Suspended Miami-Dade commissioner Martinez convicted of taking $15K to help constituent

The career of a lifelong public servant who reached the stratosphere of Miami-Dade politics was shattered Thursday when jurors found Joe Martinez guilty of political corruption.

Martinez, 66, whose decorated 17-year law enforcement career led to five terms in elected office as a county commissioner, was convicted of accepting $15,000 in payments in exchange for helping with legislation that would have benefited a constituent.

Jurors needed only three hours to accept state prosecutors' arguments that Martinez accepted three $5,000 payments in 2016 and 2017 from Extra Supermarket owner Jorge Negrin in exchange for pushing legislation that would have permitted much-needed large refrigerated containers on the property.

As Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Miguel M. de la O read the verdict in a courtroom filled with Martinez's allies, family members burst loudly into tears. Martinez looked to his wife and daughters on the rows behind him, then regathered himself. He then got up and hugged his children.

"They got it wrong," he said to them.

Outside the courtroom and before a row of television cameras and microphones, Martinez and his attorney Ben Kuehne said they would petition de la O to overturn the verdict and appeal the case if needed.

Martinez, surrounded by loved ones, called the jury's decision, "obviously disappointing" and said he refused to lose faith in God. As he spoke of his family — he has a wife and two daughters — being in court every day, his voice cracked.

"I don't even think the state attorney expected this," said Martinez, who spent 17 years with the Miami-Dade Police Department before being elected to the county commission. "This is not something that's in my DNA."

Martinez was convicted of unlawful compensation and conspiracy to commit unlawful compensation. After the conviction, Judge de la O released Martinez and said a decision on sentencing would come some time after Dec. 20. The conviction could land the suspended commissioner in prison for more than 15 years.

Complicated plot to get paid

During the two-week trial, jurors were told by state prosecutors of a complicated plot spearheaded by Martinez in which he is alleged to have asked the owner of a West Miami-Dade shopping center in his district to put in a good word with a bank that Martinez's private employer was trying to ink a deal with. The employer had been bouncing paychecks to the commissioner.

Martinez was so desperate for money, Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Tim VanderGiesen told jurors, that in addition to trying to secure a bridge loan for his boss, the suspended commissioner helped his employer secure a $16 million contract with the county's water and sewer department — just so he could get paid.

Martinez could have earned as much as $100,000 through the contract. But he was never paid and eventually recused himself from voting on the contract as investigators began to hone in on the plot, VanderGiesen said.

"Mr. Martinez cannot use his position of authority to benefit individually. And that's what he was doing with Mr. Heflin [Martinez's boss and owner of Centurion Securities Ed Heflin]," VanderGiesen told jurors. "You can't shake people down and pretend you're going to do something for them through your public job."

Jurors rejected the defense argument that Martinez was an exemplary public servant always looking out for the well-being of his constituents — and who had been paid by Negrin simply out of gratitude for helping him find a place to open his supermarket about a decade ago.

Kuehne, Martinez's attorney, said the suspended commissioner has had a "call to duty" to serve the public his entire life.

"He was always looking to help everyone else. Everything about this case and Joe Martinez is legal and ethical," Kuehne said.

Questions first arose in 2017

Martinez, whose District 11 encompasses much of West Kendall and West Miami-Dade, was arrested in August 2022, almost five years after investigators first questioned him about three $5,000 payments he was convicted of accepting in exchange for a bill that would have benefited a constituent.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended him a month later. The state said Martinez sponsored a bill to help Negrin and the owner of a strip mall at 12800 SW Eighth St., who been fined thousands of dollars by county code inspectors over the years for the illegal containers. Martinez was accused of pocketing the $15,000 in exchange for a bill that would have increased the number of containers.

The bill was never voted on, which doesn't matter under a law that is based on intent. And the plot was much more complicated.

Lead prosecutor VanderGiesen painstakingly laid out the alleged plot to jurors. He said that at the same time Martinez was trying to help strip mall owner Sergio Delgado with his container issues, the suspended commissioner was trying to get Heflin a bridge loan. The plan was help the boss at the private security firm pay Martinez and other employees until he secured the county contract.

Texts between Martinez and Heflin proffered during the trial showed Martinez was concerned that Centurion would blow the deal with the county's water and sewer department if security guards came forward complaining of not being paid.

"This legislation was for the two guys [Delgado and Negrin. I submit to you [the jurors] this legislation was never going to pass and the defendant knew it," VanderGiesen told jurors during closing arguments. "It was created so the defendant could try to get help for himself."