MIAMI – More than a year after announcing charges, Broward prosecutors have dropped the criminal case against former Miami City Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla and attorney William Riley.
Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor, who took over the case’s prosecution from Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, made the announcement Wednesday.
Diaz de la Portilla, 60, who served on the Miami city commission representing District 1 from 2020 until he was suspended from office shortly after his arrest on corruption charges in September 2023, was accused of secretly taking in tens of thousands of dollars from owners of a private school.
The commissioner and Riley, 49, were accused of laundering approximately $245,000 in concealed political contributions to support the construction of Centner Academy’s athletic complex on public land in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood.
“Never ever was that a factor,” school owner David Centner told Local 10 News on Wednesday following the announcement that charges would be dropped. In a statement, Pryor said that after “a substantial follow-up investigation and extensive depositions of witnesses, we have concluded that there is no reasonable likelihood of conviction.”
“When the arrests were made, I promised that our prosecutors would pursue justice in this matter and that is what we have done,” he said.
In a closeout memo, prosecutors wrote, “The evidence does not demonstrate corrupt intent, unlawful benefits, or falsification of records. Witness testimony is unreliable and lawful actions have been misconstrued as criminal.”
“Substantial follow-up investigations and depositions have occurred that revealed that the foundation of this entire investigation was misguided and buttressed by unverified information,” prosecutors wrote, calling the case “purely circumstantial.”
Centner and his wife were never accused of wrongdoing and were interviewed as part of the investigation, refuting the idea of pay-for-play from the start.
“The losers in this is really the community, because this would have been an amazing project that everybody would have used,” Centner said.
Diaz de la Portilla, who consistently and strenuously denied any wrongdoing, tried to regain his seat in the 2023 election, but lost to challenger Miguel Gabela under the cloud of criminal charges.
Those charges are now a thing of the past.
As for the longtime politician’s future, Diaz de la Portilla has professed interest in running for office again — possibly that of Miami mayor.
Local 10 News contacted Diaz de la Portilla seeking comment on Wednesday and had not heard back as of around noon.
Read the closeout memo: