Jackson Health worker traded jobs for cash, trip to Greece and football tix, cops say
The former director of engineering at Jackson Health System was arrested Tuesday for allegedly accepting tens of thousands of dollars in cash and freebies that included airline flights and football tickets in exchange for awarding contracts to a vendor.
Heriberto Martinez, 36, who has since quit his job, was charged Tuesday with a single count of unlawful compensation in a pay-to-play scheme in which state prosecutors claim he pocketed more than $65,000 through 19 cash payments in 2020 and 2021.
The former department boss was also wined and dined: He flew to Athens, Greece and attended at least one Miami Dolphins football game courtesy of a vendor named Theodore Xidis, according to investigators with Miami-Dade Police and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.
Martinez, whose job included assessing construction contracts and getting quotes, would execute agreements with Xidis through emergency work forms - a loophole that enables the county to directly appoint contractors and bypass the normal bidding process, according to his arrest warrant. Investigators said on other occasions, after being told of the potential jobs by Martinez, Xidis would submit numerous proposals from several of his companies - guaranteeing one of them would win the bid.
Martinez, who lives in Broward County, was taken into custody at his home by Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies Tuesday morning. Martinez’s attorney said the $20,000 bond had been posted by late Tuesday afternoon, though Broward court records show Martinez remained jailed. The family chose not to comment.
Carlos Migoya, president and chief executive of JHS, said Martinez’s scheme was detected during an audit by Jackson. Jackson then contacted public corruption investigators. In a prepared statement, Migoya said Martinez had undermined the hospital’s stewardship of public money in the public eye.
“We have a zero tolerance policy for this type of egregious misconduct,” the JHS president said.
Xidis is a Miami-Dade approved vendor who mostly dabbles in construction. State records show he is the listed manager for 11 companies, several of which caught the eye of investigators, according to Martinez’s arrest warrant. In all, according to the warrant, Martinez set Xidis up for 12 contracts totaling more than $420,000. Some of the companies that won bids, according to the warrant, were subcontractors for Xidis’s firms.
The warrant explains how the owner of JAA Flooring subcontracted for some of Xidis’s companies and how Xidis was permitted to operate the company because “business was slow.” In many cases, work that was promised was never completed. Several of Xidis’s subcontractors gave prosecutors sworn statements.
Investigators also managed to obtain text messages between Martinez and Xidis, several in which the former director of engineering urges Xidis to submit a bid quickly, because the window of opportunity was closing.
“Need a quote for SICU A [Surgical Intensive Care Unit A] project from JAA...Need it ASAP,” Martinez wrote to Xidis in May 2021. “Quote Malaka you’re gonna miss the cutoff...Stop giving the wrong time estimates and send the quote.”
Xidis, who has not been charged with a crime, is co-operating with prosecutors.
