Sweetwater wants ousted official to pay back compensation taken while ‘unlawfully’ serving

The city of Sweetwater is demanding that an ousted former official pay back compensation taken while “unlawfully serving,” pointing out that she apparently has the money because she is self-funding a campaign for a county race.

Miami-Dade prosecutors found Sophia Lacayo lied about living in Sweetwater in 2019 when she filed to run for the council seat. She pleaded guilty to a perjury charge and resigned in September 2020 as part of a plea deal that resulted in a year’s probation.

Now she’s running for the Miami-Dade County Commission in the race to succeed term-limited Jose “Pepe” Diaz in District 12, which includes Sweetwater.

READ MORE: Who are the candidates running for Miami-Dade County Commission seats in 2022?

Sweetwater on Tuesday issued a press release repeating the city’s claim that Lacayo owes about $69,000 in pay and benefits she wrongly collected “while she was unlawfully serving as commissioner.”

The statement noted that Lacayo, who owns a tax-preparation business, has loaned her county campaign more than $280,000 since March.

“It is outrageous that she lent herself hundreds of thousands of dollars to run for office while still owing the residents of Sweetwater over $60,000. These are the monies that she owes Sweetwater residents,” Sweetwater Mayor Orlando Lopez said in the city statement.

Lopez has already endorsed the other candidate in the District 12 race, Doral Mayor J.C. Bermudez.

Lacayo said the demand is more about Lopez’s District 12 endorsement than her pay as a Sweetwater commissioner. “It’s truly sad how they are manipulating the residents and voters of Sweetwater,” she said in a statement.

A Sweetwater lawyer first demanded the pay be returned in the fall of 2020, weeks after a plea deal that barred Lacayo from seeking another elected office until her probation expired in September 2021. She filed for the county race in February.

The Sweetwater city commission voted earlier this month to send a second letter requesting the money.

In a Nov. 25 letter responding to the first demand for restitution from the city, Lacayo lawyer Susy Ribero-Ayala said Lacayo donated her own funds to help Sweetwater during her term in office. The letter also noted prosecutors could have required restitution as part of the 2020 plea agreement but “they did not.”

Corrects the Miami-Dade County Commission seat that Sophia Lacayo is seeking to District 12.

This story was originally published May 10, 2022 at 5:20 PM.