A cool breeze whispers through a leafy canopy that shades dozens of Haitian-American leaders who sit on folding chairs in a Savannah, Georgia park. The crowd stirs as an artist unveils a handsome bronze statue of six weary soldiers. It's a memorial to the Haitian troops who died in the battle for American independence.
Michael McElroy
Rudy Moise has spent more than $1 million of his own money campaigning.
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The October 2009 ceremony seems a proud expression of Haitian-American pride — until the attendees squint and look more closely at the rifle-toting figures.
One soldier's face, carefully crafted in cast metal, is the unmistakable chiseled likeness of Dr. Rudy Moise, the wealthy Miami physician, lawyer, would-be movie star, and now candidate for U.S. Congress who paid $120,000 to commission the monument.
Jaws drop.
"Psychology tells us something about a man who does this kind of a thing," says Jan Mapou, a bookstore owner who supports one of Moise's political opponents. "It hurt the community a lot."
Moise is poised to bankroll a path to the congressional seat vacated by Kendrick Meek, representing mostly black neighborhoods in South Florida from Overtown to Hollywood. It's the most important race this year for black Miami — and perhaps the most critical ever for Haitian-Americans. At least four of the candidates, including Moise, were born on the disaster-plagued island, and all are reasonably qualified.
Though there's no public polling in the eight-way Democratic primary, Moise has ten times more cash than anyone else. He has poured more than $1 million of his own money into the campaign.
But Moise's controversial background has some people questioning whether his train to Washington, D.C., is moving too fast. Not only did he paste his mug on the statue in Savannah, but also he squandered a taxpayer-funded loan from a discredited nonprofit. He has even cast himself as a leading man in B movies to publicize his campaign, critics say.
"Rudy shouldn't be able to spend his way to Washington," says Tony Jean-Thenor, chairman of Veye Yo, an immigrant advocacy group. "He has a lot of problems, and I think voters know that."
Moise has the kind of compelling life story that makes campaign managers drool. Born in 1954 in Port-au-Prince, he grew up in the tenuous middle class. His mother, Josette, taught school, and his father, Ossini, worked as a bookkeeper. In the 1960s, Moise's parents immigrated to Chicago with his two sisters, leaving Rudy and a brother to finish Catholic high school on the island.
After graduation, the 17-year-old Moise joined his parents in Chicago. He was an eager student, and after one year in an American school, he had learned English and scored well enough on exams to get into the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he received his undergraduate degree before earning his DO at Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Moise first came to Miami in the early 1980s. He had earned a federal grant for his medical studies and needed to devote a few years practicing in an underserved community. "Miami's Haitian refugee population was just growing then, and there weren't enough doctors who spoke Kreyol," he says. "So I volunteered."
He soon realized there was also a niche for new business. After four years in a clinic, he took out a loan and bought an 800-square-foot storefront on NW 119th Street in North Miami to start his own practice. Today, Comprehensive Health Center has expanded to 10,000 square feet in several locations.
Soon after opening his practice, he enrolled at the University of Miami and earned an MBA. Then he studied law at UM and passed the state bar exam. For good measure, he enlisted in the Air Force Reserve, recently rising to the rank of colonel and the position of flight surgeon.
His overachieving didn't stop there. He also worked as the on-call surgeon for Miami Vice, modeled for Ebony magazine, ran the University of Miami Alumni Association, and served on scores of boards. And he has used his profits to invest in a staggering array of businesses — 21 in all, according to state records — including an ambulance company, several diagnostic centers, and a movie production firm. "I have more life experience than anyone else in this race," he says.
But Moise has also made some questionable deals. In 2001, he established Miami's first full-time Kreyol-language radio station, Radio Carnivale, leasing airtime from 1020 AM. He hired 15 correspondents in Haiti and DJs to spin from 7 a.m. till 7 p.m.
To help finance the deal, he accepted a $500,000 loan in October 2003 from the taxpayer-funded Miami-Dade Empowerment Trust. The agency, founded four years earlier to foster business in the county's poorest neighborhoods, turned into a beehive of corruption and lax accounting. A 2007 audit found millions poured into questionable deals and failed projects.
Radio Carnivale was one of the doomed businesses. The station went under in 2004. Soon after, Adib Eden, owner of 1020 AM's lease, sued Moise and claimed he'd stiffed him on $809,000 in fees. Moise eventually settled with Eden, paying him more than $600,000. But the Empowerment Trust ate the $500,000 loan, and auditors noted in 2007 that Moise's company was "insolvent."
Moise says the loan was made to the corporation, so he has no personal obligation to pay it off. "I was the single biggest loser in this deal. The company owed a lot of people money, and it owed me a lot when we closed it down," he says. "My goal was to give this community Haitian radio, and in that, we succeeded."
