Jesus Pons, Diana Pons, and Bruno Diaz of Miami, Florida were arrested Tuesday after they were accused of participating in an embezzlement scheme that cost Miami-Dade County millions of dollars, news sources report. Pons, who held a powerful position as a Miami-Dade County employee; his wife Diana; and his brother-in-law Diaz were booked into the Miami-Dade County Jail on charges of racketeering and money laundering. Pons faces additional charges of organized fraud, bribery, extortion, first-degree grand theft, bid tampering, and official misconduct. Pons' bond was set at $3,020,000; Diana's bond was set at $200,000; Diaz's bond was set at $810,000. It was not immediately clear whether any of the defendants had hired attorneys.
The details of his Pons' former position with Miami-Dade County are unknown, but he allegedly had to oversee millions of dollars' worth of county contracts and bids. "Essentially everything had to go through Jay Pons, and gave him the perfect placement to implement his scheme," a state attorney spokesperson said.
As part of the scheme, Pons, along with his co-conspirators, "would falsify documents in phantom names, saying that so and so and so and so was working for the company and they needed to pay them at this hourly rate," reports say. The defendants would allegedly use shell companies and ghost employees to draft up fake billings, such as fictitious hourly rates that the county would ultimately pay for. In one instance, a $760,000 contract evolved into an expenditure that cost the county $16 million.
"It was almost as if the county was paying Mr. Pons to defraud the county," a state spokesperson said. In the end, a state attorney spokesperson said scheme "was really to just underwrite a lavish lifestyle. The bigger question is, how did it happen? How did this happen? A lot of money over a long period of time."
The Miami-Dade county mayor commented on the case at a news brief, saying, "You know you gotta put controls in place so that a contract that was about a million dollars doesn't go to $10 [million], and there's gotta be some bells that go off when things like that happen." It is not clear whether the alleged conspirators still have any of the money, or if the county plans on trying to recover any of the lost funds.
Alcohol-related crimes are just as common as embezzlement-related ones. Heather Lynn Dykman of Rockville, Maryland was arrested Tuesday after she was accused of disrupting a flight at a Broward County Airport, reports say. Dykman, 40, was booked into police custody on charges stemming from the incident. It is unclear whether she qualified for bail or hired legal representation.
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