Spence-Jones plans return to Miami City Commission after state drops chargesI’m blessed,” Spence-Jones, 44, told The Miami Herald after the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office announced it was dropping the charge. Said defense attorney Peter Raben: “I’m grateful the case is dismissed and my client can resume her position as city commissioner.” Under state law and city charter, Spence-Jones can resume her seat almost immediately. That means Commissioner Richard P. Dunn II, who has represented District 5 since her removal, is out. With her remarkable change in fortune, Spence-Jones will return to a very different political landscape: Miami is on its third city manager since Spence-Jones was initially removed from office in November of 2009. She’ll also be doing business with a mayor, Tomas Regalado, who she only knew as a colleague on the commission, and with three commissioners she has never worked
with before. She’ll also have to deal with a long-running public feud between the mayor and the police chief, and residents still seething about a series of fatal shootings by police in her inner-city district. Spence-Jones, first elected in 2005, easily won a November 2009 election for a second term. But two weeks later she was suspended from office by then-Gov. Charlie Crist, after state prosecutors charged her with redirecting $50,000 in county money to a family business. Immediately after being charged, Spence-Jones proclaimed she would run again in a special election in January 2010 -- a race she easily won with more than 80 percent of the vote.
Crist suspended her again. Spence-Jones fought the suspension in court and lost. Three months later she was again charged by prosecutors, on separate charges that she had solicited a $25,000 bribe from Miami developer Armando Codina. In March, a Miami-Dade jury acquitted her as Codina angrily decried the tactics of lead prosecutor Richard Scruggs. After her victory in court, Miami commissioners voted — as allowed by the city charter — to cover her attorney’s fees of $113,439. In the grand theft case, taxpayers likely won’t pick up the tab because though Spence-Jones worked for the city during the time of the alleged infraction, she was not yet an office-holder. When she returns, her term will end in November 2013. Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said Tuesday that her office was dropping the case because prosecutors could no longer prove the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. “We still believe in the basis of why we filed the charges and why we arrested her in the first place,” she said. “We believed a crime had been committed, and we still believe that today.” In the beginning, the evidence in the grand theft case was considered the stronger of the two. Prosecutors contended that Spence-Jones fraudulently steered $50,000 in county grants to Karym Ventures, a family business, in 2005 by forging a letter from Carey-Shuler. Carey-Shuler, her mentor, had asked the county-affiliated Metro Miami Action Plan Trust, known as MMAP, to give the $50,000 to an arts group, Timbuktu Marketplace, and a non-profit agency, Osun Village. She made the request before a county commission meeting. Prosecutors produced a later letter from Carey-Shuler asking MMAP to give the money instead to Karym Ventures, the Spence-Jones family company. The letter became central to the case. In September 2009, prosecutors called in Carey-Shuler under subpoena -- giving her immunity from prosecution — to explain the change.
“Prosecutors expected to close the investigation if Dr. Carey-Shuler confirmed that she had authorized the $50,000,” Scruggs wrote in his close-out memo, adding it might be an example of “bad government to the extreme” but not necessarily criminal. But Carey-Shuler adamantly denied that she had authored the letter, which bore her letterhead and signature stamp, saying she wanted the money to go to the two groups, not Karym. “In fact, she expressed shock and outrage that Ms. Spence-Jones had used her name to obtain funds,” the close-out memo said. So prosecutors, relying on Carey-Shuler’s testimony, cast the letter as a forgery. But Carey-Shuler’s story changed last year after Spence-Jones’ defense attorney Raben uncovered an early draft of the letter, with revisions penned by Carey-Shuler.
“I can’t deny that’s my handwriting,” Carey-Shuler said at a June 21, 2010 deposition. Though Carey-Shuler said she did not recall writing the notes, she said in the deposition that she believed the letter approving the payment came from her office — so she must have intended for Karym to get the money after all. In his final memo, Scruggs suggested that Spence-Jones, or her surrogates, slipped the “surprise” early-memo draft into boxes of evidence that they were allowed to review after her arrest. “The suggestion that we planted the document is grossly offensive, ludicrous and it’s embarrassing that the state would make such an assertion,” Raben told The Herald Tuesday night.
Nevertheless, the early draft of the letter conclusively linked Carey-Shuler to the document. Prosecutors said because she stopped cooperating, they could not prove the case “without her further explanation.” Meanwhile, on Tuesday night, news of Spence-Jones’ victory shot through City Hall.
Spence-Jones can return to work after Gov. Rick Scott signs an executive order, which he is compelled to do by law, according to the city’s legal office. Dunn, who was appointed and later re-elected, said he believes he is entitled to salary and benefits for the three remaining years of his term. Spence-Jones won’t be the first politician to stage a successful comeback after being arrested and prosecuted. Former Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez was convicted of federal racketeering and extortion charges in 1990. While his case was on appeal, he was reelected. His conviction was later reversed; two subsequent trials resulted in hung juries. Martinez, who has been out of office since 2005, is running again for mayor.
Source: Miami Herald staff writer Patricia Mazzei contributed to this report
