Police Arrest Ex-Miami-Dade School Board Member Lubby Navarro

The former vice chair of the Miami-Dade County school board was hauled into jail Thursday on charges that she illegally racked up a dizzying bill on her school district credit cards, blowing public funds on everything from a five-star Las Vegas hotel stay to an Apple watch to a “Pirate Vixen” costume for Halloween.

Lubby Navarro was booked into Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on January 11, charged with grand theft and organized scheme to defraud.

According to Miami-Dade County prosecutors, Navarro made more than $100,000 in unauthorized purchases using school district credit cards — roughly $92,000 on her P-card and $9,000 on her travel card. A police affidavit states that Navarro made the purchases in 2022, except for Apple items bought beginning in July 2021.

Navarro, who was born in Havana, Cuba, and has lived in the Miami area for more than 30 years, was appointed in 2015 by then-Gov. Rick Scott to fill a vacant school board seat. She was elected the following year and again in 2020.

A registered lobbyist for the South Broward Hospital District, which includes the Memorial Healthcare System, Navarro resigned from her school board post in late December 2022, a day before a new Florida law prohibiting elected officials from working as lobbyists went into effect.

Her profligate purchases, including more than $24,000 spent at Walmart, ranged from standard groceries to pricey commercial-grade appliances for her one-time boyfriend’s business, prosecutors say.

She allegedly used her county-issued credit card to buy a $748 Breville espresso machine and a $1,176 commercial-grade refrigerator for the business in September 2022.

In November 2022, prosecutors claim Navarro bought a $99 Barista Pro 6-in-1 espresso machine with milk frother and a $147 two-door mini fridge with a freezer, along with other grocery items — a small sampling from her alleged spending spree on the county’s dime. 

The affidavit states that she later bagged Christmas cards, peppermint candy canes, a slow cooker, and New Year’s Eve supplies at a Dania Beach Walmart in early December 2022 — and hit a second Walmart later that day in Miami to buy 11 bottles of wine, holiday gift paper, clothing, and water for a total of $308.

Navarro also used her district-issued travel card to treat her boyfriend and his entire eight-person family to a trip to Disney’s Magic Kingdom and Universal Studios’ Volcano Bay theme park, as well as to take her boyfriend on a three-day trip to Las Vegas, prosecutors say. Bank records show the couple stayed at the five-star Wynn Las Vegas for more than $4,300, spending roughly $500 at the Encore Beach Club, $416 at the upscale Sinatra Italian restaurant, and more than $229 for room service, according to the affidavit.

Threaded between the narrative of high-priced purchases, the affidavit includes a litany of unsettling claims about Navarro’s conduct toward her romantic interest after they broke up around August 2022.

The ex-boyfriend told investigators that she would follow him everywhere, parking in front of his shop and remaining there “for hours,” the affidavit states. He “stated that Navarro told him she worked for the FBI and knew everything about him.” At one point, he said he found Apple AirTag devices, which can be used for tracking and stalking, attached to his car’s wheel well and grill.

Prosecutors note that Navarro had purchased AirTag devices in April 2022 using her county-issued credit card.

A year deep into the decadence, Navarro’s spending caught the eye of Miami-Dade County Public Schools Chief of Staff Jose Bueno when he reviewed her late 2022 P-card reconciliation paperwork. He was “alarmed” by the shopping habits and notified the school system’s Chief Financial Officer, Ron Steiger.

A public corruption task force for the Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office served warrants at Navarro’s townhome in July 2023, at which point investigators determined her house was filled with items bought with her county credit card: a couch, refrigerator, and various pricey electronics, for starters.

Investigators searched a second property tied to Navarro, but it was abandoned and covered with mold, rodent feces, and “pools of foul-smelling water,” as the affidavit described it.

Navarro’s bail has been set at $2 million.

In a statement, Navarro’s attorney, Benedict Kuehne, wrote that 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.”

Kuehne says that because the state attorney had Navarro arrested at her home “without notice” to her and asked a judge to deny her bond release, she will be required to spend the night in jail before she can appear before a judge.

“Ms. Navarro fully intends to prevail in this case. This effort to ruin her well-deserved reputation as an honest, properly motivated community servant will be shown to be unjust,” Kuehne wrote in a statement. “Ms. Navarro looks forward to her complete vindication and her resumption of working for the betterment of the community.”

Navarro raked in a $183,751 salary from Memorial Healthcare in 2022, as well as a bonus of $36,750, according to the Miami Herald. The annual salary for a Miami-Dade Public Schools Board member is $46,773, according to the Miami-Dade Elections Department.

Navarro was known for her conservative stances while serving on the school board. She received an endorsement from the Christian Family Coalition, which lauded her for her views on allowing faculty to celebrate religious holidays and having an elective course to teach the Bible as history. As previously reported by New Times, Navarro made headlines when she cast the sole nay vote in August 2021 when the board voted 7-1 to implement a mask mandate in the nation’s fourth-largest school district during the pandemic.