On Day 1, Miami-Dade County’s new sheriff promises to target public corruption
Miami-Dade County’s new sheriff on Tuesday vowed to root out public corruption as she takes command of the largest police force in the Southeast.
“The cornerstone of public safety is public trust,” Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said in her swearing-in speech eight weeks after winning the county’s first sheriff election since the 1960s. “Public trust requires zero tolerance for public corruption.”
The speech at Miami Dade College’s North Campus marked a historic change in county government as Cordero-Stutz and three other newly elected office holders assumed authority over agencies that previously reported to Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. The mayor, a Democrat, watched from her assigned seat in the sixth row of the college hall as Cordero-Stutz, a Republican, laid out her agenda for law enforcement in Miami-Dade.
READ MORE: Republican Cordero-Stutz wins Miami-Dade sheriff’s race, first female at top post
On public corruption, she cited government officials as well as homeowner associations and those responsible for fraud against the elderly. Cordero-Stutz also pointed to the Jan. 1 attack in New Orleans as a warning for Miami-Dade and its tradition of playing host to large events.
“Miami-Dade will continue to be an idyllic venue for world-class events, and terrorists and [the] deranged will continue to search for ways to strike the defenseless when they least expect it,” she said. “Not only must we be alert and intensify our efforts, we must maintain a permanent vigilance with persistent innovation.”
Cordero-Stutz, a 55-year-old veteran administrator at the now-defunct Miami-Dade Police Department, defeated Levine Cava’s public safety chief, James Reyes, in the November election. It was part of a Republican sweep of countywide offices fueled by President-elect Donald Trump’s 11-point win in Miami-Dade.
A change in Florida’s Constitution that voters approved in 2018 required Miami-Dade to join other counties in electing a sheriff and other positions previously reporting to Levine Cava, who began Tuesday with far less authority than she has held since first winning her office in 2020.
Along with losing command of the 4,500-person police department, the mayor yielded control of the Elections Department to Elections Supervisor Alina Garcia and the county’s tax-collections staff to Tax Collector Dariel Fernandez. State rules also required her to turn over the county’s financial and auditing staff to Court Clerk Juan Fernandez-Barquin, whose position has been elected for decades but now has broader powers.
In an interview, Levine Cava said she was “proud” of her time as the county’s de facto sheriff for the last four years. And she praised Cordero-Stutz’s 12-minute speech.
“The speech was uplifting,” she said. “And decisive.”
The hundreds of county law enforcement personnel in attendance for the Cordero-Stutz swearing-in captured the transition underway: While her husband, Kurt Stutz, pinned on her the traditional star badge used by sheriff offices, rank-and-file officers continue to wear the shield badges used by police departments.
Florida law gives Miami-Dade three years to make the full transition to a sheriff’s office, with plans for phasing in the new badges and squad-car designs as replacements are needed. While considered police officers when they had been working for the Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD), they now are sheriff deputies under the MDSO (the abbreviation the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office debuted Tuesday with a new star-themed logo).
When she put her hand on the Bible held by her 15-year-old son, Evan, Cordero-Stutz was in the uniform she’s worn for years as assistant MDPD director, most recently overseeing investigative services. Cordero-Stutz, who was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in New York before moving to South Florida, has spent her law enforcement career with the Miami-Dade Police Department.
In a round of interviews in English and Spanish after the speech, Cordero-Stutz said she planned to ask county commissioners to approve changes to the $876 million Sheriff’s Office budget proposal from Levine Cava that the board passed in September. During the campaign, Cordero-Stutz objected to cuts in the overtime dollars from the 2024 police budget and urged commissioners to beef up funds for new police academy classes. She also reiterated that, while she won Trump’s endorsement in the Republican primary, she considers immigration enforcement a federal duty that doesn’t involve county deputies.
Florida law doesn’t require sheriffs to live in the counties they represent, and Cordero-Stutz is a Broward resident. While she said during the campaign she would move to Miami-Dade if elected, she told the Miami Herald she has no immediate plans to purchase a home in the Miami area as she devotes her time to the new job.
“Right now, we kind of slowed down,” she said of house hunting. “We’ll be looking at it again.”
On her public corruption pledge, Cordero-Stutz said she’s hoping to beef up the number of investigators who can look into fraud — particularly when it comes to homeowner associations and government wrongdoing. She said corruption was a topic that resonated with voters.
“That was the No. 1 question,” she said. “They’ve been wanting it to be addressed for so long.”
This story was originally published January 7, 2025 at 5:58 PM.