After seven days of witness testimony, jurors finally began deliberating in the trial of ex-Miami-Dade commissioner Joe Martinez, accused of using his political power to benefit financially.
Martinez was arrested in 2022 and charged with unlawful compensation and conspiracy while serving as commissioner. Prosecutors claim he was paid $15,000 in exchange for a draft in county legislation regarding storage containers.
During closing arguments presented Thursday, Benedict Kuehne, an attorney representing the former commissioner presented his client as an honorable and respected man.
"A person with a history of doing everything right. Trying to help people. Not for personal gain and certainly not for any advantage," Kuehne told jurors.
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However, prosecutors say supermarket owner Jorge Negrin paid Martinez $15,000 as a benefit for the commissioner to draft legislation that would lessen restrictions and allow Negrin to park storage containers on the property. Negrin’s property owner, Sergio Delgado, was getting fined thousands of dollars for illegally parking the trailers on the property.
Evidence presented showed Martinez’s office secured a meeting with code enforcement and the supermarket parties to address the trailers and potential changes in law.
During the trial, Martinez’s attorneys brought Negrin to tell jurors he only paid Martinez in appreciation because the commissioner helped him get an investor in prior years which allowed him to purchase the store.
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"Why would you pay a 15,000 bribe to Joe Martinez?" Neil Taylor, another defense attorney, asked.
"Whoever says that has no sense, has no sense," Negrin responded in Spanish.
On top of his elected position, Martinez was also an account manager for Centurion Security where his job was to introduce potential clients to the company for contracts.
Edward Heflin, Martinez’s boss at Centurion told jurors on Monday that at some point those contracts were not paying. The company and Martinez began struggling financially.
“With the contracts related to Joe Martinez was there difficulty collecting those contracts?” asked Timothy M. VanderGiesen, a prosecutor for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.
“Not just his. All of them,” Heflin responded
Prosecutors introduced evidence that showed Martinez’s paychecks from Centurion were getting bounced. They believe this led Martinez to use his elected position to seek help in getting a loan from Delgado, the shopping center property owner.
Last week, Delgado told jurors Martinez called him to “put in a good word” for him with a bank to factor a loan.
Martinez denies all the allegations including those connected to the loan, the thousands Negrin paid him, and says he wasn’t struggling financially. Martinez also denied to testify in the trial.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
