Miami Mayor Francis Saurez's longshot campaign to win the Republican Party's 2024 presidential nomination now has a larger cloud hanging over it after the Miami Herald acquired emails that appear to show he has been meeting with and taking $10,000 payments from a local developer dating back to 2021, despite his previous denials.
Suarez is already under federal investigation for accepting "consulting "fees from developer Rishi Kapoor as the GOP lawmaker helped to fashion a new city law that would ease the way for Kapoor's $70 million Coconut Grove real estate project.
According to the report from the Herald's Joey Flechas, Saurez has been the recipient of $170,000 "for consulting for the developer in regular $10,000 increments."
Flechas wrote, "The newly obtained emails reveal how the relationship between Kapoor and the mayor’s office began years before the aide made a call to the city’s zoning director, who ultimately overrode a code requirement that the building be set back five feet from the property line, paving the way for permitting," and then added, "The communications from the mayor’s office, which date back to 2019, show previously unknown levels of collaboration between the mayor and Kapoor’s company, Location Ventures, which paid Suarez the $10,000 per month through a subsidiary associated with the Grove project."
Where this becomes problematic for Suarez is that he has previously denied any contact with the developer about the Grove project but, "city calendar invites indicate the two met at least half a dozen times between January 2020 and August 2021" including at the Cocoplum Yacht Club.
The report adds, "It’s unclear from internal company records reviewed by the Herald when Kapoor hired Suarez, but the records show payments started no later than September 2021 — one month after the final calendar invite for a meeting with Kapoor sent to Suarez’s city email."
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