The Florida Fee on Ethics has dismissed a grievance filed in opposition to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez over his attendance at high-end Formulation 1 occasions, discovering that he reimbursed the ticket prices and that there was “no possible trigger to imagine” he accepted presents in alternate for political favors.
Made public March 13, the fee’s choice prompted a victory lap from Suarez, who claims the allegations had been politically motivated.
Activist Thomas Kennedy filed the grievance in opposition to Suarez in August 2023, roughly three months after Suarez was seen hobnobbing with celebrities and rich enterprise leaders on the 2023 Miami Grand Prix and dinner occasions tied to the race. Kennedy alleged that Suarez obtained improper compensation within the type of dear occasion tickets from Kenneth Griffin, head of hedge fund Citadel, whereas the agency was searching for to relocate its headquarters to a yet-to-be-built skyscraper in Miami.
The fee accepted an ethics reviewer’s willpower that Suarez didn’t obtain “presents” as a result of he repaid Griffin for the tickets, and, in different situations the place he didn’t pay for attendance, was showing in his ceremonial capability as mayor.
“As we speak’s bipartisan and unanimous exoneration gives irrefutable proof that the vicious and politically motivated assaults on Mayor Suarez’s character are fully inaccurate and with out benefit,” Suarez stated in a press release.
Kennedy bit again in a press release supplied to New Occasions, saying the probe was incomplete and let Suarez off the hook for freebies. He contends that the fee handled the mayor’s time at sure Formulation 1 occasions as official enterprise when there’s proof that Suarez marked off these attendance home windows as private time.
“This was a poorly carried out investigation by an ethically challenged ethics board that was designed to guard a corrupt politician and the particular pursuits each enriching him and benefitting from his tenure,” Kennedy says.
Suarez’s attendance on the Miami Formulation 1 occasions spawned in depth native information protection and scrutiny over who bankrolled the prices, together with protection in New Occasions’ article, “Man About City: Mayor Suarez Lives It Up at Formulation 1 2023,” which chronicled his outings intimately.
The mayor and his spouse attended a luxurious, $3,000-per-person Carbone Seashore dinner on Might 6, 2023, the place fellow attendees included billionaire Jeff Bezos, Griffin, and Miami Dolphins’ proprietor and actual property developer Stephen Ross. The next day, Suarez and his spouse seen the race from the posh Paddock Membership Suite, which value $4,000 a ticket. He additionally appeared on the “As soon as Upon a Kitchen” occasion, in addition to one other Carbone Seashore perform early within the weekend.
The Miami Herald later reported that Griffin had supplied Suarez and his spouse with VIP tickets for Formulation 1 weekend, however that Griffin and the mayor’s workplace insisted Suarez had paid again the hedge fund chief.
In his ethics grievance, Kennedy wrote that Suarez was engaged in an “ongoing abuse of public workplace to learn and enrich himself whereas compromising his work to correctly characterize the most effective pursuits of Metropolis of Miami residents.”
“I really feel strongly there’s ample proof right here to warrant a complete public and monetary data audit and investigation with respect to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s skill to attend these high-dollar, unique VIP sports activities and leisure occasions,” Kennedy’s grievance acknowledged.
After a months-long probe, Melody Hadley, a reviewer advocate for the Florida Fee on Ethics, wrote in February that Suarez issued a examine dated July 5, 2023, for $14,000 to GFS LLC to reimburse Griffin for the price of Suarez and his spouse’s Carbone Seashore and Paddock Membership attendance. GFS is an organization that dealt with Griffin’s private monetary affairs, based on the fee data.
In keeping with Hadley, the examine lined two $4,000 Paddock Membership tickets and two $3,000 Carbone Seashore tickets. The mayor lower the examine two months after the media firestorm over his attendance however earlier than the 90-day deadline to reimburse a would-be present beneath Florida ethics legislation.
Hadley, who works as a lawyer within the Florida Workplace of the Legal professional Common, wrote that Suarez “left with out consuming or consuming” at his first Carbone Seashore occasion on F1 weekend, and that he “didn’t have a ticket and didn’t attend the dinner” on the As soon as Upon a Kitchen occasion. Hadley didn’t discover possible trigger to determine that Suarez accepted compensation or presents with data (or constructive data) that they had been meant to affect a vote or different mayoral motion.
The fee accepted Hadley’s suggestion in a March 8 report launched at the moment.
In response to the fee’s choice, Kennedy tells New Occasions that investigators failed to handle his allegations about Suarez’s attendance at a World Cup match in Qatar alongside soccer legend and Inter Miami part-owner David Beckham. If Suarez accepted presents from Beckham, it might doubtlessly represent an ethics violation since Beckham has been concerned in lobbying for Inter Miami’s deal to construct a brand new stadium on the web site of the previous Melreese Nation Membership.
Suarez receives a $130,000 wage as mayor, however he has taken some profitable facet jobs that seem to dwarf his municipal pay. Throughout his mayoral tenure, he has labored as an lawyer for the legislation agency of Quinn Emanuel and obtained a $360,000 wage by his place as a senior working accomplice at DaGrosa Capital Companions, a Coral Gables-based non-public fairness agency, the Herald reported.
The mayor additionally obtained $10,000-a-month funds as a advisor for growth firm Location Ventures whereas it was pursuing a Coconut Grove venture.
Final month, the Florida Fee on Ethics dismissed a separate grievance Kennedy filed in opposition to Suarez over his use of metropolis law enforcement officials as safety throughout his short-lived presidential marketing campaign. The grievance was largely based mostly on New Occasions‘ experiences that confirmed that greater than $20,000 in lodge and journey bills for Suarez’s marketing campaign path safety had been billed to the town.
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