It’s always the cover up that gets ’em.

We all know that Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez is a big, fat liar. It’s documented. He was caught when he testified in the tax evasion trial of former Mayor Julio Robaina admitting that he charged 36% interest on a personal loan, something he had repeatedly denied publicly and to the media for years. He was fined by the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, which found that he violate the Citizens’ Bill of Rights “Truth in Government” provision when he lied in both Spanish and English about his loansharking activities.

But now we have evidence that the mayor has lied under oath, which is much more serious and could be a chargeable offense. We might have him on perjury, of all things!

Read related story: Hialeah mayor’s enforcement ‘snitch’ was paid city funds

Hernandez hemmed and hawed and blatantly lied in a sworn statement to the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust when he said he didn’t know that his political enforcement — a man he called his “snitch” — was getting paid taxpayer dollars for odd jobs Rice did in the city.

An Ethics investigation that concluded in April found that Glenn Rice, the mayor’s longtime ally and political enforcer, had been paid a total of $18,000 in multiple checks out of city coffers in 2015 and 2016. But there was evidence to suggest it was for legitimate work, monitoring the city’s new privatized solid waste service and doing background checks on vendors and potential employees. Officials in other municipalities had talked to Rice and provided him with public records. He had been present at several meetings. And he had a photograph of curbside garbage that had not been picked up. Who cares if it was the mayor’s curbside?

But while there may have been no crime here, there was a cover up, which is a whole ‘nother crime.

Hernandez was under oath when, a little more than five minutes into the testimony at the law office of his attorney Tom Cobitz, he told the investigator he didn’t know Rice was getting paid by the city.

Read related story: Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez is fined for loanshark lies

“I think he volunteered something afterwards, once we had — what’s the word? — implemented the whole thing,” Hernandez is quoted in the close-out memo as saying. “I know he assisted our director of public works… and I think he could better answer the question. Armando Vidal can give you better information on that.”

Really? Does anybody believe he really thinks that Glenn volunteered?

So it was just a happy coincidence, then, that those payments were made through the law firm of the mayor’s best friend, former Miami Lakes Councilman Ceasar Mestre, who went to the police academy with Hernandez and later served as his partner on the Hialeah Police force? And it never came up in conversation for two whole years, even though Mestre told the investigator that he has lunch with his old partner at least two or three times a week?

No, actually, we don’t even have to give him the benefit of the doubt.

That’s because Hialeah Public Works Director Armando Vidal, a man with far more credibility, said that Hernandez himself requested he retain Rice, going so far as to suggest the Mestre go-between to hide it! “The mayor didn’t want to hire Glenn Rice directly,” Vidal is quoted as saying in the close-out report.

Of course he didn’t. That would look like he was hiring Rice as a reward for doing his dirty work.

“He said the mayor trusted Rice to provide an independent look at matters relating to city of Hialeah affairs… Mr. Vidal advised that several of the jobs originated with Mayor Hernandez and that Rice’s involvement was expressly requested,” the report states.

Read related story: Carlos Hernandez testifies in Robaina trial, admits crime

“Not only was Mayor Hernandez aware of Rice’s involvement in overseeing Progressive’s performance, Vidal further advised that it was the mayor himself who requested that Rice be retained in this capacity,” it says later in the conclusion. Mr. Vidal stated Rice was someone the mayor ‘trusted’ and that the mayor specifically asked for Rice to be used on several occasions, including the consulting firms Matrix and Aecom.

“Mr. Vidal stated that while Mayor Hernandez clearly valued Rice’s opinion, ‘the mayor didn’t want to hire Glenn Rice directly,’ and suggested to Vidal that Rice could be contracted through Councilman Mestre’s lawfirm. ‘The mayor discussed it with me. He authorized it,’” Vidal is quoted as saying.

Duh. Of course it was the mayor’s idea to go through Mestre. Of course he authorized it.

If anyone deserves to be charged with perjury it is Carlos Hernandez. If not just because he is a liar then maybe because he is a loanshark. Or how about for the many times he has abused his power and his office to go after his political enemies? Or maybe for the many times he has retaliated against city employees who don’t support him or are critical. Or maybe because of the absentee ballot fraud he has committed and tolerated among the most frail and vulnerable in his city.

Ladra would say he is definitely due. Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle has an opportunity to right a wrong here and finally deliver justice to the people of Hialeah for a myriad of sins.

The fact that it would be with a perjury charge is just gravy.

Turns out Glenn “The Goon” Rice, the political black ops soldier who did Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez‘s dirty work for years, was indeed paid with city funds, supposedly for odd jobs for the public works and human resources departments — and through the lawfirm of a then sitting Miami Lakes councilmember — during part of his time as the mayor’s “snitch.”

That’s what Hernandez called Rice when an ethics investigator asked him if the former police officer was his political operative. “Glenn’s my snitch,” Hernandez answered.

A snitch that was paid up to $18,000 in taxpayer dollars through the law firm of former Miami Lakes Councilman and Hernandez BFF Ceasar Mestre to do what the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust — in a new investigation closed last month — determined was legitimate city work.

Read related story: Hello FBI? Abuse of power continues unchecked in Hialeah

Really? If it is so legitimate, why did the mayor ask Hialeah Public Works Director Armando Vidal to hire Rice — and to pay him through Mestre? “The mayor didn’t want to hire Glenn Rice directly,” Vidal is quoted in the close-out memo as saying. Of course he didn’t. Because the optics were terrible. Because Hernandez knows we can add 2 plus 2 and come up with quid pro quo, that’s why.

Because, sure, on paper Rice was monitoring the roll-out of the new, privatized solid waste service and vetting potential contract employees or vendors. There are reports and records that show he did perform certain duties. There was work product, like one photograph of garbage that was not picked up.

Of course that garbage was at the mayor’s house.

Because this was really another way the mayor compensated Rice for his “snitch” work. He was throwing his dog a second bone.

The first treat was getting Rice sweet no-show jobs as a “government consultant” with Waste Pro and Waste Management, two of the three companies who were seeking the $40 million, 8-year solid waste contract at the city. Ladra believes that Rice was already working for International Management Consultants, the lobbying firm owned by former Hialeah Councilman Herman Echevarria, who represented the third company, Progressive, and, on the side, ran the City of Retrogress until he died unexpectedly last September. Progressive got the contract, of course. There are malas lenguas who say the whole bidding war was invented to create a revenue stream for Rice because it was always going to go to Progressive anyway.

The Ethics Commission and the State Attorney’s Office investigated those payments — roughly $176,000 over three or four years — and concluded last August that no city official had recommended Rice or pushed his services onto the companies. Basically, they feel that Rice himself got the work by creating the perception that he had influence over the mayor and some council members. Guess they thought he was just a good ol’ fashioned political entrepreneur and hustled everybody. It’s not illegal.

Read related story: Hialeah’s oppression, er, I mean elections start to heat up

But Rice himself said in October that he never filled out an application and that Hernandez got him the gigs. And that wasn’t legit work.

“My real job was to be there for the mayor, to spy on his perceived political enemies,” Rice told El Nuevo Herald. “My duty was to spy on city employees and political opponents, and report their actions back to the mayor.”

Apparently, Rice did not speak as freely with Ethics or SAO investigators, choosing not to cooperate instead. But, then, isn’t that what subpeonas are made for?

During that inquiry is when investigators learned about the city payments through Mestre and decided to look into that further, you know, to make sure it wasn’t to — how’d Rice put it? — to “spy on city employees and political opponents and report their actions back to the mayor.”

Since at least 2011, Rice has shadowed Hernandez at events, intimidated and hurled insults at the mayor’s critics and challengers — heckling one mayoral candidate outside his home — and followed and photographed and harassed city employees who campaigned against Hernandez or who were otherwise thought of as disloyal. Ladra has multiple photos chasing me around the parking lot at JFK Library during early voting days in 2011 (examples throughout the post). We really don’t know what he looks like without his cellphone in his face.

Rice was widely known as the mayor’s “enforcer” before they had a falling out last year, probably over money. (Ladra heard that Hernandez and Councilwoman Isis “Gavelgirl” Garcia Martinez was also on the outs but las malas lenguas say they made up).

Read related story: Glenn Rice PAC funds Carlos Hernandez mailers

Glenn told the El Nuevo reporters he was paid to spy on department heads and, at one point, Councilwoman Vivian Casals-Munoz, who has been an on-again, off-again Hernandez ally. This was during one of the estrangements. He said that the mayor paid him to antagonize former Mayor Raul Martinez as well as longtime activist and onetime council candidate Julio Rodriguez, and mayoral candidate Juan Santana, who captured Rice’s harassment on video and posted in on YouTube. That was in 2013, before the payments that are documented. But you know Rice didn’t do it for free.

The mayor can deny it all he wants. He told the reporters the same thing he told Ethics investiagtors: That he never paid Rice for anything and that Rice was never part of his trusted inner circle. But Hernandez, who is known to lie, is lying again. Otherwise, the goon would not be chairman of his PAC, Citizens for Efficient Government, which at one point had $360,000 and from which Rice was also rewarded. He got $7,100 in checks to himself and, maybe, another $5,000 through a payment to Mestre.

He got at least $5,000 more out of a $15,000 consulting check in April of 2013 to Hernandez’s former campaign consultant, Absentee Ballot Queen Sasha Tirador. She confirmed to Ladra that at least once or twice Hernandez paid Rice through her company, G&R Strategies. When asked what Glenn’s role was, she said she didn’t know.

“Consulting is what Carlos told me,” she said.

So we guess he has experience “consulting” after all.

It looks like the Hialeah Hoodlums — otherwise known as Mayor Carlos Hernandez and his Seguro Que Yes crew of crooked council members –– were recruiting for their criminal enterprise last week.

And they peeled a few members off of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s old G-Men gang.

Campaign Finance Chair and graft master Ralph Garcia-Toledo, shake-down artist Brian Goldmeier and campaign strategist Jesse Manzano-Plaza were all at an event last week for Hernandez’s re-election campaign. Who is that guy to the right? He looks familiar. And just look at how giddy they are to be back in business — stealing ballots, taking money from developers for promised payola later, coming up with narratives to distract from Hernandez’s abysmal record and the chaos the last couple of years at the new fancy smancy water plant.

Just look at those smiles in this photo posted on Goldmeier’s Instagram. They look like a gang of cats that swallowed unos pajaritos zunzún.

Manzano-Plaza must have been the happiest as the event was at Hialeah Park and he is likely back representing casino giant Genting now that the Gimenez campaign is over. He only resigned temporarily (read: not at all) and after he was caught representing both Genting and Gimenez. He is certainly back at work now.

They don’t care that Hernandez is an admitted loan shark and proven liar who abuses his power. This is simply payback for Hernandez’s help getting Gimenez the ballots from residents in Hialeah Housing. Or is it just another public trough for these little piglets (possible gang name: Three Little Pigs). Ladra is going to have to start looking more closely at the water and sewer contracts and public works projects in the City of Progress.

Why isn’t tricky pollster Dario Moreno and Absentee Ballot Fraud King Al Lorenzo there? Did they not pass the gang initiation test?

Read related story: Liquor store owner gets it: Carlos Hernandez is a criminal

Hernandez is running for his third term. The former cop was the council president when former Mayor Julio Robaina left the office to run for county mayor against Gimenez in the recall result race of 2011. He served as acting mayor and then was elected in November 2011 against former Mayor Raul Martinez and former Sen. Rudy Garcia to serve the remaining two years of the term. In 2013, he was re-elected against former Mayor Julio Martinez and an active resident named Juan Santana, who he had harassed outside his home (and that is the kind of behavior that Goldmeier and Manzano are condoning).

Hopefully, this will Hernandez’s his last campaign. Maybe it takes a woman.

2011 at IHOP: Gavelgirl and The Rock were pals

Ladra hears that Gavelgirl herself, Councilwoman Isis Garcia-Martinez — a former Hernandez ally who, las malas lenguas say, has quit the Hoodlums — is going to challenge Hernandez. Ladra never thought she would say this, but You go, Gavelgirl! It ain’t easy to leave the thug life!

Yeah, sure, we’ve had our issues. Garcia-Martinez defended Hernandez all the time. She even went to his famous pancake breafast at IHOP, which was a campaign event paid for by city dollars and exposed by Ladra in 2011.

Read related story: Gavelgirl files false police report

She also had police eject me from a council meeting, had me illegally trespassed from both City Hall, which is a public building, and the campaign headquarters and tried to get a restraining order against me so that I wouldn’t attend any more meetings — or catch her at campaign breakfasts that were paid for by public money. She couldn’t because she had no legal justification.

But the past is the past. Ladra believes she has seen the error of her ways. She’s broken up with the bully, hasn’t she? She is willing to take him on publicly. Last year, she broke with the rest of the hoodlums to support former Miami-Dade School Board Member Raquel Regalado against Gimenez. She certainly isn’t all lockstep, Seguro Que Yes anymore.

So, until anybody else with a better shot challenges The Rock — an admitted loan shark and liar who had the audacity to pay an ethics fine with thousands of pennies — Ladra will be giving Gavelgirl the benefit of the doubt. And our support. What do they say about the enemy of my enemy?

Hashtag I’m with her. We’ll start a rival gang.