friend sought to profit from the deal.
“If he’s not in on it and his name is being used in such a way that somebody’s gonna profit from it, that would piss him off to no end, because he’s got to be a part of the deals,” Prieguez said. “If you’re going to use his name, then he’s got to be a part of the deals.”
When reached by reporters Tuesday morning, Hernandez said he was unaware of the lawsuit but called the allegations presented by reporters “frivolous, non-meritorious and defamatory in nature.”
“What you or anyone looking into this alleged lawsuit should be asking about or questioning is the timing of such lawsuit or allegations two months prior to a general election,” Hernadez said.
As to the timing of his filing, Prieguez was blunt: “I want to hurt [the commissioner] politically.” Díaz de la Portilla is up for reelection in November.
Neither Díaz de la Portilla nor Duarte-Viera immediately responded to the Herald’s request for comment.
Quid pro quo
The way Prieguez tells it in his lawsuit, Duarte-Viera first pitched Melwani on bringing him “into the marina business” during a lunch meeting set up by Díaz de la Portilla several months before a pivotal Oct. 8, 2020 commission meeting.
According to the complaint, Melwani said he was “not interested” and left the lunch feeling “uncomfortable about the whole thing.”
The complaint alleges that the first explicit quid pro quo was presented to Prieguez at a dinner party at Duarte-Viera’s home on Oct. 1, 2020 — one week before the five-member City Commission was set to discuss the proposal to redevelop the marina on Virginia Key.
Prieguez said he did not know Duarte-Viera well and, having heard from Melwani about his lunch meeting with the commissioner, was immediately wary when he received a text inviting him to dinner that night. But he said he was comforted when he heard Hernandez, their mutual friend, would also be at dinner that night.
Prieguez alleges that, after a few drinks, Duarte-Viera and Hernandez steered the conversation to the Rickenbacker Marina, explaining that the success of Melwani’s proposal depended on how Díaz de la Portilla voted.
“The ONLY way to get the votes is to have me be a partner in this deal. Period, end of story,” Duarte-Viera said at the time, according to a quote included in the court filing.
Duarte-Viera and Hernandez — a disbarred attorney whose consulting company was receiving payments from a political committee backing the commissioner — told Prieguez they had met with Díaz de la Portilla that afternoon and that the commissioner was aware of the terms they were presenting in exchange for his vote, according to the complaint.
In his court filing, Prieguez said he left shaken, angry, and concerned about being asked to participate in criminal activity. He shared a document with the Herald that he said he wrote at the time to memorialize what took place. The document, reviewed by reporters, contained metadata showing it was created on Oct. 3, 2020, and included the same general details as those laid out in the lawsuit.
Prieguez, who says in the lawsuit that Duarte-Viera also approached one of Melwani’s partners with his offer, told the Herald he took the information to law enforcement but did not elaborate further.
The East Hotel
At the Oct. 8, 2020 commission meeting, which was held over zoom, Díaz de la Portilla pressed for an afternoon discussion about the marina redevelopment — a tortured effort marked by years of starts and stops.
Around the same time, he allegedly texted Melwani, asking the marina operator to go to the East Miami hotel during the lunch break.
According to the complaint — which Prieguez said was based on an immediate retelling of events from Melwani to him — Díaz de la Portilla “specifically asked Melwani to go alone,” and Melwani agreed, feeling like he had no other choice. When he arrived, Melwani was met in the hotel lobby at 1:30 p.m. not by the commissioner, but by Hernandez, Duarte-Viera and a third person, Elnatan Rudolph, the lawsuit states.
“They exchanged pleasantries and then went on to discuss the marina issue and what the possibilities were moving forward,” the complaint alleged. “Melwani again rejected all deals.”
Rudolph, who was not named as a defendant in the complaint, declined to comment on the allegations.
When the commission reconvened its virtual session, Díaz de la Portilla was the first to speak on the competing proposals regarding the marina’s operation and redevelopment: one from Melwani’s team and the other from a partnership between Suntex Marina Investors and RCI Group, which was backed by the city manager. After six years of delays, the commissioner said it was time to move forward.
“There’s politics involved. There’s relationships involved. I get all that. I’m involved in that too. But at the end of the day, I know we’re all going to do what’s best for the city of Miami,” Díaz de la Portilla said during the meeting.
The commission deferred the item until a November meeting, during which Díaz de la Portilla expressed interest in the city immediately taking back complete control of the marina from Melwani. (They didn’t.)
Díaz de la Portilla “arranged for the City of Miami Commission to look indecisive in an effort to distract from the criminal activity he had attempted with the Co-Defendants,” Prieguez claimed in his complaint.
It took another year for Melwani to get the commission votes necessary to hold a voter referendum to renew his lease and approve his Rickenbacker Marina project. It didn’t pass.
In the summer of 2021, city records show Hernandez registered to lobby for a new, unsolicited marina redevelopment proposal from Suntex supported by Díaz de la Portilla. It went nowhere and Melwani’s competitor sued the city, saying the bidding process unfairly favored the Melwani family, which has run the Rickenbacker Marina for 40 years. The city is appealing an initial ruling by a circuit court judge that called for a new referendum on the bid put forward by Suntex and RCI.
David Filler, a partner and head of investments for Suntex in Florida, told the Herald that the company hired Hernandez because “he was the best lobbyist for this project.”
“We were never pressured or asked to make any third party part of our deal, nor would we have,” Filler said.
Melwani now runs the aging Rickenbacker Marina on a month-to-month agreement with the city.
Motivations
Prieguez, who led the fundraising effort for Díaz de la Portilla’s 2019 commission campaign, helping the once-powerful Republican state senator return to public office for the first time in years, alleged in his complaint that he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying contracts after rebuffing Duarte-Viera, Hernandez and the commissioner.
Prieguez, who is represented by attorney J.C. Planas, openly declared in an interview that his lawsuit is also politically motivated and that he hopes that it will lead to Díaz de la Portilla losing his reelection bid this November.
Prieguez is supporting Miguel Gabela, an auto parts retailer who is one of two declared challengers in the November race for Díaz de la Portilla’s commission seat. (Gabela is currently in a legal dispute with the city over whether he meets the residency qualifications following the city’s redistricting efforts.)
But Prieguez also said he had another big reason for filing the suit detailing Díaz de la Portilla’s “heavy-handed unlawful tactics” during the marina discussions.
He said he hopes to inspire others with similar experiences to go public.
This story was originally published September 5, 2023 at 10:49 AM.
