Friends: Liberty City edition
Rev. Gaston Smith
Jury selection in Liberty City pastor Gaston Smith’s trial finally gets under way tomorrow, after a delay that placed its start after the Miami District 5 election, where its disclosures might have proved unhelpful to a certain suspended commissioner who refers to herself in the third person. The Herald counts down some of the unsavory details of the trial, which Michelle Spence Jones, for one, cannot be looking forward to (assuming it goes the distance):
Smith, 43, is charged with grand theft for allegedly misusing $10,000 in county grant money intended to revitalize Liberty City. Instead, Miami-Dade prosecutors say, he used cash for personal expenses, including $500 at a Las Vegas martini bar.
… Political observers will watch the trial closely — Smith was charged in January 2008 as part of a corruption probe that last month netted the arrest of Miami Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones, a parishioner at his church. She was later suspended from office.
The trial will be attended both by Smith’s entourage and a group of his detractors from Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, which has been roiled by allegations of financial mismanagement under Smith’s tenure.
“He basically used the church as his cash cow, that’s the bottom line,” said Costello Guyton, a church trustee who resigned with three others in June after fellow board members voted to give Smith a controversial $50,000 gift for his legal defense bills.
Because Spence Jones is (or was) a member of Friendship, two camps have emerged over the charges against both parties. In fact, in a bit of schadenfreude, members of the Gaston camp had been quietly crossing their fingers, hoping for a Spence-Jones defeat in November. Well so much for that. Meanwhile, more from the Herald:
Smith’s position at the church has not made him immune from money woes. His former employer, the Royal Palm Resort in Miami Beach, sued him in 2002 for “contract indebtedness,” a suit that was later settled, records show.
Broward court records show he was evicted from his apartment in 2002, and was sued by Capital One over credit card debt in 2007. He also owes child support in Houston and has an IRS lien against him, according to court testimony in a pretrial hearing Friday.
Authorities say his troubled financial history continued after he created a nonprofit group called Friends of MLK in 2004 to promote the revival of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Smith later told prosecutors he felt Spence-Jones pressured him into creating the organization and paying her an $8,000 “consulting fee” after she helped him secure a $25,000 grant from the county-created agency Metro Miami Action Plan Trust.
At the same time, according to prosecutors, Smith used a Friends of MLK debit card to withdraw thousands of dollars, none of which went to helping the community.
The charging documents in the Spence-Jones case appear to support the idea that she was the engine behind the Friends of MLK grant, and I have a source who told me last year, that the Friends grant never went through the normal grant process at the Metro Miami Action Plan Trust, the agency through which the grant was given, and instead was put through on the cash-money express, directly through a commissioner, whom I now presume to be Barbara Carey Shuler (with or without her knowledge, depending on whether you believe Spence-Jones, or the Miami-Dade State attorney.)
The Gaston Smith is the latest item pitting Ms. Spence-Jones against a former ally. Just as she and the pastor cannot both be telling the truth, neither can Spence-Jones and her former mentor, Ms. Carey Shuler, who in her interview with prosecutors, all but disowned her political “daughter,” according to sources with direct knowledge of the proceedings (more on that later.) It’s messy down here in Miami.
Smith, meanwhile, has great lawyers. Michael Tein and Larry Handfield are connected, well known practitioners of the get out of jail free card. So opponents of the preacher shouldn’t get too giddy about him doing any time. Given the conflict in the community over whether Smith or Spence-Jones was the villain in the Friends of MLK debacle, it will be interesting to see what kind of jury is ultimately seated, and how many African-Americans are on it. Liberty City’s demographics suggest the jury should be heavily populated with black faces, but prosecutors will likely want fewer, rather than more. Given Spence-Jones’ big victory in November, the black community in Miami isn’t exactly in accountability mode, and there remains deep suspicion among many African-Americans down here about the motivations of prosecutors who “go after” prominent members of “the community.” Still, details like this will be hard for the reverend to shake:
The most brazen expense, they say, came when Smith in 2007 had two deacons authorize the purchase of a Mercedes-Benz in the church’s name.
Five ex-board members say they only found out about it when debt collectors began calling to say the auto payments were delinquent. The car was later repossessed.
Then again, he’s not the only religious leader driving around in an all-expense paid, congregation-funded hot rod to work in the hood.
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