When Alex de Gasperi resigned last month as board director of Imperial House, a luxury Miami Beach tower, he didn't leave quietly. Instead, he circulated a four-page letter lambasting another high-profile resident: Circuit Court Judge Mindy Glazer.
De Gasperi says Glazer damaged a door by kicking it and later intimidated the board into backing an insurance deal that paid her husband, David Gaynor, thousands in commission. The accusation comes just a week after revelations that Gaynor paid the state $50,000 for wrongly claiming Homestead tax exemptions on two condos.
Gaynor, meanwhile, says the letter "is just completely untrue."
Glazer -- elected to the bench in 2000 when she was just 33 years old -- once tossed New Times' Uncle Luke in jail over unpaid lawyer fees and presided over the botched Tyler Weinman "cat killer" case.
She first crossed de Gasperi in March 2009 after she locked herself out of her apartment. When Glazer asked an attendant for spare keys, he told her she'd have to wait for a board member. Glazer instead "indicated she was going to break the door and then did," according to an incident report from the condo.
The condo billed her $150 for the damage. She paid, but countered in a letter that her three children were locked inside and that refusing immediate help to residents "poses a great danger."
Then, this past fall, de Gasperi led a charge to change the tower's insurance provider. The board was unhappy with Wells Fargo's service, he says, and found a cheaper rate from Accurate Insurance.
Gaynor and Glazer quickly protested the decision and called a meeting on December 20. The judge and the board director clashed, and de Gasperi claims she called him a "dictator" and threatened to "throw him in jail."
De Gasperi resigned after the meeting. "I had had enough," he says.
A month later, the board met again to reconsider the insurance deal. Glazer attended along with several political heavyweights -- including former North Bay Village mayor Joe Geller and ex-Miami Beach mayor Leonard Haber -- and the board reversed its vote.
Gaynor admitted that he would receive a commission from Wells Fargo to the tune of about $3,500, de Gasperi says. He says the judge used the heft of her office to swing a deal that would help her husband. "She should have been in court instead of throwing her weight around here," he says.
But Gaynor counters that nothing improper was done. "My wife was speaking as a resident of this tower," he says. "The board voted for the better insurance package."
Glazer didn't return a message left in her chambers seeking comment.
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