¡Sacrilegio! Nothing is sacred in Miami politics.
Former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla is known to take advantage of every opportunity when he is campaigning to send any message to voters that will keep his name in mind. The naming of a new Pope seems like a good one.
A mail piece paid for by his political action committee landed in mailboxes this week with the picture of the 267th occupant of the throne of St Peter — Robert Francis Provost, the first U.S.-born pope, who took the name of Leo XIV — on one side and a message from ADLP on the other. “We have a Pope,” it announces in Spanish.
It is not “we have potato,” like they might announce at a grocery store in Cuba.
And once again, Diaz de la Portilla — arrested in 2023 on public corruption charges that were dropped last Fall — mentions the “unjustly accused” in his spiel. He always has to make it all about him.
“¡Habemus Papam,” the message starts, which is the Latin phrase used to announce of the election of a new pope, which is traditionally made by the Protodeacon of the College of Cardinals or senior cardinal deacon participating in the papal conclave.
In other words, not by a political candidate with a super shady past.
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla is knocking, giving out mameys to be Miami mayor
“Let us pray for Pope Leo XIV so that God can bless him and guide him to bring hope to the desperate, love to the abandoned, peace to the tormented and justice to those who are unjustly accused,” Diaz de la Portilla writes in his Spanish message.

ADLP is threatening to run for mayor, but he hasn’t filed any paperwork or opened a campaign account, yet. He has been knocking on doors, visiting senior housing and handing voters mameys in recent weeks. He has printed materials through his PAC, Proven Leadership for Miami-Dade County, but they just have his name on it. That way, he can switch to the county commission race in District 5 when and if Eileen Higgins resigns to run, which she must do before qualifying in September.
Or he could run for mayor against Higgins and what is looking like a clown car of candidates: Commissioner Joe Carollo is also actively threatening to run. Former Commissioner Ken Russell and former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez have filed papers.
And he is famous for holiday mailers, whether he is running for office or not. Earlier this month, he sent voters a Mothers Day mailer — even though the mayoral race isn’t until November. A photo of him and his mom, Fabiola, is on the top right corner and, once again, justice — or the lack of it — is the subject.
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla’s PAC raises nada, spends $108K on Miami campaign
“There is no judge or court as just as mothers when they know their children have been unjustly attacked,” the piece says. “Today and always, in gratitude, I celebrate my mother and all the mothers who give and sacrifice so much to protect their children and who celebrate when they see their children’s names vindicated, not only by God’s divine justice, but also by the systems of just human law. To you, my sincere words of recognition for a labor of love for your children.”
Seems really specific. How many mothers have had to see their sons arrested and charged with bribery and money laundering and suspended from office by the governor?

Both mailers are paid by his PAC, which spent $108,000 in the first there months of this year, according to the campaign finance records filed with the State Division of Elections, which also show that he is working with Absentee Ballot Queen Sasha Tirador.
“She is the boss,” Diaz de la Portilla texted Ladra on Thursday.
The next report, recording transactions through June, is due in mid July.
Asked if he had gone too far with the Pope mailer, using the announcement of the new pope for his political gain — isn’t that a sin?– Diaz de la Portilla texted Ladra: “You don’t love the Pope? I love the pope.”
That’s surprising since the Leo XIV is a considered a progressive pope who has advocated for economic justice and immigration fairness. These are not the tenets of the Republican Party and Diaz de la Portilla’s favorite hero, President Donald Trump. and everyone says they’re headed on a collision course as the two most powerful men in the world.
But Ladra is certain he forgives you.
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The post Holy Papa! Alex Diaz de la Portilla uses new Pope to campaign for Miami mayor appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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He is not a declared candidate for Miami mayor, and there are some rumblings about him running for the county commission in District 5 instead, but former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla — whose charges on bribery and money laundering were dropped last November — is knocking on doors in his campaign to woo voters.
And he is giving them mameys, which reminds me of a Cuban saying about gumption. Tiene tremendos mameyes.
Pouteria sapota, the mamey sapote, is a species of tree cultivated throughout Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. The fruit, botanically a berry, is about four to 10 inches long and three to 4.5 inches wide and has flesh ranging in color from pink to orange to red. It is colloquially used to describe male genitalia. It can also refer to something “easy peasy” to do. Eso es mamey.
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla’s former staffer says he is harassing her in divorce case
Diaz de la Portilla couldn’t help but send some selfies of himself, his mameyes — the fruit kind — and the senior residents he visited to Ladra over the last few days. There’s no way to know if the smattering of homes he has documentation for each day is all he does before he goes home and pours himself a drink. But at least he’s out there. Even if he is a little handsy.
In three of the photos he sent — and they’re not technically selfies since someone else is taking them — the residents he’s grabby with are wearing red Make American Great Again hats and it seems like too much of a coincidence. Is he giving them away or are they props Diaz de la Portilla takes from door to door for these photo opps?

In one of the others, he is outside with a resident and the man’s little chihuahua, Pelusa, who ADLP said was his preferred candidate for commission in the special election for District 4.
“What a beautiful day to walk,” Diaz de la Portilla texted Sunday. He didn’t walk Monday. He had a fundraiser, though, and divorce court, he said. He did have a case management hearing, according to the county clerk’s records, and his estranged wife, Vanessa Garcia Azzam, had previously asked the judge to force the former to commissioner to attend the hearings, even if by Zoom. So it sounds like he obliged.
Commissioner Joe Carollo, who has also not declared but is also threatening to run for mayor, is out there, too. He was at Smathers Plaza last week celebrating Mother’s Day early. But he’s a sitting commissioner, so isn’t that expected? Yeah, except Smathers is in District 4, not his own District 3.
Still, he didn’t have mameys.
Read related: Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins could join Miami Mayor’s race
There are several other candidates who have filed campaign treasurer reports and candidate oaths, including, most notably, Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins, former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell and former Miami city manager Emilio Gonzalez.  qualifying doesn’t even start until Sept. 5. So we won’t know until then who is really running and who is just threatening to.
Diaz de la Portilla’s bag, with the one mamey, and his hand-out piece don’t look like they say anything about the mayor’s seat. “With infinite love,” starts the piece, which looks like a Mother’s Day mailer with a photo of ADLP and his mother, Fabiola. And, in it, he hints at the criminal case against him after he was arrested in 2023 on public corruption charges stemming from the giveaway of a public park to the owners of a private school that wanted to use it for their athletic department.
“There is no judge or court as just as mothers when they know their children have been unjustly attacked,” the piece says. “Today and always, in gratitude, I celebrate my mother and all the mothers who give and sacrifice so much to protect their children and who celebrate when they see their children’s names vindicated, not only by God’s divine justice, but also by the systems of just human law. To you, my sincere words of recognition for a labor of love for your children.”
That’s really specific. But not about which race he’s in. That’s vague.
Just like his goody bag which says only “Courtesy of Alex Diaz de la Portilla,” in his signature neon green.
This is, of course, because the items are paid for by his political action committee, Proven Leadership for Miami-Dade, which reported raising nada in the first quarter this year, but spending close to $108,000, according to campaign finance reports.
Some have speculated that The Dean of Miami politics is waiting to see if Higgins actually resigns to run so he can run in her seat in county district 5, instead, where former Miami Beach and State Rep. David Richardson has already filed.
ADLP texted Ladra to say that he lives in District 3 now.
Wait, isn’t the East Hotel in District 5? And when has residency stopped him, anyway? He lived in his parents’ old house in District 3, the one he later lost to foreclosure, at least part of the time he served as commissioner in District 1.
And does that mean that he’ll jump into the District 3 race at the last minute?
Help Ladra cover the upcoming Miami elections, but the special election for District 4 in June and the general election in November, with a contribution to Political Cortadito. Every little bit helps. Thank you for your support.
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Former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla — arrested in 2023 on charges of public corruption and suspended from office — is in a fierce divorce battle with his wife, after a seven months marriage, for the attorneys’ fees and splitting of assets. Now, he wants to depose a former city staffer who was a witness for the state in the criminal case against him that was dropped by the Broward County State Attorney’s Office last Fall and who he has already previously harassed.
What does former Chief of Staff Karla Fortuny have to do with the couple’s financial holdings? Nada.
The subpoena for her deposition “clearly appears to be solely calculated to harass and oppress Fortuny and to exact revenge upon her,” wrote attorney William Brady Jr. in an objection to the subpoena for her deposition and a motion for a protective order filed last week.
It’s not the first time that Fortuny feels intimidated by Diaz de la Portilla. Last year, she filed a petition for injunction for protection against stalking. Stalking! ADLP “engaged in an oppressive campaign to harass and intimidate Fortuny by texting her incessantly,” while she was a listed witness in the criminal case against him. “This conduct is extremely intimidating,” she said in that motion. “He stalks me via text and now has used a ‘burner phone’ to text my supervisor at my current job.”
Read related: Miami’s Alex Diaz de la Portilla arrested on corruption, pay-for-play park deal
That was when Fortuny was at Florida International University, where she went after she left her city job to go work as director of local government and community affairs. She moved last month to Capital City Consulting’s Miami office with Managing Partner Brian May while she goes to law school at night. Let Diaz de la Portilla try texting him.
“In my opinion, he has obsessive compulsive personality disorder and is an alcoholic,” Fortuny said in the 2024 motion. “He frightens me. I believe him to be a relentless and dangerous individual.”
After bonding out of the Turner Guilford Knight detention center in September, 2023 ADLP talks to reporters.
Relentless? Clearly. But maybe not so dangerous. She was not granted the stalking order. It seems most, if not all, the messages were about getting her in for a deposition.
The judge in the criminal case did, however, instruct Diaz de la Portilla, who was investigated for witness tampering, to have no further contact with Fortuny, who was hired by Diaz de la Portilla in 2020 as a communications aide and rose the ranks quickly, becoming deputy chief of staff in early 2021, then chief of staff in May of that same year. His office has a lot of turnover.
In last week’s motion, Brady cited the criminal case intimidation and added that ADLP’s attorney “subjected Fortuny to a lengthy deposition which Fortuny contends was largely calculated to harass, bother and intimidate Fortuny.” Furthermore, a review of that deposition — which was “exceedingly long and unnecessary” — would show that she doesn’t know squat about ADLP’s assets, debts or income.
“Fortuny has no doubt that [ADLP] seeks to subject Fortuny to deposition for the purposes of harassment, embarrassment, intimidation, control of Fortuny and to seek revenge against upon her and contends the the deposition is not calculated to lead to credible and admissible evidence,” in the divorce proceedings.
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla’s wife sues for divorce after arrest, foreclosure
Other interesting parties that have been subpoenaed include Diaz de la Portilla’s famous absentee or ghost employee, Jenny Nillo — who was caught drinking and driving on the job in a city car while running ADLP’s personal errands and alcohol shopping — served in January and developer Lewis Swezy, who was served in February. Why not William “Bill” Riley, Jr., the lobbyist that was arrested with him in 2023 who spent a weekend in Boston with Diaz de la Portilla and his wife.
Diaz de la Portilla — who has told everyone that he is running for Miami mayor this year — did not, as usual, return a phone call and voice mail message. In a cryptic text where he deflects, like always, he wrote: “She may be covering up for the felony she committed… as you have already seen, the truth always prevails at the end of the day.”
No, that is not what Ladra has seen at all.
“If she doesn’t perjure herself she should be fine,” he wrote later. “She hacked my computer.
“All this is handled by the lawyers. We should let them do their work,” Diaz de la Portilla texted, adding that there were four more subpoenas being delivered in the next couple of weeks.
Fortuny declined to comment on her new court motion.
This divorce has lasted longer than the marriage.
Vanessa Garcia Azzam filed for divorce in January of 2024, which was less than four months after Diaz de la Portilla bonded out of jail on his multiple felony charges — including bribery and money laundering. In June, ADLP filed an answer to her motion to dissolve the marriage, and a counter motion for dissolution, asking the judge to award him all attorney’s fees, court costs and to divide their belongings.
“There are marital assets subject to equitable distribution including, but not limited to: jewelry, designer clothing, shoes and accessories, electronics, household goods and furnishings, bank accounts, and retirement accounts,” the motion says.
Shoes? He wants her shoes? And her retirement? Que poco hombre eres, Alejandro.
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla wants estranged wife to pay divorce attorney, trial fees
Hopefully, the judge will find that Garcia Azzam has been punished enough. Seven months, people! More than half of that was spent next to him defend himself against the pubic corruption charges. There’s only so much torture one can take.
Also, let’s see if Fortuny is compelled to testify about his marital finances.
Diaz de la Portilla is apparently getting off on harassing women. He is unnecessarily making the divorce harder for his wife of a whole seven months. And he is retaliating against his former chief of staff with a subpoena about matters she knows absolutely nothing about.
There’s a case management conference on May 5 in family court on the divorce. Garcia Azzam has asked the judge to compel her husband to turn on the camera for the Zoom appearances, including but not limited to hearings.
Naturally, ADLP doesn’t want to show his face.
Karla Fortuny Motion for Protective Order April 2025 by Political Cortadito on Scribd

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Former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, who has repeatedly said he is running for Miami mayor and has reportedly been campaigning, hasn’t filed any paperwork yet with the city clerk’s office indicating that he’s going to run. But his political action committee, Proven Leadership for Miami-Dade County, spent almost $108,000 in the past three months on expenses, including two political consultants, according to the campaign finance report for the first quarter of the year.
Veteran campaign designer and absentee ballot queen Sasha Tirador got $5,000 in January and another $5,000 in February for her consultation. It’s going to be hard to swallow her anti-corruption, anti-Trump spiel on her podcast now. Axel Turcios of New York City, got paid a total of $20,400 since January for “consulting services.”
Other reported expenses include $18,000 plus on “event supplies,” $13,000 on printing services, $3,549 on rental cars, almost $900 in gas, $4,700 on postage, $787 on food, $200 on voter data, $1,200 to a mail house, and $28,400 on wages, which indicates Diaz de la Portilla has a campaign staff. That includes Julio Guillen, who once had a ghost job at the city with a salary paid by taxpayers and could be angling for a new job if ADLP is elected in this crazy world.
Read related: Ethics board: Miami’s ADLP had three ‘ghost’ employees on taxpayers’ dime
Guillen was caught building a fence on Diaz de la Portilla’s agricultural property on Krome Avenue in the middle of a weekday afternoon while he was being paid $63,000 a year by the city.
The PAC also paid for a subscription to The Miami Herald — so don’t let Diaz de la Portilla tell you. he doesn’t read it — and made a $5,000 contribution to Coral Gables First, the PAC for newly re-elected Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago.
Oddly, the PAC didn’t report any contributions. So Ladra is looking for the new one.
Diaz de la Portilla has not officially announced or opened a campaign account for his mayoral campaign. But he has been actively engaging with voters, according to his social media platforms, which also look like he’s positioning himself as the Donald Trump candidate. So is Commissioner Joe Carollo, who has also announced widely that he is running for mayor.
Carollo has more than $1.7 million in the bank for his PAC Miami First, according to its latest campaign finance report. ADLP had less than $44,000 left on March 31.
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In the final three months before his re-election last week, Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago raised more than $389,000 for his political action committee, Coral Gables First, spending almost $330,000 on direct mail, email, text messaging, digital ads, political consulting, canvassing, polls and fundraising.
These contributions did not become public until two days after the election, in the first quarter 2025 campaign finance report that was filed Thursday. And they only include contributions and expenses made through March 31, leaving more than a week out before the April 8 election.
Read related: Vince Lago, Rhonda Anderson handily coast to re-election in Coral Gables
They include some interesting financial commitments from some interesting sources:

$50,000 from real estate developer Stuart Miller, executive chairman and co-chief executive officer of Lennar Corporation.
$25,000 from real estate developer Dagrosa Capital Partners, where Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is senior partner.
$20,000 in 20 separate $1,000 checks from real estate investor Tomas Cabrerizo.
$15,000 from investor Rafael Villoldo, who launched a scent with Donald Trump in 2012 when the former was vice president of Perfumania.
$12,000 from attorney Gonzalo Dorta, who is representing Lago in his lawsuit against Actualidad Radio.
$10,000 from The Calta Group, which is building Via Veneto, a luxury development of 10 three-story townhouses on Palermo Avenue with pre-construction prices starting $5.7 million.
$10,000 from Boston Capital, an asset management company that owns a mini storage facility in Kendall.
$10,000 from Republican super donor Max Alvarez of Sunshine Gasoline Distributors.
$7,500 from Andres Rodriguez, owner of The Salty Donut.
$5,000 from real estate investor Pablo Cejas.
$5,000 from the PAC that belongs to former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, the same PAC that got more than $200,000 in contributions that were flagged as bribes from the owners of a private school the commissioner wanted to gift a public park to. He was arrested on bribery and money laundering charges in 2023 that were later dropped.

Maybe that last one was a you scratch my back situation, since Lago gave ADLP’s PAC $5,000 in 2023, just six weeks before the latter was arrested.
Some of Lago’s expenses are interesting also, like the $22,575 (plus $8,500 last year) that went to Emiliano Antuñez, who also worked on the campaign for Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson, mostly for door-knocking. That’s nothing compared to the more than $110,000 paid to head campaign consultant Jesse Manzano just since January.
Other expenses include $45,000 worth of TV and cable advertising, more than $35,000 in direct mail, more than 33,200 in phone banks, more than $15,000 in photo and video production, and $27,740 on his digital footprint and social media, not including $16,250 in media consulting paid to Daniel Bustamante. And that is just in the past few weeks.
Read related: Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago rakes in campaign funds, much from developers
When added together, the $478,475 raised in Lago’s campaign account and the $389,000 raised for his PAC just this year, the total is $867,475. Doing more math shows that if you divide that by the 5,577 people who voted for Vinnie the Liar, the mayor basically paid $155.55 for each vote. And that’s not counting the PAC money from 2024. It’s probably more around $200.
In comparison, Commissioner Kirk Menendez, who lost with 38% of the vote, raised $32,500 for his PAC, The Coral Gables Way. A third of that was from different firefighters unions and another third was from real estate interests. Added to the $41,000 raised in his campaign account — which is almost as much as Lago spent just on text messages since January — that’s total of $73,500 through March 31. Divided by the 3,792 people who voted for him, that’s $19.38 per vote.
Both those figures will very likely go up once we get the campaign finance reports for the first eight days in April. But one thing that won’t change is the lopsided funding in this race and the special interests investments.
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At first blush, the item on the Miami City Commission agenda for Thursday’s meeting about expanding the pool of tow companies for the Miami Parking Authority — which currently only uses one company with political connections — sounds like a good idea. It just seems like too sweet a deal to let one company with ties to Commissioner Joe Carollo and former Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla have all 33,000 tows for overtime or illegal parking in a year.
But it smells like a bad pay-for-play arrangement. Because the other company that wants a piece of the pie is also politically connected.
Commissioner Miguel Gabela has sponsored an ordinance to urge the Miami Parking Authority, also known as the city’s Department of Off-Street Parking, to issue a new request for proposal for towing services “to be awarded to no fewer than two towing companies with the towing assignments being apportioned equally among the awarded vendors.”
Since 2018, Roadway Inc has been handling all the towing services for the MPA. Roadway is owned by Gustavo Lovato, the husband of Adriana Moyano, a former Doral council candidate and leader of the What’s App crew that reportedly stole and destroyed or tossed the opposing candidate’s absentee ballots for Diaz de la Portilla in his failed bid to replace Bruno Barreiro on the county commission. It was detailed in a New Times story by Jerry Iannelli.
Read related: Alex Diaz DLP tops $200K mark in Miami campaign despite AB fraud
Anyway, that contract expired in January of last year.
A new RFP was issued in September and only two companies qualified — Roadway and Alpine Towing. But sources inside and outside the city told Ladra that the RFP was written specifically for Roadway, with a required number of lots and equipment and capacity that the MPA thought only Roadway would meet. Alpine reportedly surprised them. There were also, allegedly, violations of the cone of silence that must be kept during the bidding and procurement process.

In comparison, the previous RFP got seven companies to make offers.
The parking authority cancelled the RFP in December, which is also when former State Rep. Manuel “Manny” Prieguez — who helped Gabela in his campaign — officially registered to lobby for Alpine (hey, at least he registered, unlike some people). And now they are getting ready to issue a new RFP.

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