In Miami-Dade, not even the lowest rung of politics is safe from corruption. Today, a joint task force of the State Attorney's Office Public Corruption Task Force and the County Office of the Inspector General announced the arrest of David Alberto Carache.
Carache's alleged crimes? Trying to illegally amass a slate of candidates beholden to him on various Miami-Dade community councils. Yes, community councils. They were created by the county to make suggestions to the county commission on issues involving zoning and land use in localized, unincorporated neighborhoods. There are a dozen throughout the county, but prosecutors say Carache focused his corruption attempts on the community councils in Kendall and West Kendall.
“A young man’s goal of creating his own business is something we usually encourage,” said State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle in a statement. “However, Mr. Carcache’s business approach of undermining Miami-Dade’s Community Council system, corrupting our election process, has led to his arrest.”
The investigation began when a resident of Community Council #12 received a packet of information from the Miami-Dade Department of Elections containing information for new candidates. As no one in the household was actually aware they were running for election, the resident contacted the department.
As it turns out, Carache did have his own slate of candidates, this despite the fact that many of his candidates lived outside of the community council districts and thus were not qualified to run. Carache ran the candidate's e-mails, falsified documents for them, and submitted fake finance reports. He also wrote checks and money orders for campaign expenses to his sister and mother.
Carache then planned to leverage his candidates to market his lobbying and consulting services, though Carache was not a registered lobbyist.
Two of his candidates were actually elected, though both resigned during the course of the investigation. A third dropped out of the race before the election.
Carache now faces charges of false swearing, aiding or abetting a violation of the election code, and multiple counts of falsifying records.