A resident resurrects three-year-old allegations against a North Miami council member at a public meeting.
By NADEGE CHARLES, ncharles@MiamiHerald.com
Three years after law enforcement officials declined to prosecute a North Miami councilman on allegations of child molestation, the accusation resurfaced this week at a public meeting.
Councilman Scott Galvin, named in a 2008 suicide note by a 26-year-old former lover, called it “shameless politics.”
The North Miami councilman, who was never arrested or charged, said the accusations popped up to discredit his reelection efforts. Galvin, on the council since 1999, is running against one opponent in the May 10 city election.
Galvin, 42, acknowledged he had a relationship with Gregory Horowitz when both men were adults.
Horowitz shot himself to death three years ago, according to a North Miami police report. He left a suicide note saying Galvin and two other men had molested him when he was a child. At the time of his death, Horowitz had cocaine, oxycodone, morphine and other drugs in his system, according to police records.
Galvin strongly denied Horowitz’s claim. North Miami police investigated and found no evidence to substantiate the allegation. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office also declined to prosecute because of a lack of evidence, according to a 2008 close-out memo.
During the public comment period at Tuesday’s North Miami council meeting, resident Jane Del Rosario stood up and told council members that there were “secret files’’ that Galvin had assaulted a 10-year-old boy and that they should investigate the claims.
“There must be something that’s being hidden,” she said.
Galvin responded after the public comment section was over, saying Del Rosario’s accusations were false. He later said he was shocked.
Galvin blames his opponent, Edwin Hiram Quiñones, for handing out copies of the old police report and spreading false rumors.
“This is a shameless attempt at winning votes,” Galvin said.
Quiñones, 50 , said he did have a copy of the police report, but said it “mysteriously disappeared” from his trophy store, Mr. Trophy , in North Miami on Wednesday afternoon.
“I had nothing to with this,” said Quiñones, who is a political newcomer.
Del Rosario told The Miami Herald that she had never met Quiñones before Tuesday’s council meeting and is not aligned with him. Galvin, however, provided The Herald with a photo and a sign-in sheet that indicate the opposite.
The photo, taken by the city at a North Miami Community Redevelopment Agency workshop earlier this month, shows Del Rosario sitting next to Quiñones, who is standing beside her. Her signature appears next to a box on the workshop’s sign-in sheet saying she’s affiliated with the “Hiram Quiñones Campaign.”
Del Rosario denies signing the sheet. “Anyone could have filled that in,” she said.
Galvin said Horowitz’s mother was a long-time acquaintance and he didn’t remember whether he knew Horowitz as a child.
According to the police report, Horowitz killed himself with a chrome revolver inside the White House Inn, a North Miami motel. In his suicide note, Horowitz, wrote “Scott Galvin sexually molested me … when I was 12.”
Horowitz also accused two other men of molesting him when he was a child.
Police interviewed all three men. According to police, Galvin said he had met and dated Horowitz during the preceding five years.
Galvin later ended the interview, police said, saying he wanted to consult an attorney. According to the police report, his attorney advised police that Galvin would no longer answer questions about the matter.
Galvin said this week he hired an attorney because he felt investigators were questioning him in an accusatory manner about a crime he did not commit.
In the end, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office did not prosecute because “there is no further information to corroborate the victim’s allegations,” according to a police close-out memo.
“This is an assignation on my character,” Galvin said. “It’s all politically motivated.”
Galvin, a former Miami-Dade school teacher, is a vice president of education for Junior Achievement of Greater Miami, an organization that teaches young people about business and entrepreneurship. He taught from 1991 to 1993 at D. A. Dorsey Educational Center and North Miami Middle. His superiors gave him glowing reviews, according to his personnel files.
He left the school district in 1993 to work for then-Congresswoman Carrie Meek for the next six years until he was elected to the North Miami Council.
“Scott was a very diligent and well prepared worker,” Meek said. “He has been a very good elected official, he thinks about how things will affect people.”
