Move over, Marco Rubio. There's another youthful, telegenic Cuban making the rounds in Miami's power circles. Just one difference: This lawyer is a Democrat.
Wifredo Ferrer was appointed last April by President Barack Obama to be the new U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. He succeeded George W. Bush appointee Alex Acosta, who moved on to become dean of the law school at Florida International University.
Like his GOP predecessor, Ferrer has lots of opportunities to make headlines as the region's top federal prosecutor. The Southern District, the nation's third largest, remains a hotbed for Medicare fraud, gang activity and political corruption. To that list, Ferrer adds mortgage scams.
"Mortgage fraud has a devastating effect on neighborhoods with many collateral consequences," Ferrer says, relating the recent case of a young boy who drowned in the pool of an abandoned, foreclosed home.
"This kind of fraud even funds (marijuana) grow houses and and opens the door for identity theft," he added.
Thus far, the U.S. Attorney's Office has charged 400 people in cases involving more than $500 million in ill-gotten gains -- figures that appear to represent just the tip of a financial iceberg.
As for the persistent plague of Medicare fraud, the former assistant U.S. attorney says the office has charged 1,000 individuals in cases involving $3 billion in scams over the past four years.
"It's embarrassing to me. Money is slipping away and lining the pockets of fraudsters," he said.
To root out criminal activity in both the Medicare and mortgage arenas, Ferrer's Miami-based office has begun briefing federal regulators and banks in an effort to share information and recruit allies up front.
Ferrer's office, for example, reaches out to agents from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Office of Financial Regulation, Office of the Comptroller of Currency and Federal Reserve Board.
"Litigation is not the answer," he says. "We could double our efforts, but the harm has been done. The key is to get Medicare regulators and the banks to see it."
Ferrer says he has won approval to add staff up and down the nine-county district that stretches from Key West to Vero Beach and encompasses 6 million people. The busy office currently has 280 assistant U.S. attorneys.
On political corruption, Ferrer is less specific.
Whereas Acosta prosecuted and convicted Palm Beach County commissioners with aggressive use of the federal Honest Services Act, Ferrer seems almost sanguine.
"On balance, I am very happy with our public officials," Ferrer told a gathering of the Martin County Consensus civic group in Palm City last week.
But he discounted the notion that incarcerated ex-Commissioner Tony Masilotti or others could win sentence reductions as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's subsequent curbs on the Honest Services Act
Beyond alleging a public official's failure to provide "honest services," the court ruled that prosecutors must prove there was a "quid pro quo" or "kickback" to earn a conviction under the statute.
Ferrer says the statute is "more narrow now, but we had other charges that secure the cases" against Masilotti and fellow commissioners Warren Newell and Mary McCarty. Masilotti and Newell have filed motions to vacate their federal prison terms pursuant to the high court decision.
"We have a large arsenal of tools at our disposal to combat public corruption. Among the statutes at our disposal are mail and wire fraud, bribery, illegal gratuities, theft involving programs receiving federal funds, Hobbs Act extortion, and even money laundering," Ferrer told Sunshine State News.
"None of our West Palm or Broward public corruption prosecutions were adversely affected by the narrowing scope of the 'honest services' fraud statute.Each case in which we used the 'honest services' statutes also had alternative charges, and the defendants were convicted of these as well."
Meanwhile, Ferrer, who calls himself "Willy," is making a name for himself as he travels the district and tells his life story, which sounds remarkably similar to U.S. Sen.-elect Rubio's.
Born of Cuban immigrants who landed on the lowest rungs of South Florida's socio-economic ladder, Ferrer recalls how his father, an accountant in Cuba, took humbler work in Miami.
"He wore a sign that said he would cut grass for $5," Ferrer said.
Through his parents' odd jobs and his solid class work at Hialeah-Miami Lakes High School, Ferrer went on to college (University of Miami) and law school (University of Pennsylvania). Today, with misty eyes, a wife and two sons, he says he's living the American Dream.
Using stirring, Rubio-esque language to describe his up-from-the-bootstraps journey, the 44-year-old Ferrer blends loyalty to family and allegiance to American exceptionalism. The only difference is that Ferrer's party of advancement is Democrat, not Republican.
Still, Ferrer isn't so misty-eyed that he doesn't see a downside to the "diversity" he applauds in South Florida.
Citing a rising scourge of "human slave trade" and omnipresent national security issues, the young U.S. attorney acknowledges that the region's rich cultural and ethnic mix can also be a magnet for trouble.
"It's easy to hide here," he observes.
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Reach Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.
