The former vice chair of the Miami-Dade School Board accused of defrauding the district will head to trial next month.
Lubby Navarro, who was arrested in 2024, is charged with organized fraud and grand theft. Prosecutors allege that she racked up roughly $100,000 on a district credit card for extravagant personal purchases — like vacations and shopping sprees — for herself and others.
According to the investigation led by the office of Miami-Dade Inspector General Felix Jimenez and the office of the county's State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, Navarro went undetected by “doctoring” receipts, whiting-out her name and explaining away the purchases to district staff.
“Every dollar stolen and spent by Ms. Navarro is a dollar taken from our school system, and therefore stolen from our children — and diminishing their possibility of a better future,” Fernandez Rundle said.
READ MORE: Investigators: Former school board member charged $100,000 to district credit cards for personal use
The alleged purchases included clothes, home appliances and beauty products, as well as trips to the Dominican Republic, Las Vegas and Disney World.
Navarro, who was appointed to the school board in 2015 by then-Governor Rick Scott, got away with the alleged misuse of public funds, investigators say, right up until she resigned her seat on the board in December 2022.
The former Miami-Dade school board vice chair has been criminally charged on four counts of organized fraud and grand theft, and faces the potential of five decades behind bars.
Navarro has pleaded not guilty. Judge Miguel de la O set her trial to start April 7.
