Billy Corben Instagram – #BREAKING: New emails detail ex-Miami Commissioner @SabinaCovoMiami’s alleged scheme — first reported on the #BecauseMiami podcast — to trade a city job for an endorsement in her failed re-election bid, now the subject of a bribery investigation. #BecauseMiami
Last November on the podcast, before the runoff for Miami City Commission District 2 between incumbent Covo and challenger Damian Pardo, former general election opponent @votejamestorres accused Covo of offering him a city contract worth over $100,000 in exchange for his endorsement of her. He says he declined, but claimed that Eddy Leal took the deal. @eddylealdistrict2,a former lawyer for Mayor @FrancisSuarez and third place candidate had endorsed Covo — despite an alleged pre-election pact among Torres, @damianpardod2 and Leal to support whichever of them made the runoff.
She is now under investigation for bribery by the Broward State Attorney since Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle was once again forced to recuse herself from a public corruption case due to a conflict of interest. Rundle shares a campaign consultant with Covo, Christian Ulvert, who may be a witness or co-conspirator in this case.
Leal first met with city manager Art Noriega after his election loss to “express desire to return to the City of Miami in some capacity.”
Leal says he also had a meeting with Covo where her campaign “asked me if I had any interest in returning to the city.”
“After meeting with him, she instructed me to go forward with a consulting agreement for policy guidance and other purposes in the District 2 office,” Covo’s then chief of staff Anthony Balzebre told the Miami Herald this week.
New emails show that on Nov. 13, Balzebre asked @ArtNoriega for authorization to hire Leal as an “expert consultant, to provide strategic advisory services to the City of Miami’s District 2 Office.” Twenty minutes later, a reply: “The Manager approves.”
Covo says her chief of staff acted alone without her knowledge. But it’s doubtful she devised this scheme on her own. The question is what did her political puppeteer @cbulvert and corrupt lying city manager Noriega know and when did they know it? | Posted on 18/Apr/2024 18:12:57
