Flashback to 2010 when Myron Rosner was still the Mayor North Miami Beach, and his arrest and conviction on grand theft third degree felony still two years in the future, there was another City official who eventually went to prison for his crimes.

Under Myron’s watch, then-Director of Public Services Marty King, resigned after ripping off the City for $2.3 million when he contracted and paid for 254 manholes that “went missing.”

The Sun Sentinel reported, “No one — not the city public services department, the City Council or residents — appears to know when, where, or if the manholes, part of a $2.2 million project, were ever built.”

On February 16, 2011, still under Myron’s watch, Marty was arrested, and charged with racketeering, money laundering, and grand theft third degree, to which he pleaded guilty in a Change of Plea and Plea Agreement he made with the Miami State Attorney’s Office.

The Miami Herald also reported that “King, who oversaw the city’s water-and-sewer work, resigned from his $100,000-a-year job last year after he admitted he approved purchase orders for services and materials that were not performed or delivered, according to city records.”

In Former NMB Director To Spend 12 Years In Prison, CBS Miami reported:

King was first hired in December of 1996 and was promoted to director of public services in August of 2008. The arrest affidavit states that questions about King surfaced as the assistant director began to look into purchase orders and discovered that they did not match the work that had been done.

The affidavit states King asked a third-party that had legitimate business with the city to send bills to his shell company he named Contractor’s Administrative Services, Inc. (CASI), which was registered under his wife’s Rita’s name. His wife has not been charged. She told investigators Martin had told her it was a business for his consulting work and that he didn’t want the City of North Miami Beach to question him about it.

King moved about $2.3 million to a company owned by his wife over the course of 12 years. It was money that was supposed to be used to purchase hundreds of manholes, which remained uninstalled.

Marty was sentenced to twelve years in prison followed by five years’ probation.

Several City employees who worked under him at the time, told us that Marty was a despicable nightmare of a boss, and that no one was more deserving of his fate.

History now seems to be repeating itself in North Miami Beach.

In more ways than one, we’re told.

Last August, we reported that the four criminal North Miami Beach Commissioners, Michael Joseph, McKenzie Fleurimond, Paule Villard, and Daniela Jean, voted on legislation to lease “surplus property” located at 1870 NE 171 Street to the Haitian American Nurses Association (HANA) for five years at a whopping $10.00 a year.  According to the Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser, this property was worth $257,180, not including City Manager Arthur “Duke” Sorey’s Estimate totaling more than $91,450 of your hard-earned tax dollars to renovate the place.

While Duke has spent nowhere near that amount yet, per a February 20, 2022 public records request we did receive a copy of an invoice from AM Florida Builders Corp. in the amount of $5,600.00 for “Construction, Sidewalk and Driveway (including pedestrian and handicap ramps) Door Replacement.”

In that same public records request, we received copies of two Home Depot receipts totaling $780.27 for “Water Heater Install and Electrical.”

On March 15, 2022, we followed up with a public records request for “copies of all building permits issued on the property located at 1870 NE 171st Street from January 1, 2021 through the present date.”

Imagine our surprise when we were told, “There are no additional responsive documents to your request.”

Okay, so we weren’t all that surprised.

We get that response a lot.

However, this non-response only piqued our curiosity as to how $6,380.27 worth of construction took place without any permits being issued.

If you’re a North Miami Beach resident who has been through the arduous process of applying for a building permit, or who has been on the receiving end of a Code Enforcement Violation for building or renovating your property without a permit, then you are already wondering how this could possibly happen.

It gets even worse.

On March 23, 2022, we made another public records request for “a copy of the City check that was issued as payment for the attached invoice #1845 from AM Florida Builders in the amount of $5,600.00.”

On April 15, 2022, we finally received a copy of that check, which was issued on March 9, 2022, and which confirmed that the invoice for “construction” had been paid long before we were told that no building permits existed.

Now we were convinced that something was rotten in Denmark, er, North Miami Beach.

On April 25, 2022, we contacted Jaime D. Gascon, the Director of the Board and Code Administration Division of the Miami-Dade County Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources, and we asked him for help in finding out why the City of North Miami Beach had ostensibly done construction on a property without a permit being issued.

Much to our pleasant surprise, Director Gascon wrote back the very next day.  He let us know that he spoke with the City’s Building Official, who “confirmed and verified no construction work was done or being done at the moment. He conveyed the sidewalk is still broken and the door has not been changed. He explained there was no permit application on file for this property yet and will monitor any work done on the property.”

While this is a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why no permit has yet to be issued, the bigger question is:

Why would Duke Sorey authorize payment for goods and/or services not yet rendered?

If only someone had thought to ask Marty King that same question, maybe he could have avoided spending twelve years in the hoosegow.

And North Miami Beach taxpayers wouldn’t have been ripped off to the tune of $2.3 million.

Granted, a mere $5,600.00 loss is a far cry from $2.3 million.

And a single “missing” front door is not quite the same as 254 “missing” manholes.

But corruption always starts small and grows with every passing day.

Like a cancer.

Just ask North Miami taxpayers, who were ripped off an outrageous $6,564,184.62 so that then-Interim City Manager Duke Sorey could host the mother of all Super Bowl parties?

And now Duke has brought his very special brand of corruption to North Miami Beach.

The biggest question of all is:

WHY AREN’T NORTH MIAMI BEACH TAXPAYERS UP IN ARMS ABOUT ALL THE CORRUPTION GOING ON IN THEIR CITY?

Paging Bruce Lamberto.

Just saying.

Stephanie