A Cool $20 Million

Gimenez and his colleagues, who are ultimately responsible for the contract, seemed unaware of the scope of the charges. On the previous day, Commissioners Gimenez, Sally Heyman, and Katy Sorenson had scheduled meetings with Wackenhut attorney Joe Bober. Only Gimenez recalled details of the encounter. "If I recall correctly," he said, "Mr. Bober and Roosevelt Bradley assured me that this was an isolated incident, that the individual or individuals responsible had been fired."

Heyman couldn't recall the meeting, but she suggested that the transportation committee revisit the Metrorail contract and consider more subcontract positions. "If you have a contract obligation and cannot fill the capacity, you have to contract out or subcontract out," Heyman said in a recent phone interview.

Sorenson's chief of staff, Sylvia Farina, couldn't remember the substance of the meeting either.

The contract was never revisited.

But it's clear that county oversight has been poor.

Miami-Dade Transit recently spent more than a quarter-million dollars in Homeland Security funds on an automated system to make sure Wackenhut guards are on duty. The county could not verify how often the data is processed.

Last month Bonnie Todd, Miami-Dade Transit's chief of safety and security, was abruptly terminated for "nonperformance," according to Bradley. When pressed for an explanation, Bradley provided a statement alleging that Todd had failed to perform her required duties — though Todd's personnel file contained nothing but glowing performance evaluations and commendations. Before her termination, Todd supervised the five people who, among other things, oversee the county's multimillion-dollar contract with Wackenhut. It is unclear whether her firing was prompted by preliminary audit reports or for some other reason.

The lawsuits, in the meantime, continue to thicken with depositions as both sides await a review by the county's Office of Audit and Management. Gilbert's and Rosario's lawsuits are set for trial this month; Mitnick is up in October. Trimble will make her first stab at recovering county money in November.

Wackenhut declined to comment about the specifics of this story. But in a letter to New Times, company attorney Robert Kilbride maintained that an even better one is in store: "We are confident it will be a bigger, and certainly a more substantive, story than the one you are contemplating writing at this premature stage."