‘Could really use the support’: Witness says Beach politician drove donors to mystery PAC
Before Petter Smedvig Hagland became a key figure in the ethical scandal that wrecked Michael Grieco’s mayoral aspirations, he received multiple emails from the then-Miami Beach commissioner badgering him for one thing: money.
“I am asking for your support in my endeavors to seek higher office,” Grieco wrote to Hagland, part of a fabulously wealthy Norwegian shipping and oil family, in a March 2016 email. “Your support is essential.” The two men barely knew each other.
“Could really use the support sooner rather than later,” he wrote again later that month.
And by March’s end, Grieco finally sealed the deal with this cryptic-yet-to-the-point email: “25k.”
The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics & Public Trust questioned Hagland about those exchanges in a hearing Wednesday as part of its investigation into Grieco’s involvement with People for Better Leaders, the murky political action committee that raised over $200,000, much of it from special interests doing business with the city, in the run-up to the 2017 municipal election. The $25,000 from Hagland was the largest contribution to the mystery PAC, wired from Norway to the United States.
Grieco’s connection to the PAC, whose stated purpose was fuzzy, was revealed in a series of stories by the Miami Herald, which consulted a handwriting expert, who found the handwriting on the PAC’s paperwork matched Grieco’s.
The contribution from Hagland was legally problematic because foreign nationals without permanent residency are banned from contributing to American elections. Hagland is a Norwegian citizen, according to financial filings for U.S. energy companies in which he holds stock. He does engage in business deals locally. The contribution was made in the name of a local businessman, real estate broker Tony Rodriguez-Tellaheche, although it was later linked it to Hagland.
In 2017, Grieco told the Herald that he had nothing to do with the political action committee. “You can look right into my soul,” he said. But after donors told the Herald that Grieco solicited committee contributions from them, the ethics commission found probable cause to charge him with violating both the Citizens’ Bill of Rights and Miami Beach campaign finance ethics by lying about the creation of the political action committee, clearly meant to support his mayoral campaign, and soliciting a contribution for it from a city vendor.
That was not Grieco’s only legal problem stemming from the PAC. Grieco, who dropped out of mayoral consideration and resigned from the commission, pleaded no contest to a first-degree misdemeanor charge brought by the office of Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle in 2017. He received a year’s probation, during which he could not seek public office. That period was reduced to six months due to good behavior, and he immediately filed to run for the Florida House as a Democrat, representing Miami Beach. He won easily in the Democratically dominated district and recently gained a second term unopposed.
Through it all, the ethics commission complaint against him remained pending. Wednesday’s was the second of three scheduled hearings in the case.
In a statement to the Herald, Grieco’s lawyer, Ben Kuehne, insisted that Grieco didn’t solicit contributions. “He expects to fully prevail in this matter,” Kuehne said.
Grieco has yet to testify, but the commission called on two additional donors as witnesses: Miami Beach resident and retired attorney Roger Thomson, who gave $10,000 to the committee, and Bay Harbor Islands-based investor David Aronow, who donated $5,000.
Though both of them admitted to having learned of People for Better Leaders from Grieco, they said he did not explicitly ask them to donate. He only directed them to the PAC, they said.
Between their testimony and that given by Brian Abraham, the PAC’s titular chairman, it’s still not clear how so many Beach developers, lobbyists, city vendors and residents became contributors. Of the 24 contributions that came into the committee, Abraham said he was responsible only for soliciting a $250 payment from One Force Workers, an insurance company in Lauderdale-by-the Sea. It was the smallest donation.
“I would assume Mr. Grieco” asked all the other contributors for money, Abraham said.
Abraham’s testimony was inconsistent with what he had previously written in a letter to the Herald: “I have solely led this political committee, informed people and organizations in the community about it, and solicited contributions for it,” he said then.
At the hearing, Abraham, scion of a well-known Coral Gables family and former manager of the King of Diamonds strip club, told the panel that his involvement in the PAC paperwork consisted mainly of going to Grieco’s office and signing the already filled-out papers. The two were longtime friends.
Abraham dissolved the PAC shortly after writing to the Herald and contributors testified that their contributions have since been returned.
The ethics commission is an independent agency that enforces the Miami-Dade Citizens’ Bill of Rights and imposes civil penalties on county and municipal elected officials and employees. In 2015, the mayor of Hialeah, Carlos Hernandez, was hit with a $4,000 fine and expressed his disdain by paying the tab in nickels and pennies.
The commission expects to hear testimony from Grieco and closing arguments early next week.
This story was originally published December 17, 2020 at 7:30 AM.
