A Miami-Dade County ethics investigator faces major scrutiny in a high-profile case against a former Miami City Commissioner he helped to initiate — and he may face contempt of court charges.
Karl Ross is an investigator and forensic accountant for the Miami-Dade County Commission on Ethics (COE). Ross was involved in the initial investigation into ex-Miami Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla and his co-defendant William Riley Jr. that led to their arrests last year for alleged bribery, money laundering and a slew of public corruption charges.
As a result of his arrest, Díaz de la Portilla was suspended from his elected office by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
On Friday, in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, attorneys for Riley said Ross concealed evidence from his co-investigators and from state prosecutors that would have cleared Díaz de la Portilla and Riley of any wrongdoing. Now, they want Ross to answer the court as to why he shouldn’t be held in contempt.
“He has upended Mr. Riley’s life for the past year. There is no doubt in my mind that this was intentional, that this evidence was concealed from investigators,” said Jared Whaley, Riley’s attorney.
READ MORE: Prosecutors drop charges against Alex Díaz de la Portilla, saying evidence is 'unreliable'
Judge Miguel De la O instructed Whaley to file a motion with the court if they choose to seek a contempt charge against Ross. Ben Kuehne, an attorney for Díaz de la Portilla, said on the stand that his team would join with Riley's if they move forward with a contempt proceeding.
Whaley told WLRN in an interview after the hearing that Riley’s team is: “evaluating all [their] options.”
Ross did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WLRN.
The Broward State Attorney’s Office, which brought the charges against Riley and Díaz de la Portilla, dropped the case on Wednesday. Broward prosecuted the case because of a conflict of interest with the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office.
Broward Prosecutors found no likelihood of conviction after follow-up investigations and interviews. In a closeout memo, Assistant Broward State Attorneys Kayla Bramnick stated that investigators relied on witnesses who were “unreliable.”
The memo named Ross as a witness whose credibility came into question.
“Ross admitted to limited familiarity with relevant laws and failed to independently verify key allegations,” Bramnick wrote.
The allegations
The corruption case centered around a land deal involving Biscayne Park in the city of Miami, where Miami-Dade County Public Schools sought to relocate a school called iPrep to increase capacity for students.
Prosecutors believed, after Ross’ initial probe, that Díaz de la Portilla squashed the iPrep deal in favor of a sports complex plan brought forth by the wealthy Centner family — owners of Centner Academy — because the Centners gave him significant donations through Riley.
The Centners were at no point charged with any criminal activity during the case.
Arrest documents alleged that Riley, acting as the Centner’s lobbyist, moved $245,000 from the Centners to Political Action Committees (PACs) managed by Díaz de la Portilla to secure his support for the sports complex. They further alleged that Riley and Díaz de la Portilla sought to hide the origin of the contributions by routing them through a Delaware corporation.
Ross started the investigation with the Miami-Dade COE and brought his findings to the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. Gov. Rone DeSantis transferred the case to Broward because of an apparent conflict of interest with Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.
Riley’s defense team asserted Friday that Ross knew these claims were bogus, but did not tell his fellow investigators.
They shared an email chain between Ross and a former city official discussing the iPrep deal, showing that the city planned to discuss the proposal before Díaz de la Portilla took office in late 2019. The Broward State Attorney noted in his memo that follow-up interviews showed the iPrep proposal was paused in 2019, and Díaz de la Portilla could not have been involved.
The Miami Herald reports that this contradicts statements from the Miami-Dade County School Board, which told the Herald that it had discussions about the iPrep proposal as late as January 2021.
Whaley also claimed Ross knew Riley did not form Pristine DE, a Delaware-based company controlled by the Centners that donated the $250,000 to Díaz de la Portilla — and therefore did not try to conceal campaign donations.
The closeout memo notes that further review of the facts found Pristine DE was used by the Centners for “logistical purposes” and was not used to conceal donations.
“All contributions to PACs were documented in financial disclosures,” the memo states. “There is no evidence, testimonial or documentary, that shows ADLP derived an unlawful benefit from the monies donated to the PACs.”
A motion to dismiss the case filed by Riley’s attorneys includes deposition testimony from Gaylon White, a special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, who gave a sworn statement on the arrest affidavit for Díaz de la Portilla and Riley.
In White’s testimony, he said he did not know that Riley was not the founder of Pristine DE, though that was the claim on the arrest affidavit. He said Ross had never told him that the Centners created the company, and if he had known, he would not have sworn to the arrest affidavit.
The court ordered Ross to cease all contact with other witnesses after attorneys found he had reached out to White and talked about their testimony, according to court filings.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly noted that Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor authored the closeout memo. The memo was in fact written and signed by members of Pryor's staff. The story has been updated to reflect this.
