Mildred Fernandez sting stemmed from years-old feud

Orlando Sentinel.com
April 28, 2010

Not long ago, Orange County Commissioner Mildred Fernández and Tony Cabrero held court and broke bread as friends inside Mi Viejo San Juan, the restaurant he used to own on East Colonial Drive. But a bitter rift over a carwash and other differences would tear them apart.

 

The falling-out pushed Cabrero to lob steady verbal barbs at Fernández on talk radio for most of last year. Then three months ago, investigators say, his frustration took him to Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar's office with allegations that his one-time friend had shaken him down for a $500 campaign donation in 2008 to keep his project moving through the county's approval process.

That was the start of a Florida Department of Law Enforcement sting operation that allegedly saw Fernández accept a $1,000 campaign donation from an undercover Spanish-speaking agent in return for a pledge to speed a project through Orange's planning process. And Tuesday, shortly before her arrest, she was tape-recorded accepting $6,000 in cash from the same agent in her second-floor campaign headquarters inside a Colonial Drive car dealership, investigators said.

Fernández and her attorneys remained silent Wednesday about her arrest on charges of bribery, grand theft and accepting illegal campaign contributions. Her new lawyer, Ricardo Pesquera, said Fernández would likely make her first public statement about the allegations today.

Fernández was suspended by Gov. Charlie Crist late Tuesday. By Wednesday, her county key card was canceled and her computer shut down. County administrators sent extra staff to back up two aides who are staying on in her office to handle constituent concerns.

Crist's office indicated he would move quickly to name a replacement to serve out Fernández's term through 2012, and at least two would-be candidates -- including former Commissioner Mary Johnson -- expressed interest. Fernandez's campaign for county mayor, meanwhile, seemed all but over.

Meanwhile, the undercover agent's "project" -- which Fernández is quoted as telling him she had told county officials to put "at the top of the list" -- was bogus. County officials said Wednesday that no records exist showing José "Pepe" Vásquez ever set foot inside Orange planning offices. Investigators confirmed that.

It was Cabrero's claim that led investigators to target Fernández. Cabrero said little Wednesday but denied waging a political attack on his former friend. Tuesday night, Fernández told a local TV station she blamed her arrest on "politics."

"That's an insult," Cabrero said. "I have no political motivations. I am not a politician; I am a businessman."

Cabrero told investigators that Fernández squeezed him for a contribution in the summer or fall of 2008, months before her Nov. 8 re-election. However, records show that a business Cabrero owned, Empire Paint & Body Works of Orlando Inc., had donated $500 to her campaign earlier, in January.

But it was two years earlier when things began to unravel between them.

County records show that as early as 2001, Cabrero began pushing plans to use a 1.5-acre parcel near the corner of Curry Ford Road and Chickasaw Trail for some type of commercial venture. By the fall of 2004, he brought plans to county planning officials for a carwash.

Residents resisted it from the start.

Michael Brady, president of the nearby Hawks Landing Homeowners Association, said the project would have been ugly, noisy and brought traffic the neighborhood couldn't handle. But according to Brady, Fernández initially sided with Cabrero.

"She said it was his property, and he had a right to try and develop it," Brady said.

HOA members inundated Fernández with e-mails and phone calls. Dozens of residents turned out for at least two community meetings in 2006 to angrily criticize the project, Brady said. At one of these meetings, Fernández made it clear she had changed her mind.

"She actually turned to [Cabrero] and said. ‘I can't go with this,' " Brady said. "She told him, ‘The community doesn't want this. They are up in arms.' "

Nonetheless, county planners signed off on his plans. But when the project came before the commission Feb. 21, 2006, Fernández pulled it off the agenda to take more community input. After another hostile neighborhood meeting, it came back up to the board five weeks later. Fernández delayed it again.

By May 2006, Cabrero had pulled the plug on the carwash and crafted a retail-office-development plan that won approvals from staff and commissioners during the next two years. It has sat idle since October 2008.

Cabrero was furious at Fernández for blocking the carwash, and it put a damper on their friendship. But by 2008, they had started patching things up, said a source involved in Fernández's re-election campaign that year.

One time, the source said, campaign workers and Fernández ran into Cabrero at a Cuban bakery, and the businessman treated them to lunch. But then Cabrero attempted to revive the carwash proposal -- and again Fernández opposed him.

Things went sour again.

Cabrero became a frequent caller to Spanish talk-radio shows and regularly blasted Fernández.

"He called this show often to express his discontent with the commissioner," said Magda Ivette Torres, host of En Agenda con Magda Ivette Torres, on WNTF-1580 AM. "But he never commented about this particular case."

Cabrero on Wednesday would not discuss the split of their friendship or his allegations against her.

"I can't talk. … When the time is right, I will answer all of the questions," Cabrero said. "Look at what happened because I talked."

It's not clear when Crist will name a replacement. But Mary I. Johnson, who held the seat before Fernández, contacted Crist. Other Republicans are backing Belinda Ortiz, who in recent years has lost races for the Orlando City Council and the state Senate.

Pesquera, an attorney who specializes in defending white-collar crimes in Orlando and Puerto Rico, confirmed Wednesday that he had been retained to represent Fernández, as has attorney and former state Rep. Tony Suárez. But he said they are not ready to discuss any of the specifics in the case.

"My experience is that we have to wait to conduct our own investigation and see what happened in reality," Pesquera said. "What has been out in the public is only the state attorney's case, and my experience is that that is not necessarily the truth. The truth will come out at the right time about what really took place."

Víctor Manuel Ramos and Mark Schlueb contributed to this report. David Damron can be reached at ddamron@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5311. Jeannette Rivera Lyles can be reached at jrivera@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-54771.