In FBI probe, friend of Rep. David Rivera goes on the lam, has computer seized

A key witness in a federal investigation involving U.S. Rep. David Rivera failed to show up for an interview with prosecutors and the FBI one day after agents raided her Miami apartment and removed her computer, cell phone and other items.

Ana Alliegro’s whereabouts are a mystery — even to her lawyer.

“I have no idea where she is,” attorney Mauricio Padilla said Friday night. “I have not talked to Ana since Wednesday.”

Prosecutors believe Alliegro played a key role as a go-between for Rivera and a former Democratic congressional candidate who might have broken campaign finance laws in his failed bid against a rival of the Republican congressman in the Aug. 14 primary.

Alliegro had been scheduled to testify Thursday before a federal grand jury in Fort Lauderdale, but Padilla worked out a deal to speak directly to lead prosecutor Thomas J. Mulvihill and two FBI agents. Padilla and Alliegro met Wednesday to prepare for the meeting, but later that day Alliegro said Rivera met with her.

According to Alliegro’s family, Padilla was scheduled to pick her up at her apartment since she had no car and a suspended driver’s license. But she called her lawyer to say she would drive instead with her father.

That’s the last her attorney heard from her.

“Everything is fine,” said Alliegro’s mother, Agueda “Guedy” Alliegro. “I haven’t spoken to her, but she is OK.”

Guedy Alliegro said investigators had previously met with her daughter to serve her a federal subpoena and arrest her for a suspended driver’s license.

“Who gets arrested for that?” she asked. “Ana is innocent. She really doesn’t have anything to offer. She is being harassed for political interests.”

The case definitely involves politics.

At issue: $46,000 in once-secret payments — many made with cash-stuffed envelopes — that candidate Justin Lamar Sternad used for mailers in his unsuccessful primary race against Joe Garcia, who now faces Rivera in the general election.

Sternad’s campaign finance disclosure reports initially gave no indication that he had paid for the mailers. But he later amended the reports amid the FBI investigation.

Investigators have focused on Alliegro because she acted as Sternad’s campaign manager. She may have first-hand knowledge of the source of the funds and whether Rivera was involved in funding the campaign of the political unknown, a part-time night-time hotel worker.

More here

(post has been substantially updated)



Weak jobs report nags Obama after not-so-strong convention speech

President Obama's convention speech last night hit all the notes he wanted. But he just didn't seem to want it that badly.

So Obama's getting tepid reviews for his somewhat-tepid speech, and now he has to contend with the tepid jobs report showing meager gains and an unemployment rate of 8.1 percent that seems artificially low because so many people are dropping out of the workforce.

AP:

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- His convention over, President Barack Obama ran smack into the harsh reality of a bleak new report on the nation's unemployment outlook Friday. Republican rival Mitt Romney pounced on the jobs figures as fresh evidence that it's time to put someone new in the Oval Office.

"We're going in the wrong direction," the GOP nominee said flatly.

Obama, for his part, admitted: "We need to create more jobs, faster."

Fresh out of the two national conventions, both Obama and Romney chose to campaign Friday in New Hampshire and Iowa, improbable battleground states in the too-close-to-call race.

Sixty days out from the election, the rivals were quick to roll out rival contexts for the new Labor Department report showing that U.S. employers added just 96,000 jobs last month, failing to meet expectations. The unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent in July, but only because more people gave up looking for work.

More here

Former Hillsborough County attorney vows to take ethics case back to court

Former Hillsborough County Attorney Renee Lee vowed Friday to take her ethics case back to court in the latest twist of a long, public saga over a $1,700 pay raise.

Florida's Commission on Ethics imposed a $5,000 fine and a public censure for Lee, who gave legal advice that led to the pay raise for herself and County Administrator Pat Bean.

Lee's attorney, Mark Herron, called the ruling an "injustice," and said his client will take the case to the Third District Court of Appeal.

Commissioners seemed troubled over whether Lee deserved such a penalty, but were hesitant to defy the recommendation of an administrative law judge who suggested Lee's testimony lacked credibility.

Feds slam Florida for warehousing disabled kids, threatens lawsuit

Florida health and disability administrators have been systematically dumping sick and disabled children — some of them babies — in nursing homes designed to care for elders, in violation of the youngsters’ civil rights, the U.S. Justice Department says.

Hundreds of Florida children are spending their formative years in hospital-like institutions, sometimes growing up in the equivalent of hospital rooms with virtually no education or socialization, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division wrote in a 22-page letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi’s office is defending the state against a previously filed lawsuit that claims the institutionalization of children violates federal law.

The letter, written by Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, is the federal government’s first attempt to weigh in on the controversy. At the end of his letter, Perez outlined a series of steps the state could take to reduce its reliance on nursing home beds for frail children. If state leaders fail to “correct” the practice, Perez wrote, “the Attorney General may initiate a lawsuit” of his own.

Some youngsters remain in nursing homes for much of their lives: “a number” of kids, the report said, have spent a decade or longer institutionalized, including some children who entered the facilities as infants and toddlers. More from Carol Marbin Miller here.

Mitt Romney's new Florida ads target Obama on cuts to defense spending and home values

The morning after the Democratic Convention ended, Mitt Rromney announced Friday that's he's launching two new Florida-centric ads that play up defense cuts proposed by President Obama and the ongoing housing troubles.

First take: The housing ad rightly notes the bad economic figures that unfolded during Obama's term. But it's silent on the fact that the housing and jobs market in Florida crashed before Obama took office in 2009 and have slowly improved. Albeit, for many, the improvements aren't good enough, which anyone looking at today's anemic jobs report will tell you (the national economy gained a lower-than-expected 96,000 jobs in August and the unemployment rate fell two-tenths of a percentage point to 8.1 percent, largely because many stopped looking for work/fell out of the labor force).

The defense ad seems more straightforward; Obama will cut defense spending. But the president says he's getting rid of waste. Romney promises more defense spending. It's a potent message in Florida, where naval and air force bases stretch from Key West to the western Panhandle to Jacksonville in the Northeast.

How Romney will pay for the defense spending is unclear. He's also pledging to reverse Medicare cuts while deeply slashing taxes. Meantime, Romney says, he'll balance the budget. How? We don't know yet. The ads don't say that, and neither does Romney.

Court hears arguments over 3 percent cut to employee retirement

The Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments Friday in a case that could determine whether state legislators face another $2 billion budget hole next year, or state workers will see their salary cuts retained. 

The lawsuit, Scott v. Williams, was filed by the Florida Education Association after lawmakers passed and Gov. Rick Scott signed a 2011 law that imposed a 3 percent levy on 623,000 government worker salaries to offset the state’s investment into the Florida Retirement System.

Lawmakers argued at the time that the change was needed to fill a $3.6 billion budget gap and bring Florida in line with 47 states that require their government workers to contribute to their pension plans. The savings was then plowed back into the budget, not into the retirement fund.

But Leon County Circuit Court Judge Jackie Fulford ruled earlier this year that the pension changes were an unconstitutional because the changes impaired the contractual rights of the FRS employees, took private property without full compensation and impaired their collective bargaining rights. She ordered the state to halt the practice and reimburse workers with interest.

Hialeah voter-fraud suspect contradicts Miami-Dade commissioner's former aide, says aide helped legislative candidates

Sergio “El Tío” Robaina said Thursday he wants to clear his name against electoral-fraud allegations and, in a further twist to Hialeah’s growing absentee-ballot scandal, claimed that a former aide to Miami-Dade County Commissioner Esteban Bovo asked for his help in collecting ballots.

In an interview with El Nuevo Herald, Robaina, 74, said Anamary Pedrosa and her mother stopped by his house four or five times to retrieve the ballots he had collected from friends and neighborhood acquaintances. He said he was never paid.

“She’d stop by about 5:30 p.m. with her mom,” he said. “They’d collect them and then count them.”

Robaina was arrested on Aug. 10 on two felony charges of tampering with absentee ballots. He said he’s never done such a thing.

“I will defend my innocence in court and wherever else I have to,” he said.

According to Robaina, Pedrosa visited after work hours. She told him she was helping with the campaigns of Manny Díaz Jr., José Oliva, and Eddy González, who won their respective bids for the Florida House of Representatives in the Aug. 14 primary elections.

However, email records show that Pedrosa was helping at least one of these candidates, Díaz, during work hours in June and July. Also, financial records show that her mother was paid to work on Oliva’s campaign in April.

More from Melissa Sanchez and Enrique Flor here.