Centners downplay ties to arrested Miami commissioner, say they ‘sprinkle money around’
A wealthy couple at the center of the state’s money laundering and bribery case against a former Miami city commissioner told prosecutors they did not know the mechanics of how $245,000 from their business’s account ended up in the commissioner’s political committee coffers, according to newly obtained audio recordings of interviews they gave in September.
David and Leila Centner, the operators of the private school Centner Academy, told prosecutors that as a “very high net-worth family,” they “sprinkle money around” and often approve large transactions without knowing the details.
“I have literally thousands of invoices every month and thousands of checks. That’s why I have to just, I skim it fast, approve, approve,” Leila Centner told prosecutors.
The private school operators described a laissez-faire approach to monitoring spending across their various businesses and reported having limited knowledge of the corporation that received nearly a quarter-million dollars of their money, despite David Centner telling prosecutors that it was “an entity we created in Delaware.” Prosecutors allege the Centners’ lobbyist formed that corporation in order to “conceal the origin of the funds” before routing the money to political committees controlled by former Commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla to gain his support for a $10 million “sports dome” the couple needed permission to build on city-owned land in Biscayne Park, across the street from their school.
The Centners have not publicly spoken in detail about the case. Audio recordings obtained by the Miami Herald through a public records request provide, for the first time, the Centners’ account of events outlined in the arrest affidavit for Díaz de la Portilla and their own lobbyist, William “Bill” Riley Jr.
In response to subpoenas granting them immunity, the Centners provided sworn testimony to prosecutors in the Broward State Attorney’s Office on Sept. 11 — three days before the arrests of Díaz de la Portilla and Riley, who was working for the Centners to get City Hall approval for their project. Broward County took the case because Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle has a “personal relationship” with Riley’s father, Bill Riley Sr., which “might present a conflict scenario for her,” according to investigative reports.
While the Centners were not charged, their relationship to the two defendants is vital to the state’s case, which is built on hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments that allegedly flowed from the Centners to Riley to Díaz de la Portilla’s political activities, including campaign contributions and reimbursements for an election night watch party at a luxury Miami hotel. The payments also funded meals for city officials. Prosecutors say the payments were made to secure Díaz de la Portilla’s support for the sports dome proposal, which David Centner described as his “dream project.”
The Centners have denied any wrongdoing. Riley and Díaz de la Portilla have pleaded not guilty.
READ MORE: Leila and David Centner caught up in Miami commissioner’s corruption scandal
In the recorded interviews recently released by the Broward State Attorney’s Office, the Centners claimed to know very little about the political circumstances surrounding the Biscayne Park deal or how their lobbyist maneuvered to make it happen, saying their business portfolio is so voluminous that such payments would likely receive little oversight. They said that made it difficult for them to recall the details of several invoices presented by prosecutors, some of which reflected charges for meals with Riley, Díaz de la Portilla and City Hall staff totaling thousands of dollars, according to an arrest affidavit.
Neither Leila nor David Centner was able to describe in detail their process for approving large financial transactions, although both acknowledged that Leila Centner would have the ultimate say in major monetary decisions.
“Leila is the final decision maker on pushing the button on, you know, almost everything, pretty much,” David Centner told Broward County Assistant State Attorney Janine Rice, who interviewed the two separately.
Leila Centner said that while she signs off on many large transactions, she isn’t “digging into details” of each one. She added that she and her husband had, at the time, recently bought a building for $6 million.
“If you asked me who we paid, I wouldn’t be able to tell you,” she said.
In fact, the couple occasionally learns about their own deals from reading the news, she said.
“Sometimes I get forwarded links about things in the paper, and I’m like, ‘Cool, I didn’t know we were doing that,’” she said, adding that the same thing happens to her husband. “... And he’ll be like, ‘Honey, did you just buy this?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, we bought it. Remember I told you three months ago?’”
In a statement to the Miami Herald on Friday, David Centner described running a “very large family office with complicated financial operations that include numerous investments, charitable donations, operating companies, legal entities, monthly expenses, and associated bank accounts.”
He said he and his wife depend on “many entrusted associates” to handle the specifics of day-to-day operations.
“We rely on our team of experts to create and manage these numerous entities under our family office platform of companies,” he said. “If I micromanaged their efforts, I would never get anything done.”
As of last week, the Biscayne Park deal at the center of the state’s case against Riley and Díaz de la Portilla is void.
After receiving pushback when recently resurfaced plans showed how a proposal to expand a public school on the parkland was sidelined in favor of the Centner deal, David Centner announced at the Miami City Commission meeting this month that the couple was pulling out from the contract. Later that afternoon, the City Commission voted unanimously to revoke the city’s licensing agreement with the Centners.
The deal fell apart amid a wave of criticism over the project’s role in the criminal allegations against Riley and Díaz de la Portilla. On Friday, David Centner spoke in the third person as he reiterated that he and his wife have not been charged with any wrongdoing.
“There’s been a lot of mischaracterizations as to what actually transpired, and we look forward to the reporting on the truth as it comes out,” he said. “And I’d like to reiterate that David and Leila Centner have done nothing wrong, nor have we been accused of anything.”
‘We sprinkle money around’
Prosecutors allege in the arrest affidavit against Díaz de la Portilla and Riley that the Centners, through an affiliated corporation, made multiple payments totaling $245,000 to Pristine De LLC, a Delaware corporation created by Riley, who then transferred that money to two political committees “secretly controlled” by Díaz de la Portilla, in order to secure the commissioner’s support for the Centners’ sports dome project.
One of those committees, Local Leadership for Miami-Dade County, was created two days after Riley formed Pristine De LLC in the spring of 2020, according to prosecutors.
On the day that Local Leadership was created, the Centners, through the affiliated corporation, wired $110,000 to Pristine De LLC, according to the arrest affidavit. Within weeks, prosecutors allege, Riley began incrementally transferring that money to the Local Leadership political committee, which was officially created to support the campaign of Díaz de la Portilla’s younger brother, Renier, who at the time was running for county commission.
During that same time period, prosecutors allege, Riley also transferred money from Pristine De LLC to Proven Leadership for Miami-Dade County — a political committee that has, since its inception in 2018, supported Alex Díaz de la Portilla’s candidacy during two City Commission campaigns.
The arrest affidavit notes that a Centner entity that wired money to Pristine De LLC — called Perpetual Love L Trust — is the same entity that signed the resolution with the city securing the Biscayne Park deal.
When prosecutors asked the Centners about Pristine De LLC, Leila Centner said the name “doesn’t sound familiar.”
“But again, we have thousands and thousands of vendors,” Leila Centner said. “If I paid somebody six months ago, I might not remember the name.”
But David Centner said he was aware of Pristine, indicating that the company was connected to the Centners.
“As I understand it, it’s, one of a, an entity that we created in Delaware,” David Centner said. When asked who he was referring to when he said “we,” he replied: “My office, I guess.” At the time Pristine De LLC was created, Riley was working as an in-house attorney for the Centners, according to prosecutors.
David Centner said he believed Pristine De LLC was used to buy real estate, as well as for political contributions.
David Centner, who has raised funds for many candidates, including the now-disgraced former Congressman George Santos, was the family lead in the political realm, the couple said. During her interview, Leila Centner struggled to recall the name of the mayor of Miami, could not describe the job of a lobbyist and said she thought the City Commission had no real power to make change.
David Centner, on the other hand, described himself as being “involved in much of the political contribution decision making” and said he has never given money to a political candidate he doesn’t know. However, he said that he is not involved with “the mechanism” for getting money to a specific candidate.
When asked why he chose to support Renier Díaz de la Portilla’s campaigns in 2020 and 2022, David Centner told the Herald that “we contribute to many politicians.”
“For example, our most recent large contribution was to Robert Kennedy Jr. because he is very aligned with our values around medical freedom,” David Centner continued. “We support politicians who are aligned with our values, alignment which we’ve sought with the many other state, local and federal political candidates that we’ve supported.”
In her interview with investigators, Leila Centner said the couple isn’t necessarily tactical in their approach to campaign contributions.
“I think we sprinkle money around, and it’s not really strategic,” she said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, let’s give this guy some money, he’s doing good things.’”
‘We barely know the guy’
The Centners said they didn’t have a friendship with Alex Díaz de la Portilla, who controlled two political committees where their money eventually landed, according to prosecutors.
“We’re not like, friends with the guy,” said Leila Centner. “I can’t say that I remember the last time that anybody in our house even spoke to him. So that’s why when this came down, I’m like, we barely know the guy.”
David Centner said he had met with Alex Díaz de la Portilla at least once and has “been in his company,” but he didn’t recall “discussing any specific projects.”
“I let Bill do that, that kind of work,” David Centner said, referring to Riley, the lobbyist. “I try to keep away from that kind of stuff.”
Investigative reports released by Broward County prosecutors show that a Centner-related corporation reimbursed Riley for expenses unrelated to campaign contributions. The arrest affidavit describes multiple invoices from Riley to that corporation, including one referencing “work on political initiatives regarding Alex DLP campaign” and a meal with a member of the commissioner’s transition team. In the September interviews, prosecutors asked the Centners about a receipt showing they had paid for a steakhouse meal with attorney Robert Fernandez, a member of Alex Díaz de la Portilla’s transition team, around the time he was elected in late 2019.
Riley also invoiced the Centners’ company $1,528.39 for a “celebratory dinner” with an unnamed commissioner and other city officials in October 2020 — eight days after the Miami City Commission unanimously authorized city staffers to start working on the deal to allow the Centners to build the $10 million athletic facility at Biscayne Park.
According to the arrest affidavit, “Other invoices reflect charges for meals and drinks with Alex Díaz de la Portilla and City staff totaling thousands of dollars.”
The Centners were also questioned about a reimbursement Riley sought from them in August 2020 for $631.27 for an unspecified “event” with David Centner, city officials and city staff regarding Biscayne Park. David Centner said he didn’t recognize the invoice, though Rice said prosecutors had obtained it after subpoenaing his office.
Throughout the interview, prosecutors presented David Centner with additional invoices from Riley. He repeatedly told investigators he was not aware of them.
“I wasn’t involved in this at all,” said David Centner, as he looked at an invoice for the steakhouse meal at an unnamed Coral Gables restaurant. “I don’t recognize it. I don’t even know this place, or these people.”
Riley, an attorney and real estate broker with a history of lobbying on land-use matters, was the Centners’ go-to person for advocating for the sports facility proposal and handling zoning and permitting for the couple’s schools. After being introduced to Riley by a builder who’s worked for the couple before, the Centners said they hired him to work on the sports facility matter and other real estate projects. Investigators say he was paid approximately $500,000 a year as a lobbyist and in-house attorney.
“I think he’s really good at what he does,” David Centner told investigators.
David Centner said that while he makes high-level decisions about which political candidates he will support through campaign contributions, he does not concern himself with the specifics. Those details, he said, were known by other people in his company, and almost all of the spending from his family’s business is approved by his wife.
“I’m so hands-off on the financial aspects of the business,” he said.
A central piece to the state’s cases against Alex Díaz de la Portilla and Riley involves an election night watch party in August 2020 at the East Miami, an upscale hotel in Brickell City Centre, for Renier Díaz de la Portilla’s campaign for Miami-Dade County Commission. The Centner corporation reimbursed Riley for about $8,000 in expenses that night for hotel rooms and catering, according to the arrest affidavit.
“Twenty pastrami sandwiches?” David Centner said, laughing, as he reviewed invoices for that party. “Okay.”
“Familiar with any of it?” asked Rice, the prosecutor.
“No, I’ve never seen this before,” said David Centner.
Asked if he was aware that his reimbursements to Riley were for campaign expenditures on behalf of a political candidate, David Centner first said “no,” then qualified his statement.
“But it wouldn’t surprise me,” David Centner said. “I think that’s the nature of the job as a lobbyist.”
