Former Miami-Dade commissioner gets prison time but allowed to remain free for now

Former Miami-Dade commissioner Joe Martinez received a nearly three-year prison sentence on Monday for what a jury concluded was accepting money in exchange for sponsoring legislation to help a business owner.

While Martinez faces prison time, Judge Miguel de la O said he thought the 34-month minimum sentence called for under state guidelines was too harsh. He is allowing the former commissioner and retired police lieutenant to remain free during the appeals process, which is expected to take at least a year.

“Sir, I’m sorry it’s come to this,” de la O said to Martinez on the second floor of the Richard E. Gerstein criminal courthouse, as the former commissioner’s wife and three adult daughters sat in the second row. “My hands are tied.”

Should an appeals court rule that de la O may issue a sentence lower than what’s in the guidelines, the judge said he would hand Martinez, 67, one year of jail time rather than the nearly three years in a state prison awaiting the former commissioner if his appeal fails.

In a sentencing order, the judge said Martinez’s refusal to express remorse for his criminal conduct closed off the judge’s ability to deliver a sentence lower than the 34 months requested by prosecutors. Martinez continues to deny the allegations, telling reporters outside the courtroom that he couldn’t bring himself “to say I did something that I didn’t do.”

After the sentencing, a county courthouse bailiff took Martinez’s fingerprints, pressing each digit into a small case of ink for the former police officer’s criminal file. Martinez had chatted with the bailiff when he entered the courtroom and gave him a hug after. He did not speak before the sentencing but afterward asked for a few moments to praise de la O and court staff for treating his family and supporters well during last year’s trial. “I just want to say thank you,” he said.

In November, jurors convicted Martinez of unlawful compensation and a related conspiracy charge. The guilty verdict came after prosecutors alleged a link between $15,000 in payments to the then-sitting commissioner from the owner of a West Kendall grocery store and legislation that Martinez had his staff draft in 2017 to legalize outdoor refrigerated storage containers used by the store that violated county zoning rules.

Martinez withdrew the legislation before it could land on a commission agenda, but prosecutors laid out a case accusing the retired police lieutenant of using his public office for financial gain.

In a written statement after Monday’s hearing, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said of Martinez: “It is always a community disappointment when an elected official chooses to work for his own personal interests over the interests of those who elected him.“

In the lead-up to Monday’s hearing – held three days before Martinez’s 68th birthday – defense lawyers filed motions arguing for leniency based partly on what a doctor said was a dangerous heart condition worsened by stress.

They also argued that Martinez’s career in public service – first as a decorated county police officer for 17 years, then 18 years as a Miami-Dade commissioner, serving as the commission’s first Hispanic chair – merited less than the minimum sentence.

De la O agreed at a hearing last month, saying he hoped he didn’t have to send Martinez to prison but that the law might leave him no choice. In granting the $15,000 appeal bond, de la O did spare Martinez from prison for now. He scheduled a status hearing in September 2026 to get an update on the appeals process, suggesting Martinez will spend all of 2025 and much of 2026 without the threat of incarceration.

Ben Kuehne, who represented Martinez alongside fellow lawyers Kendall Coffey and Neil Taylor, said after the hearing that he expected the verdict itself to be struck down during the appeals process. “This case showed the justice system is not perfect,” he said. “This verdict will be overturned. He will be vindicated.”

In written letters and testimony at last month’s hearing, fellow retired officers praised Martinez’s bravery on the county police force, and former colleagues from county government praised his integrity as an elected official.

Character references for the one-time Republican candidate for sheriff came in from Sally Heyman, a Democrat who served on the commission with Martinez, and Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Republican and former county mayor whom Martinez unsuccessfully challenged in the 2012 mayoral race.

Prosecutors said it would be wrong to let Martinez’s prior positions exempt him from state sentencing guidelines that called for prison time.

The case against Martinez rested on three $5,000 checks he received in late 2016 and early 2017 from Jorge Negrin, the owner of the Extra Supermarket located on Southwest Eighth Street near 127th Avenue. Martinez did consulting work for Negrin in 2013, after he had given up his commission seat to try to unseat Gimenez as mayor. Court papers showed a $20,000 check issued in 2013 from Extra Supermarket to Martinez for a lobbying fee, then another $30,000 from Negrin in 2014 and 2015.

In 2016, Negrin paid Martinez again, this time as the former commissioner was preparing to take office again. The first of three $5,000 checks arrived just before he was sworn in as a commissioner and the other two arrived after he took office.

At the time, Extra rented space at a shopping center owned by Sergio Delgado. Delgado wanted Martinez’s help stopping the county fines his center was receiving from Extra’s storage containers in the back parking lot.

Martinez agreed, and in early 2017 had a top aide attend a meeting that Negrin and Delgado scheduled with county zoning officials about the illegal containers. Then Martinez told his staff to put in the commission’s legislative pipeline a proposed ordinance that would legalize them. While that legislation was ready for a preliminary commission vote on Sept. 7 of that year, Martinez abruptly told staff to pull the ordinance from the pipeline before it made it onto that meeting’s agenda.

Prosecutors said proposing the legislation after accepting money from Negrin was enough to trigger the state’s anti-corruption laws. Martinez maintained the money was delayed compensation for past work for Negrin when Martinez was out of office.

Asked by a reporter Monday to explain what the $15,000 paid for, Martinez said that was a question for the attorneys. His lawyers nodded in agreement, saying the press conference wasn’t the time to get into details of the case that will be the subject of appeal. Then Martinez, famously one of the commission’s most pugnacious members, decided to share a response.

“If they want to charge me with stupidity for depositing checks, OK,” he told reporters.

Miami Herald staff writer Grethel Aguila contributed to this report.

This story was originally published September 15, 2025 at 11:21 AM.