Influential Miami banker Abel Holtz, who lied about bribes, gets Trump pardon

At the peak of his powers, Abel Holtz was a mensch — an influential banker who gave back to the community in a big way.

A downtown Miami street, a children’s hospital at Jackson Memorial and a tennis center in Miami Beach all were named after him.

But for years, Holtz’s philanthropic profile also carried an indelible stain, after the former founder of Capital Bank pleaded guilty in 1994 to lying to a federal grand jury about making secret payments to a famously corrupt Miami Beach mayor.

Now, thanks to President Donald Trump, that mark — or at least the stigma of a felony conviction — has been wiped clean. Just before leaving office Wednesday, the president pardoned the 86-year-old Holtz among a slew of clemency decisions, including an array of convicted friends, political aides and financial fraudsters.

According to a White House statement, Trump’s pardon of Holtz was supported by Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart along with friends and business colleagues in the greater Miami community. It also noted that he pleaded guilty to one count of “impeding a grand jury investigation” and that he was sentenced to 45 days in prison.

“Before his conviction, Mr. Holtz, who was the chairman of a local bank, never had any legal issues and has had no other legal issues since his conviction,” the statement said. “Mr. Holtz has devoted extensive time and resources to supporting charitable causes in South Florida, including substantial donations to the city of Miami Beach.”

Holtz could not be reach for comment. His previous pardon petition in 2006 to President George W. Bush was denied.

Long before he went to prison, Holtz was a towering figure in the business community. After escaping Fidel Castro’s Cuba, he went on to build Capital Bank and become a multimillionaire. Holtz spread his wealth, donating generously to organizations, including Miami’s Children’s Hospital. He also built a tennis stadium that he donated to Miami Beach.

At the same time he was building his stadium, Holtz was buying political influence, said former Miami Beach Mayor Alex Daoud.

Daoud was a young lawyer and a Miami Beach city commissioner when he first met Holtz at the banker’s waterfront Venetian Islands mansion. It was there that Holtz first offered him a bribe, Daoud told the Miami Herald. Daoud, who was eventually elected as mayor of Miami Beach, said Holtz paid him thousands of dollars in bribes for political favors.

“I was being paid and bribed,” Daoud said in an interview Wednesday.

Asked about Trump’s pardon of Holtz, Daoud called the president’s clemency decision “disgusting” and “despicable.”

Daoud said he also signed off on a 1983 deal between the city and Holtz that allowed Holtz to build and donate a tennis stadium to the city near the current site of the Flamingo Park Tennis Center. Holtz named it after himself. Holtz also loaned the city money to renovate the nearby tennis center, which was later renamed the Flamingo Park-Capital Bank Tennis Center. In 2013, the City Commission voted to drop his name from the center, which was eventually torn down.

Daoud, who went on to serve three terms as mayor, was pocketing money from plenty of other people, too. His political career ended in 1991, when he was slapped with a 41-count federal indictment charging him with racketeering, extortion, money laundering and filing false tax returns. The disgraced mayor testified that he had accepted the payments from Holtz.

Daoud was sentenced to five years in prison, but served only about 18 months.

Holtz, meanwhile, pleaded guilty in October 1994 to lying to a grand jury about the payments. His conviction meant he could no longer run his bank, so his son, Daniel Holtz, was put in charge.

When he pleaded guilty, the Miami Herald described Holtz as “a civic icon whose career faded amid sexual harassment complaints and accusations that he misused bank funds.”

In court, Holtz admitted that he paid Daoud for legal services that were not provided but did not say what he got for his money. The plea ended a four-year federal crackdown on influence peddling in Miami Beach.

”Mr. Holtz’s misconduct corrupted the grand jury’s fact-finding process,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Udolf said at the time. “The message should go out that lying to a grand jury will not be tolerated.”

On Wednesday, Udolf said he did not begrudge anyone getting a pardon, especially if “equal justice” is applied by the president. However, he said that while Holtz is not in the same circle as Trump’s top advisors (Stephen Bannon, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone) who got pardons, the former banker still belongs to the same class of people who received preferential treatment from the president.

“The people [Trump] deems worthy of a pardon are moneyed and privileged,” Udolf said. “Clearly, [Holtz] is a wealthy man. ... He was convicted of obstruction, the kind of crime that Trump doesn’t necessarily have a problem with.”