ONCE A RISING STAR, OPA-LOCKA POLITICIAN FELL TO TEMPTATION, DESPAIR via Michael Sallah and Jay Weaver of the Miami Herald

By 2004, the former honor student was such a popular figure that he swept into public office with one of the largest mandates of any city commissioner in Opa-locka’s history.

“What he lacked in physical stature, he made up for in heart and desire,” recalled Dave Ahern, his former basketball coach at Monsignor Edward Pace, a Catholic high school in Miami Gardens. “When you put him on a court, he loved to win.”

But years later, the politician who promised to rid the city of its troubled past would be lured into the same web of cronyism and graft that has defined the impoverished community for generations.

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