Monestime Staff Corruption Arrests Reported

Miami FL

04 May, 2022

5:04 PM

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By Johania Charles, Miami Times Staff Writer May 3, 2022 Two men with ties to District 2 Commissioner Jean Monestime's office were recently arrested for fraudulent activities and misappropriating Miami-Dade County funds. The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office (SAO) announced dozens of charges Monday against the men and named a third person in a scheme that went on for half a decade. According to a 52-page arrest affidavit, the trio tried to obtain $652,765.33 in money and property from county government resources. More than $640,000 has been traced by prosecutors as being illegally pocketed by the group between Nov. 6, 2015, and April 27, 2021. "It's disappointing to see that there are still individuals who think that they can get away with stealing from the public," said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle at a press conference Monday, making note of her office's countless investigations into corruption in the past. "These three charged individuals have got it all wrong. We simply will not allow such crimes of opportunity to go unaccountable." Monestime's district coordinator, 59-year-old Evelt Jeudy, was the first of three arrests made. Jeudy faces more than 45 counts of first, second, and third degree felony charges, in addition to misdemeanor offenses. Those charges include racketeering, identity theft, exploitation of official position, official misconduct, grand theft and unlawful compensation. Miami-Dade County Commissioner Jean Monestime (MiamidDade.gov) Mac-Kinley Lauriston, who worked in Jeudy's position in 2010 and later as Monestime's chief of staff in 2015, is allegedly the most culpable of the bunch and faces upwards of 55 counts, according to the SAO. After an unsuccessful 2018 mayoral campaign in North Miami, Lauriston remained a county employee. He was booked at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center Sunday on a $154,000 bond but later posted bail. Nadine Chery, facing up to two dozen counts, leveraged a previous position as branch manager at a Pembroke Pines Wells Fargo bank to facilitate the crime. She was arrested over the weekend in St. Lucie County. "Chery had access to customer accounts in her position as branch manager, approved all types of transactions," read the affidavit. "And approved opening checking accounts without the account holders present. Several of the bank accounts at issue in this investigation and used to transfer funds were opened at her branch." Nadine Chery (Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office) "All three individuals are being charged with counts of racketeering and organized fraud over $100,000," said Fernandez Rundle. "And by the way, these are very serious first-degree felony charges. Each individual is also being charged with a variety of additional crimes." Bassam Fadel, employed as a special agent for the county's Office of the Inspector General (OIG), worked with prosecutor Carol Jordan to gather evidence against the defendants over the course of seven months. The SAO said it could not disclose how the scheme was brought to the attention of prosecutors or whether more arrests will be made. One thing that has been clarified to the media though, is that Monestime had no involvement. "There is no evidence that Commissioner Monestime was aware of these activities by members of his staff," explained Fernandez Rundle. "Some might actually say that they breached his trust, too, and it appears they betrayed him." Lauriston, Jeudy and Chery used at least four different methods to collect the funds in question. Fiscal agent scheme The scheme involved approaching nonprofit organizations under the premise that District 2 grants would be awarded to them, but only as fiscal agents – a term referring to an organization that receives donations or grants on behalf of another entity. Once the grants were received by said organization, the defendants then provided instructions for where to send the funds. The scheme led to $15,000 in Miami-Dade County Cultural Affairs grant funding, originally awarded to the Little Haiti Optimist Foundation, to be redirected for Lauriston, Jeudy and Chery's personal use. District 2 Discretionary Reserve and Office funds awarded to the foundation and Youth Education through Sports were also redirected. Seven grants from each organization had been misused over several years, totaling $111,238 in county funding. Mac-Kinley Lauriston, Nadine Chery and Evelt Jeudy face dozens of charges for their involvement in a more than $640,000 scheme that misused county funding. (Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office) Lauriston even used Cultural Affairs grant funds to pay his tuition at Florida International University, then applied for reimbursement through the county's tuition reimbursement program for employees. He was reimbursed the maximum amount under policy. "The chief of staff of Commissioner Monestime, which was Lauriston, had total control over discretionary grant funds that were coming into the commissioner's office," said Fernandez Rundle. "And this included who was to receive a grant and the amount of the actual monies awarded. This total financial control led Lauriston and his associates, Chery and Judy, to manipulate this grant system for their own personal financial benefit." Monestime's staff confirmed that no potential grant award, proposed legislation or resolution left his office without Lauriston's approval, according to investigators. "Those individual [organizations] that we consider to be victims of this, they were held hostage," said Felix Jimenez, deputy inspector general of OIG. "If they did not participate, they would be cut off, and these are agencies that are trying to help the community [and were] fearful they were going to lose their budget." Jimenez believes the organizations may have genuinely thought they were acting as one of hundreds of fiscal agents that receive county funding for disbursement. Reports show that the accused also reinstated dissolved entities and used corporations in which they were officers to obtain additional grant funding. Lauriston was listed as an officer for at least 10 for-profit and nonprofit entities, while Chery and Jeudy were involved with at least 12 others, respectively. Using solicitation letters with Monestime's letterhead and signature, they secured more than $35,000 in fraudulent donations. These donations were supposed to help vulnerable people in District 2 and aid those impacted by Hurricane Irma, which hit South Florida in 2017. How the three are connected Prosecutors say there is more than enough evidence proving that a relationship existed between the three individuals. In the process of misappropriating funds, the group left behind a trail of forged signatures and falsified documents. Jean Faveur founded Haitian Senior Stars Solidarity Group in 2011 and brought on his friend, Jeudy, as a corporate officer. "When [Faveur] became very concerned about deposits that were being made in that account, after about four or five years, he closed it out," said Fernandez Rundle. "And so he no longer managed that account. Instead, these three individuals did." The organization was used to collect four district grants, two houses and one van through Jeudy's involvement. Lauriston opened a family foundation with Monestime's district office listed as the address. Chery was one of its officers. A lease agreement bearing Lauriston's name and a Johane Cothiere was notarized by Jeudy using his notary commission. Cothiere, who is Chery's cousin, testified that she had never seen or signed the agreement. The lease was for Blue Diamond Party Rental, one of the corporations Chery allegedly used to illegally obtain county funds. Chery also authorized the opening of two checking accounts at her branch under Cothiere's name without her being present at the time. County-issued credit cards were also misused by Lauriston and Jeudy. "These individuals leveraged a position of trust and a position of authority to steal the public's money," said Jimenez. "We don't think this is the end of it, there probably is a lot more and we will continue to look." The Miami Times is the largest Black-owned newspaper in the south serving Miami's Black community since 1923. The award-winning weekly is frequently recognized as the best Black newspaper in the country by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.