Finance & Business World

Suspended Miami Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones was not in circuit court Thursday for her arraignment. Instead, her attorney asked the judge to dismiss criminal charges against her.

Attorney Peter Raben told the court that the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office did not provide enough information in its indictment to allow his client to enter a plea.

Spence-Jones was indicted March 3 on a bribery charge for allegedly soliciting $25,000 from Miami developer Armando Codina. In 2006, Codina asked the city commission to extend Brickell Avenue to downtown Miami’s core. Codina’s company was managing office leasing for a mixed-use project in downtown Miami that would have benefited from the name change.

“The indictment doesn’t say who was solicited,” Raben told the Business Journal Thursday afternoon. “In the media advisory, it says it was [Armando] Codina. But, Codina said, ‘It wasn’t me.’ So give me some help here.”

Raben said Spence-Jones ultimately will plead not guilty

Some former prosecutors and defense attorneys say prosecutors will have a hard time making the bribery charge stick because Codina has denied he bribed Spence-Jones bad credit personal loan lenders. The former commissioner also has denied any wrongdoing.

Another March 3 indictment in a separate case alleges Spence-Jones misappropriated $50,000 in grant money meant for a private business. She also denied any wrongdoing in that case.

The state attorney’s office did not have time to prepare for Spence-Jones’ motion Thursday, so Circuit Court Judge Yvonne Colodny told both parties to come back and make their case on March 30.

Spence-Jones was suspended after winning re-election in November and again after a special election that followed to fill the seat she vacated as a result of the suspension. She is still fighting the suspension in circuit court.

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