Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez took the witness stand Wednesday in the public corruption trial of former Homestead Mayor Steve Bateman.
Bateman, 59, is on trial for illegal lobbying and using his post as mayor for his own financial gain. Specifically, Bateman faces two counts of unlawful compensation, unregistered lobbying, exploitation of his position and acquiring financial interests related to a secret consulting job with a Florida health clinic company, authorities said. Two of the charges are felonies and three misdemeanors.
Prosecutors said Bateman was a consultant with a Florida health care company, CHI, and pressed other local leaders, such as Mayor Gimenez, for work while on the job. At issue Wednesday was Bateman’s meeting with Gimenez on February 21, 2013 about a pump station in Homestead.
Prosecutors hammered away Wednesday at Bateman’s alleged failure to disclose that he was getting paid $125 an hour by CHI.
“I believed that he was there to see if we could expedite the process for a DERM permit so they could get their pump station upgraded for some economic development, construction projects they wanted in a certain place,” Mayor Gimenez testified.
Gimenez said that if Bateman was at the meeting as a paid consultant for someone in addition to being there as the mayor, then he should have registered as a lobbyist.
Bateman’s attorneys tried showing that there was nothing unusual about the meeting.
“The February 21, 2013 meeting with Steve Bateman, is it fair to say that the only reason you really remember this meeting is because of all the controversy that has surrounded this meeting after the fat?” defense attorney Ben Kuehne asked.
“Most of it, probably,” Gimenez answered.
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“The concept of a mayor meeting about a pump station, a sewage or pumping station happens with some regularity? Kuehne asked.
“It’s happened before, he’s not the only mayor who did that,” Gimenez said. “If he was being paid and he was acting as a lobbyist, he should have told us that he was there acting on behalf of a company or companies even though he was the mayor of Homestead.”
Bateman denies the claims and says life has been difficult for his family since his arrest.
Bateman was elected Homestead's mayor in 2009 and won re-election in 2011. He served as the city's vice mayor and councilman and was the chairman of the city's planning and zoning board. He lost the mayoral primary in October, finishing in third.
If convicted, Bateman faces anywhere from probation to 15 years in prison.
