Miami-Dade commissioner’s aides schemed to rip off $640,000 in grants, prosecutors say

On paper, the county commission grant money went to help underprivileged youths playing sports, assist struggling seniors and fund cultural events celebrating Haitian culture.

But in reality, investigators say, more than $640,000 in public money was actually stolen by two top aides to a Miami-Dade county commissioner, with the help of a South Florida banker. They’re accused of manipulating the process of awarding public grants, quietly steering the money to their own companies for two years from 2016 to 2018.

Authorities on Monday announced the arrest of the three, which included suspected ringleader Mackinley Lauriston, who ran unsuccessfully for North Miami mayor and is also the former chief of staff for Miami-Dade Commissioner Jean Monestime.

He was arrested along with current Monestime aide Evelt Jeudy, and Nadine Chery, a Wells Fargo banker who is described as Lauriston’s longtime girlfriend. They are charged with a host of felony counts, including racketeering, organized fraud, grand theft and unlawful compensation and official misconduct.

There’s no evidence to suggest Monestime, a county commissioner since 2010, had any inkling of what his aides were doing, prosecutors said. “It appears they betrayed his trust too,” Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said at a press conference on Monday.

Miami-Dade Inspector General Felix Jimenez, whose agents handled the case, said other crimes may be uncovered. “We don’t think this is the end of it,” Jimenez said. “There is probably a lot more.”

Lauriston, 55, has held a series of government jobs over the years, including as chief of staff for Monestime and as an assistant to the vice mayor of Miramar. On his website, he says he spent 16 years working as a financial analyst and accountant for the transport company Ryder.

Online, he describes himself as a “strategic consultant” for his own company, Lauriston & Associates. He also ran for mayor of North Miami in 2019, losing to Philippe Bien-Aime.

His defense lawyer, Larry Handfield, said he surrendered on Sunday and plans to seek vindication in court. “Once I have reviewed the evidence, we’ll take it from there,” Handfield said.

As for Jeudy, he works as the district coordinator for Monestime, who represents the county’s District 2, an area that includes parts of northern Miami and surrounding cities and neighborhoods. Jeudy earned $73,000 last year in the position.

Chery and Jeudy’s defense attorneys declined to comment.

Monestime on Friday declined to comment on the arrest of his aide. “Given that this matter is now in the hands of the criminal justice system, I am not at liberty to comment further,” he said in a statement.

According to prosecutors, the stolen money largely came from “discretionary” grant money allocated to Monestime’s office, which can be used for a variety of legitimate uses.

One example: The commissioner’s office shelled out tens of thousands to the Little Haiti Optimist Foundation, a well-known nonprofit that helps youths in the neighborhood. But the nonprofit’s director, Marie Loussaint, told agents that the commissioner’s office pushed her to apply for grants — and that she was told she’d be acting as a “financial agent.”

In May 2016, records showed, the commissioner’s office directly paid expenses for food, entertainment and venue fees for the May 2016 Haitian Heritage Month celebration. But then, the Optimist Foundation, under grant-program rules, asked to be reimbursed for over $11,000 for those same fees — even though it had never paid any to begin with, according to an arrest warrant.

In all, between 2016 and 2018, the foundation received nearly $90,000 in grants. But the foundation, at Lauriston’s direction, would write checks to various companies affiliated with the trio. The payments, as written on the checks, were purportedly for everything from turkey and toy giveaways to radio ads for Haitian cultural events and “marketing and consulting services,” according to the warrant by IG Special Agent Bassam Fadel, who is handling the case with prosecutor Carol Jordan.

In one case, prosecutors said Lauriston received over $4,500 in county tuition reimbursement, even though he had already directed the foundation to pay his bill from Florida International University for him.

In another example, over $37,000 in grants went to a nonprofit called Youth Education Through Sports, a legitimate organization that largely relies on public funding to help support kids’ teams, particularly in soccer. The founder, Mario Apollon, told agents that he would receive grants, but then the aides would require him to write checks to the third parties.

“Lauriston awarded him thousands of grant dollars. However, the defendants sometimes left Apollon with only a few hundred dollars to run his program,” according to the warrant.

Apollon told agents he agreed to steer the money to the companies because he was “afraid if he refused, he would not receive any other funds.”

“Those individuals were considered to be victims in this,” Jimenez said. “They were held hostage. If they did not participate, they would be cut off.”

The three are accused of fraudulently restarting defunct corporations to funnel the money to themselves.

In one case, they restarted an organization called the Haitian Senior Stars Solidarity Group, which ended up getting four grants from Lauriston, the warrant said. The organization ended up getting $417,425 in grant funds and surplus county property: two houses and a Dodge van.

The group’s former founder said he was “pressured” into using the organization to receive grant payments. After he closed the company, Lauriston and Jeudy “hijacked” the company, reopened it and used it to funnel grant payments, even forging documents to do so, prosecutors said.

This story was originally published May 2, 2022 at 8:55 AM.