A former Southwest Ranches council candidate is accused of planting a recording device in Town Hall and sharing the information with a business owner locked in a lawsuit with the city, according to court documents and town officials.
John Garate, 50, was arrested by Davie police on Dec. 19 after they caught him leaving Town Hall with a recording device he secretly placed in a conference room the day before, according to an arrest report.
His arrest was the culmination of an investigation that started two weeks earlier, when town officials called police to report their belief that someone had recorded a Dec. 4 closed-door meeting in that conference room. The purpose of that meeting was to discuss strategies for ongoing civil cases.
Police reviewed Town Hall surveillance footage and identified Garate as someone who walked into the building on Dec. 5, entered the conference room, and walked out with “something in his hands,” according to the arrest report.
The next day, one business owner told town officials Garate offered her a recording of the meeting, said Town Administrator Russell Muniz. Her name has not been released.
A day after that, at 3 a.m. on Dec. 7, the same officials received an 18-page e-mail from a second local business owner who they say made references to discussions from the meeting, confirming to the officials that it had been recorded without authorization and prompting a call to Davie police.
The second business owner, Miguel Rodriguez Albisu, owner of Cielo Farms Nursery, is currently waiting for Broward Circuit Judge Andrew Siegel to rule on whether he acted in self defense in March 2023 when he brandished a loaded gun to break up a wedding reception at Cielo Farms that was running later than scheduled. He’s also been engaged in a code enforcement dispute with town officials who say his property is not zoned for the kind of business he was running.
The Davie police report about the gun incident does not name Albisu or the other business owner. The town administrator confirmed the connection between Albisu’s e-mail and the decision to call police.
Police planted their own recording device ahead of a second closed-door meeting scheduled for Dec. 18.
According to the police report, the recording shows Garate entering the conference two hours before the Dec. 18 meeting. After he left Town Hall, but before the meeting, police checked the conference room and “verified that a device was placed on the bookshelf.”
The next morning, after the meeting, Garate returned to Town Hall, entered the conference room, picked up the device and was stopped by police as he was leaving. “During the search incident to arrest, in the defendant’s pocket was a black device with a USB attachment,” the police report states.
Garate declined to provide police with a statement without his lawyer present. He is charged with two counts of intercepting communications, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. He has pled not guilty and is currently barred from returning to Town Hall as a condition of his pre-trial release.
Calls to Garate and to his defense lawyer had not been returned before publication of this article.
Responding to a public records request from the Sun Sentinel, the town provided a copy of Albisu’s Dec. 7 e-mail and a partial transcript of the Dec. 4 closed-door meeting that had allegedly been recorded.
According to the transcript, Town Attorney Keith Poliakoff was trying to block Albisu from calling town officials to testify at Albisu’s stand-your-ground hearing in the gun case because, Poliakoff said, it had nothing to do with their code enforcement dispute. Poliakoff said he was trying to avoid having to pay a lawyer between $15,000 and $20,000 in public funds to sit in on Albisu’s criminal case.
“He listed all of us again as witnesses to the stand-your-ground motion,” Poliakoff said at the meeting. “It has nothing to do with the town, but Mr. Albisu-Rodriguez [sic] believes that the town is directly responsible for his actions that night.”
In his e-mail, which is addressed to Southwest Ranches Mayor Steve Breitkreuz, Albisu defended his need to list town officials as witnesses in his criminal case.
“Since the town had the [closed-door] session this week… I wanted to confirm that what Poliakoff told you and the other council members is the reason why they all need to testify at my stand your ground hearing,” Albisu wrote. “This is why I’ve had to spend $1 million and counting on defending myself against criminal charges and bogus, trumped-up claims of hosting illegal events.”
Albisu’s lawyer, Ken Padowitz, said his client denies listening to a recording of the meeting.
“All the information in that email had been publicly discussed,” Padowitz said, adding that Albisu had a meeting with town Breitkreuz days before the Dec. 4 meeting. “There’s not one shred of evidence my client had anything to do with that [recording].”
Albisu has not been charged with or accused of wrongdoing in connection with the recording.
Garate ran an unsuccessful campaign for town council last fall. Albisu was a donor to the campaign, providing Cielo Farms as a fundraising venue listed on campaign finance reports as a $1,000 in-kind contribution. Garate was also present in court during part of Albisu’s stand-your-ground hearing in December.
Breitkreuz, the mayor of Southwest Ranches, is vacationing out of the country and was unavailable to confirm what he discussed with Albisu, though records confirm the meeting did take place.
Albisu has publicly accused town officials, and Poliakoff in particular, of targeting his business for overzealous code enforcement because Cielo Farms once hosted a fundraiser for Republicans. Southwest Ranches is about 42 percent Republican and 27 percent Democrat, according to voter registration records.
A three-judge panel ruled against Albisu on the zoning dispute with the town in February, but the case was still open two months earlier when the alleged recording was made.
No one from the town ended up testifying at Albisu’s stand-your-ground hearing. Closing arguments in that hearing were held on Feb. 28, and Siegel has yet to issue a ruling.
Albisu filed a federal lawsuit against Poliakoff and town officials on Wednesday morning, accusing them of harassing him and his Cielo Farms business. He also listed State Attorney Harold Pryor as a witness in the stand-your-ground case, accusing him of hiding Poliakoff’s efforts to get removed as a potential witness.
Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457. Follow him on Threads.net/@rafael.olmeda.