Former Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez is the newest member of a very exclusive South Florida club

Former Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez arrives for a bond
hearing in a Miami courtroom today.
Screenshot via Local10.
(Click this and all images to enlarge.)

With his appearance in a Miami Dade courtroom this morning wearing handcuffs and a jail jumpsuit, Carlos Alvarez became the newest member of an exclusive South Florida club.

To join this club, you have to have been both a former politician and law enforcement official who's found himself on the wrong side of the law.

There are plenty of South Florida cops who have been incarcerated. And there's a long list of politicos who have done time at the Graybar Hotel.

But as far as I can tell there aren't that many who have been both cops and held elected office who have been arrested.

To the best of my recollection, the club has just two other members: former State Senator/former Broward County Sheriff Ken  Jenne, and former Miami Police Chief/former  Miami City Manager Donald Warshaw. 

Fifteen years ago, Warshaw was sentenced to a year in federal prison for defrauding a police charity.

In 2007, Jenne was sentenced to a term in federal prison on corruption charges.

Yesterday we learned that Alvarez — who served as director of the Miami-Dade Police Department from 1997 to 2004, and was Mayor of Miami-Dade County from 2004 until 2011 when he was recalled in a special election — had been arrested by the Coral Gables Police department on battery charges.

Evelyn Fernandez.

Alvarez's long time girlfriend, Miami-Dade police lieutenant Evelyn Fernandez — who is on leave from the department while she battles cancer — told police that Alvarez assaulted her last Saturday in the parking garage of his apartment building.

According to a police report, Fernandez told cops that Alvarez attacked her after she showed up at his residence to return a cat.

That's when, according to Fernandez, Alvarez, while in his building's parking garage, grabbed Fernandez by both arms, and spit in her face while yelling profanities.

Evelyn Fernandez and Carlos Alvarez in happier times.
via WSVN

According to the report, "a pattern of domestic violence has developed since 2013 until present."

Fernandez also showed a WSVN reporter a text message she claims Alvarez sent to her phone.

Via WSVN

And Alvarez, the former Miami-Dade mayor, also holds the distinction of being booted from office by voters in the most lopsided recall election in Dade County's history: In 2011, 183,652 Dade residents voted to kick him out of office, while just 24,796 cast a ballot to keep him.

Saturday's incident is not the first time Fernandez claims she was assaulted.

Ten years ago this week, she called the cops after claiming that she'd been assaulted by a female Miami firefighter.

From an April 30, 2006 Miami Herald story:

FIREFIGHTER IN A TIFF WITH MAYOR'S SQUEEZE

Arrested on charges of burglary with battery - and criminal mischief: Miami firefighter-paramedic Susan Hart-Berrantes. Miami-Dade cops say she got into it with Miami-Dade police Lt. Evelyn Fernandez, 34, girlfriend of Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez, 53. (Alvarez used to be the county's police director.) The women are former sisters-in-law - Hart-Berrantes was once married to Fernandez's brother, Miami Fire Lt. Josef A. Berrantes, 50, officials say.

Hart-Berrantes, 49, showed up at Fernandez's home and ``began yelling and poking [Fernandez] on her chest.'' When Fernandez dialed 911 from her cellphone, Hart-Berrantes allegedly grabbed her by the throat, snatched the phone and threw it into the pool. Fernandez's 6-year-old daughter saw the confrontation. ``I don't regret what I did, and I'll do it all over again. . . . All I did was push her a few times,'' Hart-Berrantes told police, reports say. No word on what ignited the episode.

Hart-Berrantes, a 22-year Miami Fire veteran, remains in jail - no bond, because she allegedly broke into an ``occupied'' residence. The arrest report says she entered the property through ``a side wooden gate.'' Arraignment is May 12 before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge John Schlesinger.

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Click here to read past Random Pixels coverage of Carlos Alvarez.



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