Judge sends ex Commissioner Joe Martinez to prison — but not just yet

Joe Martinez is going to prison. Well… maybe.
The former Miami-Dade commissioner and retired cop was sentenced Monday to 34 months for taking money in exchange for crafting legislation that would have helped a West Kendall supermarket owner. But Judge Miguel de la O wanted to give him less time — saying his hands were tied by sentencing guidelines — and let Joe stay out pending appeal. Which, let’s be real, could drag on for years.
In other words, he’s not packing his boxers just yet.
Still, it was a stunning fall for the once powerful commission chairman and 17-year police veteran who also fancied himself sheriff material — well, after he tried to unseat former Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez in a county race and then ran a quick failed bid for Congress. Now, instead of running for higher office, Martinez is running out of excuses.
Read related: Ex Miami-Dade Commissioner Joe Martinez cries, prays — maybe walks
Jurors convicted him last November of unlawful compensation and conspiracy after prosecutors tied three $5,000 checks in late 2016 and early 2017 to legislation Martinez had staff draft that would have legalized refrigerated containers behind Extra Supermarket on SW 8th Street. The commissioner pulled the item before it hit an agenda — but not before the checks cleared.
Martinez called it back pay for old consulting work.
Prosecutors called that BS. The payments were bribes, they argued. A jury agreed.
De la O said he would have given Martinez one year, max, if he had showed an ounce of remorse. But without an admission of wrongdoing, the judge couldn’t justify dipping below the three-year minimum. “Sir, I’m sorry it’s come to this,” the judge told Martinez, with his wife and daughters sitting in the second row. “My hands are tied.”
Tied, but not that tight. He gave Martinez an appeal bond and a status hearing in the second half of 2026, which basically means Martinez could spend the next year, maybe two, living free in District 11 while his lawyers — Ben Kuehne, Kendall Coffey and Neil Taylor — try to unwind the conviction.
And of course, Martinez is still saying he did nothing wrong. “I couldn’t bring myself to say I did something that I didn’t do,” he says over and over again.
But Ladra can think of 15,000 reasons why a jury thought otherwise.
Read related: Joe Martinez claims public corruption charge is really a political hatchet job
Martinez showed that he did, in fact, work for Jorge Negrin, the owner of the Extra near 127th Avenue, as a consultant in 2013, after he lost the 2012 county mayor’s race. Court records include two checks from 2013 and 2014 totaling $50,000 for lobbying. That might be its own little side problem: County electeds aren’t supposed to lobby the county for at least two years after leaving office.
However, the case centered on the three $5,000 checks Martinez got years later in 2016. The first, right before he was sworn in, and two others right after. Prosecutors said those were pay-to-play installments on a proposed county ordinance that would increase the limit of storage bins that could be stationed in the parking lot behind the grocery store. They said the commissioner’s aide met with Negrin and zoning officials in early 2017. The proposed legislation was put on a Sept. 7 agenda — but Martinez had it pulled at the last minute.
How do we know that’s not because he didn’t get another check?
The state attorney’s office said that simply proposing the legislation that would benefit Negrin after taking his money was enough to arrest and charge Martinez with public corruption charges of unlawful compensation and conspiracy.
Character letters poured in vouching for him — from fellow cops, from Gimenez, his one time opponent, and from former Miami-Dade Commissioner Sally Heyman.
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, on the other hand, wasn’t having it. She said the sentencing Monday “completes a process started when a local jury of six members of our community found him guilty of using his political position to provide himself a financial benefit.
“It is always a community disappointment when an elected official chooses to work for his own personal interests over the interests of those who elected him,” Fernandez Rundle wrote in a statement. It’s ironic, because she is a big community disappointment for choosing the easy peasy cases and letting other people go, like former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, whose bribery and money laundering charges she shrugged off to Broward.
Read related: State attorney: Joe Martinez broke our trust for $15,000, help with bank loan
For 18 years, Joe Martinez strutted around County Hall like he owned the place. The retired cop with the barrel chest and the booming voice relished his role as the commission’s enforcer, the self-styled “bull” on the dais who could intimidate staffers, bulldoze colleagues and still pause long enough to flash that trademark grin.
Known for pounding the lectern so hard you thought he might break it, Commissioner Cranky had a cologne made with his own brand: The Commissioner. Martinez thrived on being the tough guy, the law-and-order commissioner and some considered him a shoe-in for the sheriff’s race.
But the bull has finally been gored. Instead of cracking down on bad guys, Martinez is the one fingerprinted like a common criminal. Instead of writing ordinances, he’s writing appeal briefs. The swagger that carried him for decades in politics and policing is now reduced to courtroom pleas and claims of innocence.
And that sheriff’s badge he always wanted? It may never be pinned to his chest — but he might still get issued a number. An inmate number. Again, maybe.
Monday’s reluctant sentence comes almost more than five year Martinez’s arrest in September of 2022. Martinez said his daughter was 15, a contestant on The Voice, when this started and is 22 now. He said he’d had two heart attacks.
“It takes a huge amount of stress when you’re innocent,” Martinez told reporters outside the courtroom. Because when you’re guilty, you cut a deal and you’re great. You can deal with it.
“But when you’re innocent it takes a toll on the family, on your friends, on everybody,” he said, flanked by his family and friends. Martinez also said he had no choice but to fight the charges.
“It’s either follow the suggestions and say I did something I didn’t do, or go to prison. and everybody who knows me… I couldn’t live with myself if I did that, man,” Martinez said. “I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I couldn’t look at my children, my friends and supporters, and stand there and say, ‘Yes I am guilty of this,’ when I didn’t do it.”
So now Joe waits. If the appeal fails, he could be spending his 70th birthday in state prison. If it succeeds, he’ll walk away vindicated — and probably blame everybody but himself.
Either way, his political career? Dead. Buried. Cremated.
And we don’t need sentencing guidelines to declare that.
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