‘Operation Greenpalm’ Ensnares Some of Miami’s Top Wheeler-Dealers

This buzzing, over-caffeinated city of intrigue and passion has had its share of operatic political scandal, but the ongoing FBI sting known as “Operation Greenpalm” may be setting a new local standard.

Bahamian offshore bank accounts, shadowy meetings with informants on borrowed pleasure yachts, multimillion-dollar extortions, slush funds--this one might have it all. The once powerful are being brought low, including a lion of the Cuban-exile community, Cesar Odio, now facing charges that he allegedly shook down city vendors so he could buy a new Rolex.

Over the last year, federal investigators ensnared and then flipped some of the more powerful wheeler-dealers in town, turning them into informers, who in turn helped the FBI capture on video top officials scribbling notes about kickbacks and then burning them in ashtrays like something out of an episode of “Get Smart.”

Reading the indictments, it seems that for a time the fashion accessory of choice in City Hall was no longer the power tie, but the concealed wire.

So far, Operation Greenpalm has resulted in three indictments, with more likely. One city commissioner has pleaded guilty. Another figure has agreed to as-yet unspecified charges. Grand juries continue to investigate.

Miami being Miami, all this unfolds in an atmosphere of potentially dangerous racial polarization and distrust. It is no secret to anyone listening to local talk radio that African Americans (the minority) and Cuban Americans (the majority) not only feel beleaguered and unfairly targeted by the “Anglo” Justice Department, but don’t really trust each other as well.

And things are almost certain to get worse before they get better.

In recent elections for mayor of Dade County, the large municipality of which the City of Miami is only a part--albeit its name-brand part--voters cast ballots along strictly racial and ethnic lines, electing Alex Penelas, the baby-faced son of Cuban exiles, over Art Teele, a black Republican and former Reagan appointee. Penelas is not under any type of cloud, which almost seems unique these days.

Now, thanks to Operation Greenpalm, the city of Miami has lost its lone black commissioner, Miller Dawkins. The once bombastic and now humbled Dawkins this month pleaded guilty to bribery, corruption and conspiracy for his part in attempting to shake down the Unisys Corp., a city vendor, for $200,000.

As he felt the Feds circling in, Dawkins, in one memorable episode captured by the FBI, told Howard Gary, one of the country’s leading black municipal-bond dealers, to “throw the rest of the money [$100,000] to the bottom of the ocean.”

Unbeknown to Dawkins, Gary had been flipped by the FBI and was an informer. Gary, the city’s financial advisor and a former city manager himself, was wired. He has not been charged for his alleged role in the Unisys shakedown.

Dawkins held what everyone here calls “the black seat,” a position that the powers-that-be largely agreed should be held by African Americans in a city where blacks are often the most invisible of all the competing groups. So when the convicted Dawkins was removed from his post, the commissioners temporarily replaced him with the Rev. Richard Dunn, a black minister.

Dunn will be in a special runoff election to hold his seat. The challenger is Humberto Hernandez, a Cuban-American attorney who has been fired as an assistant city attorney (he says it was political), investigated by the FBI (he says his client was investigated, not him) and quizzed by the Florida Bar for soliciting business from the families of the ValuJet crash in the Everglades (he says it was his office doing so without his consent).

Hernandez is favored to win.

Adding to the alleged crimes spinning out of Operation Greenpalm is the disclosure that the fourth-poorest city in the nation is seriously broke.

Within roughly 24 hours of assuming his post after the scandal came to light, acting City Manager Merrett Stierheim discovered the city was at least $68 million in the red. It seems the city was juggling accounts, taking long-term bond and pension money to pay short-term operating costs. The town’s bond rating has plummeted.

Stierheim was brought in to replace outgoing Cesar Odio, the former city manager ensnared by Operation Greenpalm and indicted on bribery and corruption charges. His alleged role: trying to skim funds from CIGNA HealthCare, which held a city insurance contract.

The plan, according to the indictments, went like this: Odio, City Hall lobbyist Jorge Luis de Cardenas and Miami city finance director Manohar Surana would take $12,500 a month from CIGNA and divide it among themselves.

One problem: Surana, caught in another shakedown scheme, was an FBI informer. Surana, according to the FBI, plans to plead guilty to unspecified charges.

Odio, however, is not going quietly. Credited with heroic and civic-minded efforts during the Cuban rafting exodus and Miami race riots in the 1980s, Odio is a popular, though controversial, big man in the Cuban American community.

Odio says he is the victim of overzealous prosecutors and Surana. He says that it is all a misunderstanding, that he was entrapped, that the recorded conversations were all taken out of context. And many local handicappers believe that, given the right jury of his peers, Odio could walk.

But it may be harder to reclaim his reputation. The city is broke, but the former city manager said it was not his responsibility to monitor the books; it was Surana’s.

Odio and his allies raise a question: Why did the FBI allow Surana to operate as an informer, and continue as city finance director for six months, when he was suspected of being a shakedown artist?

There’s more. As Operation Greenpalm went public, local newspapers reported that Odio controlled a discretionary fund, from which he could cut $4,500 checks to worthy individuals and groups. Almost $1 million went out over the last few years.

A review of the account by New Times, the city’s alternative weekly, uncovered checks going to groups of questionable need, including two of the more powerful in the city, the Latin Builders Assn. and the Cuban American National Foundation.

The newspaper also found precious city funds being slipped to local Spanish radio commentators and the highly partisan Spanish-language periodicals. All the while, the city of Miami was experiencing fiscal meltdown--trying to lease its beaches and cutting back on garbage pickup.

Inexorably, the probe keeps widening. One county commissioner (a much more powerful post) is under investigation for his alleged participation in kickbacks on a bond issue with Gary and another bond dealer.

The commissioner, James Burke, made a trip to the Bahamas with Gary (a pleasure trip, Burke says). But he also opened an offshore bank account. Burke, who is black, denies any wrongdoing; his supporters, too, accuse the Justice Department of a racial witch hunt.