Lubby Navarro, ex-Miami-Dade School Board member, accused of lavish spending on district credit card

MIAMI — Former Miami-Dade Public Schools Board member Lubby Navarro was arrested Thursday after she was accused of using a schools-issued credit card to charge at least $100,000 in personal expenses that included lavish travel trips and shopping sprees, the state attorney’s office said.  

Navarro, 49. was booked into the Miami-Dade County jail on two counts of grand theft and two counts of fraud, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said during an afternoon news conference in which she detailed the allegations in a 91-page criminal complaint. 

The news conference also featured images of Navarro leaving big box retailers with a shopping cart filled with merchandise that was allegedly paid for with her county-issued credit card.

Rundle said bond had been set at $2 million and that Navarro faced between three to 55 years in prison if the former elected official is convicted of the charges.

In a written statement, Navarro’s attorney said she was innocent.

“Ms. Navarro fully intends to prevail in this case,” the statement from Kuehne Davis Law said. “This effort to ruin her well-deserved reputation as an honest, properly motivated community servant will be shown to be unjust. Ms. Navarro looks forward to her complete vindication and her resumption of working for the betterment of the community. Ms. Navarro states without equivocation that she is innocent of wrongdoing and appreciates the many expressions of support and well wishes by those who know her best.”

“Every dollar stolen and spent by Ms. Navarro is a dollar taken from our school system,” Rundle said. “And therefore stolen from our children and diminishing their possibility of a better future.”

Navarro had been vice chair of the school board and had worked for the county school system since 2002.

“She knew better than to have gone down this very pathetic past,” Rundle said. 

Navarro was snared in a probe relating to her improper use of a school board-issued credit card, known as a P Card, to cover several thousands of dollars of her personal expenses, Rundle said.

.The alleged misuse came to light after Navarro resigned her post in last December 2022. She left the elected post a day before a new Florida law prohibiting elected officials from working as lobbyists went into effect

Instead of reconciling credit card charges, which is required by officials who have the cards, Navarro left the school system, which resulted in the superintendent’s chief of staff and chief financial officer to examine her credit card purchases.

In a written statement, the school system declined to comment about the investigation and Navarro’s arrest.

“Miami-Dade County Public Schools has been made aware of the recent arrest of former School Board Member Lubby Navarro,” a spokesperson for the Miami-Dade County Public Schools said in a written statement. “As this remains an active, open matter, we will not be commenting on this situation. We will fully cooperate with law enforcement agencies as necessary.”

Rundle said the school district administrators discovered the improper transactions during their review and initiated an investigation.

According to Rundle, the misuse of the credit car ranged from Jan. 1, 2022 to Dec. 21, 2022 but likely included additional improper spending during other times.

Rundle said the criminal investigation found that Navarro allegedly:

• Spent over $92,000 on unauthorized purchases like appliances, electronics, clothing, food, health-and-beauty products and gift cards.
• Used her P Card to pay for at least $9,000 in travel expenses for airline tickets, hotel stays,, meals, car rentals, a trip with her mother to the Dominican Republic and a trip to Las Vegas with her then-boyfriend.