4 July 24-30, 2025 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | ▼ SOUTH FLORIDA DEALER’S CHOICE REMINDER: MARCO RUBIO’S BROTHER-IN-LAW WAS A PROLIFIC COKE TRAFFICKER. BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN A lmost 40 years ago, a Cuban immigrant was arrested and convicted of distributing $15 million worth of cocaine as part of a major drug ring oper- ating out of South Florida. The man stored ki- los of cocaine in a spare bedroom inside his West Kendall home to later smuggle around the United States in cigarette cases. During Miami’s Cocaine Cowboy era of the 1970s and ‘80s, Orlando Cicilia was a major player in an international drug ring, using an exotic animal business as cover. Mario Tabraue, who would later allow spotted leopards to roam free inside his Coconut Grove estate, was the boss of the operation, but Cicilia was the frontman. In 1989, Cicilia was sentenced to 35 years in prison. He was released early in 2000. Decades-old drug offenses, often much less serious than Cicilia’s charges, have come back to haunt immigrants living in South Florida as President Donald Trump unleashes his hard- line immigration agenda. Juan Erles González, a 56-year-old Cuban immigrant who served 18 months in prison for conspiracy to possess with intent of distributing cocaine nearly two decades ago, now faces deportation. Last month, 75-year-old Isidro Pérez died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforce- ment (ICE) Custody after immigration offi- cers picked him up at a community center and charged him with “inadmissibility pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act.” In the 1980s, he was convicted of marijuana posses- sion and sentenced to 18 months in prison. While the Trump administration is busy deporting immigrants with previous petty drug offenses, a member of the president’s cabinet, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has a brother-in-law who served over a de- cade in prison on federal drug charges after emigrating to the U.S. from Cuba. His name? Orlando Cicilia. When Rubio was 16, Cicilia, who is married to Rubio’s older sister Barbara, was arrested on federal drug charges for dealing cocaine. After Cicilia immigrated to Miami in 1972 when he was 15, he met Barbara in high school, and the pair started dating. Barbara ended up staying in Miami with Cicilia when Rubio’s father got a bartending gig in Las Vegas in 1979. The Rubio family decided to move back to Miami two years later and temporarily lived at Cicilia’s home in West Kendall. The family, including 14-year-old Rubio, lived at the house around June 1985 until July 4. At that point, his brother-in-law played a significant role in the $75 million drug operation, right out of his home. One of Cecilia’s drug runners later testified at trial that he cut and stored massive amounts of cocaine in his spare bedroom between March 1985 and January 1986. Rubio wrote in his memoir, An American Son, that he would visit the home every week to help care for their seven Samoyed dogs, all while his brother-in-law ran this prolific drug operation out of the house. He maintained that he and his family were not aware of Cicilia’s drug dealing at the time, although two law enforcement officials pre- viously told New Times that they find that hard to believe. “They paid me ten dollars a week for each dog I washed, and I used my earnings to buy tickets to all eight regular season [Dolphins] home games in 1985,” Rubio said. Following the 1987 federal “Operation Co- bra” sting where federal agents seized the West Kendall home, a jury convicted Cicilia, Tabraue, and five others. Tabraue received a 100-year sentence, of which he served just 14 years. Tabraue was released in 2003 and opened an exotic animal farm in the Redland. Cicilia served just shy of 12 years of his 35- year sentence. Federal prosecutors never re- covered the $15 million Cicilia supposedly made in drug sales from the operation. After he was released in 2000, Cicilia got his real estate license with Rubio’s help. As the then-majority whip of the Florida House of Representatives, Rubio wrote a letter rec- ommending that the Florida Division of Real Estate approve Cicilia’s application without disclosing the familial connection. “I have known Mr. Cicilia for over 25 years,” Mr. Rubio wrote in the 2002 letter. “I recom- mend him for licensure without reservation.” As the national media caught wind of Ru- bio’s brother-in-law’s drug smuggling past and the letter during his 2016 presidential campaign, Rubio avoided questions about the relationship. His brother-in-law routinely ap- peared on stage at Rubio’s rallies throughout his political career. “Orlando made some very big mistakes al- most 30 years ago, served his time, and has paid his debt to society,” Todd Harris, Rubio’s then spokesperson, told the Washington Post in a 2015 email. “Today he is a private citizen, hus- band and father, simply trying to make a living.” [email protected] | RIPTIDE | GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS Marco Rubio’s brother in law was once a major cocaine trafficker. Photo by U.S. Embassy Jerusalem/Flickr ▼ DOWNTOWN SPAN PANNED MIAMI REDDIT TRASHES THE I-395 ‘SIGNATURE BRIDGE’ ARCHES. BY B. SCOTT MCLENDON I f there’s something to complain about in South Florida, leave it to Miami Reddit to tear it apart mercilessly. A delayed $840-million Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) construction project is the latest to catch the ire of Miami social media users. Officials are building the project to im- prove traffic flow at the I-95/I-395 intersection and give the city a signature bridge to adorn the skyline, but it seems to be unpopular among so- cial media users. FDOT engineers and architects at HDR tout the project as a community-transforming project that will give Miami an iconic bridge over Bis- cayne Boulevard; connect Overtown, Downtown Miami, Omni, and Edgewater; improve traffic flow in the area, and add 30 acres of park space, according to FDOT. The project will create a double-decker por- tion of SR 836 that will provide direct access to the MacArthur Causeway, the new “signature bridge” with six arches, and a new connector ramp from southbound I-95 to SR 836. Officials scheduled the project for completion in 2024, but supply-chain and weather issues pushed that date to fall 2027, according to Miami Today. A seemingly innocent question from one Redditor, who asked what the under-construc- tion arches were, roused more than 300, mostly sarcastic, answers in which dozens of users called out the massive spending as wasteful and primarily for looks. It’s a “giant waste of money for aesthetics from our local government,” he wrote. Many users complained about the three-year delay, joking that it was obvious proof that the project was a mas- sive money-laun- dering scheme. One user predicted that the project would take longer to construct than Notre Dame, which famously took more than 180 years to complete. Another commenter predicted that, once the construction is complete, “some TikTok fucker is gonna climb to the top and do a video.” He couldn’t resist the opportunity to criticize Miami’s costly real estate market, an easy and common target for complaints, joking that one would “probably live inside them for like $6k a month.” “They’re power grids for the crypto gods. Once they’re fully online, it will summon the top crypto scammer,” one Redditor mused. Others weren’t in a joking mood, calling the project “another metric ton of lipstick on the ‘world class’ city pig. Poverty. Unhoused. No drug treatment. Every risk for vulnerable adults and children is rampant and vastly underfunded. And don’t get me started on the lack of a usable public transportation system.” Another user quipped, “a big Mickey Dee’s at the end of the bridge” would be apropos. “Bath dart baht ba baahhhhhhhh ... I’m lovin’ it!” [email protected] “THEY’RE POWER GRIDS FOR THE CRYPTO GODS. ONCE THEY’RE FULLY ONLINE, IT WILL SUMMON THE TOP CRYPTO SCAMMER.”
