Medley councilwoman charged with stealing food donated to local football legend’s charity
For years, Medley councilwoman Ana Lilia Stefano ran the Santana Moss Foundation, a charity established by the former University of Miami and NFL star. But prosecutors say that unbeknownst to Moss, she used the foundation as her own piggy bank, accepting food donations before turning around and selling them.
And that’s not all — investigators believe she used a sizable chunk of money from the foundation’s bank account to gamble at the Miccosukee and Seminole casinos.
Stefano surrendered to police on Tuesday, charged with organized scheme to defraud and felony grand theft. She was jailed at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center and posted bond to await trial.
She is accused of stealing at least $24,000 worth of donated food meant to help the needy.
“Utilizing a leadership position of a non-profit corporation made these crimes possible, but having an elected position should have made such actions ethically inconceivable,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a prepared statement.
The councilwoman’s arrest on Tuesday came six months after the Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics and Public Trust ruled her gift-giving sprees — she gave away to potential voters donated items such as recliners, bicycles and coffee makers as part of foundation efforts — were a “ruse to promote Stefano’s mayoral campaign.”
Last year, Stefano was running for mayor of the tiny industrial town in Northwest Miami-Dade. She lost that election, but was elected to the council three months later in a special election.
Stefano was later slapped with a $500 fine and a public reprimand from the ethics commission over her gift giving.
In May, Stefano told the Herald that it all was “a simple mistake of confusion during an election year” and that she wasn’t trying to curry favor with voters. “My real mission, at the end of the day, is not to be that politician,” Stefano said. “It’s to be able to help people.”
Her defense attorney, Ben Kuehne, on Tuesday called the criminal allegations “political in nature” and “highly controversial.”
“She is not guilty,” Kuehne said. “She had been a consummate public servant and a citizen of the community who works tirelessly to help those in need.”
Stefano had for years served as the executive director of the Santana Moss Foundation. Moss, a Carol City High School graduate and former All-American wide receiver at the University of Miami, went on to star in the National Football League for 14 seasons.
The state attorney said Moss, who continues to live in the Washington, D.C., area, is listed as the foundation’s treasurer but had no part in its operation and expressed surprise it even still existed as a legal entity. In an interview with investigators, Moss said he hadn’t been involved with the Foundation since he stopped playing football and had no idea it had been selling donated food.
“This is all news to me. I’m clueless,” he told investigators, according to the warrant.
“Moss said he wanted to emphasize that he was in no way aware of or involved with any wrongdoing being carried out by Stefano through the foundation,” according to the warrant.
The $24,000 worth of food had been donated by a nonprofit food bank “Feeding South Florida,” which collected the items from Walmart, Publix, Costco, Aldi and Target.
The investigation was conducted by the State Attorney’s Office and the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust. According to investigators, the alleged scheme was brought to their attention by a volunteer who provided electronic records, such as text messages and computer screen shots, showing that Stefano was actually selling the food.
The buyers included several local churches, which would give them to struggling parishioners, and health clinics — two of which have since closed, according to the warrant by Miami Detective Eric Rodriguez, of the State Attorney’s Public Corruption Task Force, and ethics investigator Karl Ross.
“Customers paying for food via check were instructed to indicate the monies were for ‘maintenance,’ ‘program maintenance’ or other generic descriptions unrelated to the actual purpose of the purchase of food,” the press release said.
The arrest warrant noted nearly $20,000 in ATM withdrawals were made from the foundation’s account at “gaming locations.”
One of her former volunteers also told prosecutors that Stefano would “routinely visit” the Miccosukee casino directly after food give-aways, usually with her mother and another volunteer, Medley resident Carlos Gonzalez, the warrant said.
This story was originally published November 2, 2021 at 11:30 AM.
