Bribery charge could land Metrorail maintenance supervisor in prison, feds say
A senior manager in Miami-Dade’s transit agency has pleaded guilty to a bribery charge related to an alleged kickback scam related to a Metrorail contract.
Dale Robinson, a former transit superintendent overseeing Metrorail maintenance contracts, pleaded guilty in federal court earlier this month to soliciting a bribe. Robinson, who earned about $185,000 a year in his county job, faces up to 10 years in prison and will be sentenced in July, according to a press release from the Department of Justice.
In the release, prosecutors said Robinson asked for a bribe from an executive with a county contractor that was performing maintenance work on Metrorail who was also interested in securing a welding job that Robinson would be supervising.
The contractor executive, Jessie Bledsoe, agreed to pay the bribe, prosecutors said. Robinson then had his wife, Marcia Robinson, set up a fake company in Maryland, Tailored Railroads, to bill the contractor, JB Railroad out of North Dakota, for work that never happened, prosecutors said. In 2021 and 2022, Robinson received about $76,000 through the bogus billing scheme, according to prosecutors.
Bledsoe pleaded guilty to paying a bribe, and Marcia Robinson pleaded guilty to a federal charge related to covering up a crime, prosecutors said. Bledsoe faces up to 10 years in prison, and Marcia Robinson faces up to three years.
In a memo made public Tuesday, the Miami-Dade County Inspector General’s Office said the bribery case started with an investigation by the county agency.
A lawyer for Marcia Robinson declined to comment. Bledsoe did not immediately respond to written questions from a reporter.
Jose Quiñon, a lawyer for Dale Robinson, said in a statement that his client “suffered an ethical stumble during the Covid pandemic” but has “done everything possible to rectify that mistake.”
Miami Herald staff writer Jay Weaver contributed to this report.
This story was originally published May 13, 2025 at 5:00 AM.