By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org
Wild civil and criminal litigation filed in South Florida’s state and federal courts has exposed an allegedly pernicious web of political corruption stretching from Southwest Ranches Town Hall to the Davie Police Department and on to State Attorney Harold Pryor himself.
A federal civil lawsuit filed March 19 targets Southwest Ranches, but also names as defendants former Town Administrators Andy Berns and Russell Muniz, Code Compliance Director Julio Medina and, most notably, Town Attorney Keith Poliakoff. The town contracts for municipal legal services with Poliakoff’s firm, Government Law Group, PLLC.
The suit is seeking millions of dollars in damages.
Poliakoff is accused of orchestrating the town’s “campaign of harassment” against the owner and operator of Cielo Farms Nursery including “unconstitutional, retaliatory and unlawful actions,” the suit says. Cielo Farms, an agrotourism business at 4680 SW 148th Ave. (Volunteer Road), Southwest Ranches, is owned by Atlas Investments LLC, whose principal and managing member is Miguel “Mike” Rodriguez Albisu.
“Poliakoff played the central role in directing and executing the unlawful actions against Cielo Farms, including legal misrepresentations, regulatory manipulation, and obstruction of Plaintiff’s business operations,” says the complaint written by Fort Lauderdale father and son lawyers Ken and Joshua Padowitz. Their 65-page complaint goes on to label Poliakoff as a Democratic political operative and “kingmaker of the Town.”
Poliakoff responded Saturday to an email requesting comment. Asked about the alleged harassment, and his role in it, he did not answer directly. Instead, he insisted those “exact same allegations” were previously addressed before a three-judge panel of Broward judges who decided a code violations case in the town’s favor. Florida Bulldog, however, could find no discussion of those harassment allegations in the cases’ underlying documents.
“This matter is part of an ongoing criminal investigation where multiple felony charges have already been filed,” he said. “If you have any questions, please submit them in writing. We’ll be happy to respond after review by the appropriate law enforcement agencies conducting the investigations.”
The criminal charges were filed against Rodriguez Albisu, a Cuban-American who purchased the nearly five-acre site for $900,000 in November 2020 and later developed it into a location for weddings and other events under a state exemption from local zoning rules. More on that in a moment.
REPUBLICAN WATCH PARTY TRIGGERS ‘WAR’
While the lawsuit cites some early conflict with city code officials, the town’s “hostility reached new heights” two years later when Cielo Farms agreed to host a Nov. 8, 2022 election watch party for the Republican Party.
“Poliakoff, a known political advocate and operative for the Democratic party, instigated his war against Cielo Farms the moment word [of the watch party] spread throughout the town,” the lawsuit says. Prior to the watch party, Cielo Farms had “successfully hosted about 25 events without incident or code violations.”
Immediately after the watch party, Cielo Farms became “subjected to heightened surveillance.” Code Compliance Director “Medina, along with Andy Berns, Town Administrator of Southwest Ranches, David Kuczenski, Town Council Member, Russell Muniz, and others, significantly amplified their harassment and monitoring of the Plaintiff’s business,” the lawsuit says.
That included “the denial of security permits, the fabrication of zoning and code violations, and the manipulation of enforcement mechanisms to disrupt and ultimately shutter Cielo Farms’ business for almost two years,” the suit says.
The lawsuit also quotes from a deposition taken by the defense of Davie Police Capt. Shawn Ravine, who stated that Poliakoff sought to enlist the police in “his personal code enforcement crusade” by having them “surveil and arrest” Rodriguez Albisu for town code violations that are not crimes.
“The issue that I remember was that the property was designated agricultural and that they had a wedding venue and were running businesses every weekend, weddings or parties every weekend on the property, which was in violation of their ordinance because it was supposed to be an agricultural property,” Ravine stated in the deposition.
“And the town attorney at this meeting, Mr. Keith Poliakoff, town attorney for Southwest Ranches, requested you directly as the captain in the Davie Police Department for road patrol officers to make arrests at Cielo farms when weddings were thrown, right?” a defense attorney asked.
“Yes, to issue NTAs, yes,” Ravine said. NTA is a notice to appear in court.
Ravine went on to say that he told Poliakoff he wasn’t going to go along with that because it wasn’t the law. He said Poliakoff seemed to understand that. Nevertheless, the Davie Police Department “reluctantly agreed and initiated police surveillance on Cielo Farms,” the lawsuit says.
Asked about that Poliakoff said, “I don’t believe I know who he (Capt. Ravine) is, nor would Davie Police arrest an individual for a Code violation. The law does not even provide for that. Davie Police, however, does assist the town in identifying violations of the Town’s Code.”
DAVIE POLICE ARREST RODRIGUEZ ALBISU
The complaint, filed March 19 before U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, says the denial by Southwest Ranches of Rodriguez Albisu’s requests to hire off-duty police officers to provide security “directly contributed” to his March 2, 2023 arrest at Cielo Farms on nine felony counts of “aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill.” He faces up to 45 years in prison.
Davie police, which contract with the town for their services, arrested Rodriguez Albisu, 60, after he brandished his revolver and yelled “Get off my property!” at an unruly group of wedding guests that he believed were threatening his family and him. No shots were fired and no one was injured, the arrest report says.
Rodriguez Albisu’s son, Christian Rafart, was also arrested on misdemeanor charges of battery and resisting arrest without violence.
The criminal case came to public attention late last year when the judge and others donned Virtual Reality goggles in court to watch a recreation of what the defense says happened. Video of the wedding also emerged showing Rodriguez Albisu waving a gun around and demanding that rowdy guests leave immediately as the contracted time for the event was expiring.
In Broward Circuit Court, Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground (SYG) law is at the core of Rodriguez Albisu’s criminal defense. (Under it, individuals can use deadly force in self-defense, and not have the traditional duty to retreat, in situations where they are in a location where they have a legal right to be and reasonably believe they are in imminent danger. Florida Statute 776.032 confers “immunity from criminal prosecution” in SYG cases and says that includes “arresting, detaining in custody and charging or prosecuting” the person who uses such force.)
And it is here where the story takes a surprising twist because his lawyers have subpoenaed Broward’s top prosecutor, Harold Pryor, as an “essential” witness for the defense. Rafart is also seeking to take Pryor’s deposition.
The state has asked Broward Circuit Court Judge Andrew Siegel, who has Rodriguez Albisu’s case, and Broward County Court Judge Deborah Carpenter-Toye, who has Rafart’s case, to quash the subpoenas and issue protective orders to prevent Pryor from having to testify. Hearings on the matter are scheduled for next month.
Pryor’s spokeswoman Paula McMahon said, “We will continue to respond to the defense attorneys’ allegations in the appropriate venue — the courtroom and official court filings.”
PRYOR’S TESTIMONY IS ‘HIGHLY MATERIAL’
It is exceedingly rare for a state attorney to be sought as a witness by a criminal defendant, and even rarer for the officer to be ordered to testify.
Defense documents, however, argue that Pryor’s testimony is needed because it is both “highly material and unique to this case” and involves assertions of “selective and/or malicious prosecution, bad faith/intentional violations of Florida Statute, the Florida Constitution, and the United States Constitution.” Those assertions, they say, are “rooted in demonstrable facts indicating political animus and/or personal bias” of which Pryor was “fully aware.”
“The defendant’s case rests, in part, on a theory that this prosecution was instigated or continued despite the lack of probable cause [to arrest] under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law,” the Padowitzes argue. “The defense contends that this is not a routine charging/prosecution decision, but rather a politically motivated endeavor aimed at harming Mr. Albisu, a known Republican ally and outspoken critic of certain local actors – at least one of whom, Keith Poliakoff (a listed Defense witness), happens to be [a] powerful/influential member of the Democratic Political Party (as is State Attorney Harold Pryor).”
Among the questions the defense lawyers want Pryor to answer are whether “external pressure or personal/ political animosity” played a role in the criminal case, whether charges were pursued contrary to “the available exculpatory evidence and statutory immunity” the law provides in Stand Your Ground cases, was Pryor contacted by Poliakoff about the case, did any local government officials or influential Democrats pressure Pryor to “make an example’ of (the) Defendants.”
The defense also wants to know why Poliakoff “personally reached out” to the state attorney’s office to discuss Rodriguez Albisu’s case. Documents seeking to take Pryor’s testimony do not say how the defense knows that, or which prosecutor Poliakoff allegedly spoke to, but notes that Pryor’s office has so far refused to release records about it.
“This raises a troubling question—why would a Town Attorney, whose role is to advise on municipal matters, take a personal interest in influencing a resident’s criminal case pending…?” the civil lawsuit says.
Poliakoff told Florida Bulldog such a discussion with Pryor never happened. “I never spoke to Mr. Pryor about Mr. Albisu’s case.”
A footnote in one of the documents filed March 19 in Rodriguez Albisu’s criminal case makes it clear that the Padowitz lawyers ultimately want to sue both the Broward State Attorney’s Office and “State attorney Harold Pryor, personally” – another highly unusual action – for wrongdoing “once the anticipated claim[s] have sufficiently ripened for review.”
Among those claims is the defense’s March 11 request to the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach that seeks to compel Broward Judge Siegel to rule on Rodriguez Albisu’s pending motion to dismiss his case under Florida’s SYG law. That motion was filed last August, and Judge Siegel has “repeatedly permitted, encouraged, or initiated unwarranted postponements” in violation of Rodriguez Albisu’s constitutional right to a timely determination regarding his statutory immunity, says the defense’s petition for a writ of mandamus.
The appellate court’s answer is likely to come this week.
‘STUNNING DISPLAY OF CORRUPTION’
Meanwhile, the federal lawsuit makes other explosive allegations. It accuses Town Attorney Poliakoff of crafting “a self-sustaining loop of power” and profit through his power to handpick both the town magistrate who rules on code violations and the code enforcers who investigate them.
It cites deposition testimony given under oath by former Town Administrator Berns “to a stunning display of corruption.”
That includes Poliakoff initiating a code complaint about Cielo Farms by calling fellow defendant Code Compliance Director Julio Medina and then taking “the role of the Town’s prosecutor, pursing the case against the Plaintiff. “And as the final act in this fate [sic] accompli, Poliakoff resented his cases before a magistrate judge – one he personally selected to rule on the Town’s violations. The result? A rigged system ripe with conflicts of interest where the referee, the rulebook, and the whistle all belonged to the same person, and as expected, the Town magistrate ruled against Plaintiff,” the lawsuit says.
Part of the deposition:
Q: Isn’t it true that it was Mr. Poliakoff that made a complaint and made numerous complaints against Cielo Farms?
Berns: Correct.
Q: Not only is the city attorney, Mr. Poliakoff, the person who picks the magistrate judge for code hearings, but he’s also the prosecutor. He prosecutes those cases in front of the magistrate, right?
Berns: That’s correct.
Q: Because it would not – it would not be professional and it would not be handled in the right way if someone was acting in a personal manner as the town attorney on a code enforcement issue, right?
Berns: Yes.
Q: Because if there was a personal motivation on the part of the city attorney, that in and of itself could be a conflict of interest, right?
Berns: It would be undue influence, yeah.
Still, despite Berns’s knowledge of that “conflicted system of justice,” he never confronted Poliakoff about it, the complaint says.
Q: Did you have any discussions with Mr. Poliakoff that there may be a conflict of interest in his role with Cielo Farms, a home and a homeowner in the Town of Southwest Ranches?
Berns: I did not have that conversation.
Poliakoff told Florida Bulldog that he does not choose the town’s magistrates. “It is selected by the Town Council after a formal procurement process. There are Resolutions for each Magistrate selected that you can find on the Town’s website.”
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