Posted on 07/30/2004 11:29:03 AM PDT by ijcr
In a clumsy attempt at fraud, a 72-year-old Miami-Dade County Commission candidate with a long list of political defeats nearly grabbed $50,000 in public campaign matching funds, police said.
An investigator calls it an early sign that recently enacted campaign reforms are attracting new and creative methods of cheating taxpayers.
''It was very sloppily done, but it was an interesting idea as a way to make a $15,000 investment toward a $50,000 payoff,'' Miami-Dade Police Sgt. Felix Jimenez said.
Juan Miguel Alfonso, who is running against Commissioner Bruno Barreiro in District 5, is accused of faking his campaign reports to make it appear that he had more than 435 individual contributors to his County Commission race.
Campaign financing rules give County Commission candidates $50,000 in matching funds if they have at least 200 individual $15 donors and a total of at least $15,000.
ALMOST MADE IT
Alfonso nearly made it, reporting more than $10,000 in what police say are mostly phony donations.
Barreiro tipped off police that something seemed wrong with Alfonso's campaign finance reports when he noticed some of his own supporters on the list.
In the last 10 years, Alfonso has run for mayor of Hialeah, mayor of Miami and mayor of Miami-Dade County, among other offices. He's never raised more than $700. In his last election, for Miami mayor, he garnered 12 votes.
Alfonso, a security guard with no criminal record, merely pulled names from the District 5 voter rolls, then went out and bought batches of money orders in those names, according to his arrest report.
He listed the contributions in alphabetical order, by date, and signed all the names himself, Jimenez said.
''You don't have to be a certified handwriting examiner to see that it was all in the same handwriting,'' Jimenez said.
Elections office spokesman Seth Kaplan said election officials don't check for fraud. They just check that signatures come from registered voters and that dollar figures match up.
The Miami-Dade commission on ethics does not finish auditing campaign reports until after elections are over, said Robert Meyers, executive director.
It was up to Barreiro, who learned July 13 that Alfonso had switched his application to run for mayor and was instead challenging Barreiro's commission seat. Barreiro started looking at Alfonso's list of contributors and was stunned to find the name Edilia Crespo, a family friend who has known Barreiro since he was 2 years old.
''Oh my God,'' Crespo said, recalling when Barreiro told her she was listed as a $15 contributor to Alfonso. ``I don't give any money to that man. I don't know who it is.''
CHECKS MORE ON LIST
Barreiro knocked on a few more doors, finding more voters on the list, before taking his concerns to police.
Police said postal employees identified Alfonso as the man who bought money orders in large batches and that Alfonso eventually confessed. He was arrested Thursday on a felony charge that carries a $1,000 bail.
If he had qualified for financing in the county mayor's race, the office he initially sought, he could have collected $300,000 in matching dollars.
Jimenez said police are investigating whether anyone else is involved in the scheme.
Ballots for the Aug. 31 election have already been printed. Without a judge's order, Alfonso will remain a candidate, said Meyers, of the ethics commission.
''I voted against public financing. I was the only one on the commission,'' Barreiro said. ``This is incredible that it happens to me.''
Since the article fails to mention his party affiliation, logic leads me to believe he is a Democrat.
(If he were a Republican, the affiliation would be in the headline).
Exactly.
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