She drank beers in a city car, ran commissioner’s errands. She still works for Miami
On paper, ex-con Jenny Nillo was hired as a community liaison by a tax-funded office tasked with revitalizing struggling neighborhoods near downtown Miami.
But in reality, Nillo rarely went to the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency’s Overtown headquarters. Instead, investigators tailing her found she spent her days drinking gas-station beers in her city-issued car, driving to offices of the agency’s chairman: Miami Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla.
Investigators monitoring her movements last year were so concerned by her drinking that they pulled her over after she bought wine and tequila and spent an hour at Díaz de la Portilla’s home in the middle of the morning. Why was she at his apartment? He’d asked her to buy some liquor and had laundry for her to take to the dry cleaners, she later told Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents.
The previously unreported details of Nillo’s special work arrangement — which included doing “different chores” for the commissioner — are contained in the newly released case file of the 2021 FDLE investigation into whether the commissioner broke the law in hiring his old friend and having her run errands for him on city time.
The agency closed the probe last year, saying the commissioner’s actions “may have been immoral, unethical or [an] exploitation of his powers,” but did not amount to criminal conduct.
The case isn’t going away. It remains under investigation by the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics & Public Trust. And while Nillo was fired from the CRA, she remains on the public payroll — now as a $40,000-a-year liaison with the commissioner’s office.
Reached by phone on Wednesday, Nillo referred a reporter to the commissioner’s chief of staff.
The Nillo scandal caused a political firestorm at Miami City Hall last year. Díaz de la Portilla vociferously defended Nillo, saying she was a model employee who was being unfairly criticized. He claimed there “was no state investigation,” and said she was pulled over for making an illegal U-turn.
Miami’s other commissioners stripped him of his position as chairman of the agency, but reappointed him in February.
The chief of staff for Díaz de la Portilla, who was in Qatar with other local elected officials last week, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
City Manager Art Noriega deferred questions on the investigation and Nillo’s employment to Díaz de la Portilla, saying “the commissioner’s office is the only one that can address the findings of the investigation.”
Long history with the family
For decades, Nillo has been close to the Díaz de la Portilla family, one of Miami’s most powerful and well-known political clans. From 1993 to 2000, Nillo was a former aide for Díaz de la Portilla’s brother, Miguel, when he was a Miami-Dade County commissioner.
After that, she worked for a decade as an “outreach specialist” in a neighborhood compliance office for Miami-Dade County. In 2010, she also filed to run as a write-in candidate in a state Senate seat race that featured Miguel Díaz de la Portilla — although she never campaigned, nor explained why she chose to run against her former boss.
Then in 2017, Nillo was charged by the feds in a South Florida mortgage fraud case. Prosecutors said she was part of a ring that operated sham “marketing companies” used to launder fraudulently obtained loan proceeds.
Her drinking was apparent even then. Shortly before she was charged, she agreed to be interviewed by the FBI, but the interview was canceled after she admitted “she woke up at 5 a.m. that morning and consumed five beers,” according to the FDLE case file.
She later pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison and was put on probation. After Nillo left prison in 2019, she worked a telemarketing job, she later told agents.
But Nillo didn’t have to stay there long. By April 2020, Díaz de la Portilla had been elected to the Miami City Commission. And he was named the chair of the Omni CRA, a tax-funded agency that is supposed to help revitalize blighted areas, including neighborhoods in Overtown, Edgewater and Wynwood.
He urged the Omni CRA to hire Nillo as a “redevelopment project development specialist,” at a salary of $45,000 a year. He later told the Herald that he pushed for her hiring because he “wanted to keep an eye” on CRA Director Jason Walker and spending at the agency, although he did not specify why.
(Walker himself left the CRA this past February, shortly after Díaz de la Portilla was named to again oversee the CRA. Much of the CRA’s staff has since been ousted. He declined to comment).
The commissioner’s office — against city protocols — also gave Nillo a city-owned, white Toyota Corolla, even though she was not technically a city employee.
The investigation
Miami police opened the probe after receiving a tip that Nillo was a regular no-show at the CRA.
The new records show the extent of the city and FDLE probe — and how the probe widened to include whether Díaz de la Portilla broke any laws. Miami police detectives also noted that another one of the commissioner’s staffers, Julio Guillen, was seen several times during work hours at properties owned by Díaz de la Portilla.
“Guillen was seen going to the Home Depot Store then returning to [one] residence with supplies needed for remodeling/renovation,” according to one FDLE report.
FDLE investigated potential criminal charges including official misconduct, fraud, theft and exploitation of an official position. The criminal probe was officially closed at the end of March 2021.
The thrust of the investigation focused on Nillo. In January 2021, Miami police’s anti-corruption unit began surveilling Nillo, chronicling her days: taking her son to school, driving to various commissioner district offices, rarely visiting the CRA office. They even placed a GPS monitor on the car to track her daily movements.
Most concerning to detectives was that Nillo, over the course of at least six days of surveillance on work days, repeatedly was drinking while driving her city car. Among the examples:
▪ On the afternoon of Jan. 25, 2021, she bought two cans of Modelo beer at a Chevron in Westchester. She poured one beer “into a light-colored metal container,” parked behind a nearby Planet Fitness gym and drank it, Miami Detective Orlando Benitez wrote in his report.
▪ On Jan. 26, 2021, detectives watched and snapped photos of Nillo as she used her city car to buy beer at gas stations on five separate visits, the first just before noon.
▪ Just past 7 a.m. on Jan. 28, 2021, Nillo used her city Toyota to drop off her son at Coral Park High. Immediately afterward — still in her pajamas — Nillo walked into a nearby gas station, came out and began drinking from a can wrapped in a small brown bag.
Nillo didn’t just buy and drink beer during work hours. On one occasion, detectives also watched her walk into a nail salon near her house about 2:30 p.m., staying for about an hour-and-a-half.
Later, on March 17, 2021, FDLE and Miami investigators decided to conduct more surveillance, to see if she continued her habit of drinking. She did, according to FDLE, starting at 9:22 a.m. with a Modelo beer bought at the gas station, the first of several that day.
Finally, on March 18, investigators observed her buying wine, a bottle of tequila and four cans of cola from a Miami liquor store — at 9:02 a.m. She then drove to Díaz de la Portilla’s condo building, where she remained for more than an hour.
Officers pulled her over after she left. Though she passed a field sobriety test, Nillo agreed to speak to agents, admitting to having drunk two beers while on the road, and then wine at the commissioner’s home. “I had a cup of wine but I had it in a coffee cup so he wouldn’t see me drinking it,” she told FDLE Agent Gaylon White.
She said she purchased the liquor at the request of Díaz de la Portilla. FDLE agents assured her she was not under arrest, and asked her about her job arrangement. She acknowledged that Jason Walker — whom she repeatedly and mistakenly called James — was technically her supervisor, but she really reported to Díaz de la Portilla.
Nillo couldn’t explain why Díaz de la Portilla made the unusual arrangement for her. “From the beginning, it worked that way,” Nillo told agents. “Honestly, that was the way I was told to do it.”
The agents also pressed her on whether she knew of any corruption within the ranks of the city. She claimed she didn’t. “I can inquire to see what’s going on,” Nillo said.
Nillo also acknowledged the gravity of drinking and driving in a city car. “Obviously I messed up,” she told the agents. “So I’m going to be fired.”
And she was, but only briefly. Days later, Díaz de la Portilla hired her to his office.
This story was originally published May 31, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
