Hyatt overhaul campaign hires a former Miami commissioner once jailed for fraud
When Hyatt Hotels Corp. launched an effort to win voter approval for plans to redevelop the downtown Regency hotel and James L. Knight Center, the company tapped a few local political consultants who are perennial campaign advisers. Their highest paid adviser was previously jailed for fraud.
Humberto “Bert” Hernandez, the former Miami city commissioner who was jailed for mortgage fraud and voter fraud more than two decades ago, is Hyatt’s top paid consultant on the campaign to win a 99-year lease extension and the right to build three skyscrapers on four city-owned acres near the mouth of the Miami River.
In the Nov. 8 election, voters inside Miami city limits will decide whether the city should extend an existing lease and allow the redevelopment of the property.
Campaign finance records show a company owned by Hernandez, H.E.H. & Associates, received $160,000 — the most so far in the campaign, and nearly half of the money Hyatt has spent to campaign for a yes vote.
In a text message this week, Hernandez told the Miami Herald his firm has been involved with political and issue-oriented campaigns for decades.
“As to my involvement in this particular campaign, I can tell you that I have worked on numerous mailers, radio spots and community grassroots activities which will include Election Day activities,” Hernandez wrote.
A spokesperson for the campaign said in a statement that H.E.H. & Associates is being paid to “assist with the campaign’s voter outreach, community engagement, and Spanish-language media placement efforts designed to communicate the benefits” of the redevelopment proposal.
Hernandez left public office more than 20 years ago in a flurry of controversy and legal trouble. He was twice suspended by the governor after he was charged with fraud. First, he was charged in the cover-up of voter fraud during Miami’s 1997 city election. After then-Governor Lawton Chiles suspended him from office, voters returned him to City Hall during a special election. A year later, he was indicted on separate mortgage fraud charges.
A former public defender and assistant city attorney for Miami, Hernandez was disbarred. In separate cases, he was convicted of being an accessory to covering up voter fraud and conspiracy to commit bank, wire and mail fraud. He served more than three years in prison before he was released in 2002.
He’s run an insurance adjustment firm, National Claims Consultants and Estimation Services, for about a decade, according to state business records. Now, he’s back in the political sphere at Miami City Hall.
Hernandez has registered to lobby at Miami City Hall for four clients since 2020, according to public records. He’s represented IKE Smart City, a company that sells informational digital kiosks, and Suntex Marina Investors, one of the firms that vied for the redevelopment of city-owned Rickenbacker Marina during a drawn-out, controversial public bid that was never realized. More recently, he’s registered to lobby for NR Investments, a company that submitted an unsolicited proposal to redeveop 18 city-owned acres in Allapattah, and Lime, one of the companies that wants to operate electric scooters in Miami’s urban core.
Hernandez was also at lunch with Miami Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla when the commissioner was involved in an altercation with lobbyist Carlos J. Gimenez, the son of U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez — a slap heard around Miami’s political world in February. Prosecutors dropped the lone battery charge against Carlos J. Gimenez in that case.
Hyatt has also hired other local movers and shakers to get out the vote.
It has paid $15,000 to Christian Ulvert, political adviser to Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and part of South Florida’s Democratic establishment. Hyatt hired Barbara Hardemon, a veteran of local campaigns and part of a family with a long history in Miami-Dade politics that includes her nephew Miami-Dade Commissioner Keon Hardemon. Her company has received $65,000.
This story was originally published October 21, 2022 at 1:18 PM.
