NORTH MIAMI
Lucie Tondreau is a candidate for North Miami mayor in a race that she says is the toughest that she has evere been a part of because of the tensions between the white and Haitian voters that live there. Here she stands in front of her home as it has been rumored that she lives elsewhere. C.W. Griffin
BY PATRICIA MAZZEI, NADEGE GREEN AND LANCE DIXON
PMAZZEI@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Investigators raided the private business office of North Miami Mayor Lucie Tondreau on Friday seeking evidence linking her to unlawful absentee-ballot requests that her political campaign may have submitted online earlier this year.
The search marked the third investigation in six months by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office into bulk requests filed in violation of Florida law, which allows only voters or their family members to submit the forms online.
Tondreau, who was elected in June, denied any involvement in the fraudulent ballot requests.
“I don’t get involved in those types of things,” she said. “Let them search. We don’t have anything to hide.”
Prosecutors working with Miami-Dade and Miami Beach police and the county inspector general’s office executed a search warrant early Friday at the North Miami office of Tondreau and Associates, the mayor’s public-affairs consulting company. An Internet Protocol computer address that was used to submit the suspect requests was apparently traced to Tondreau’s office.
“This was a lead we received and needed to look into,” said Ed Griffith, a spokesman for State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle. The tip came into her absentee-ballot fraud task force, he added.
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