Housing scam developer pleads guilty

Developer Reynaldo Diaz pleaded guilty on Wednesday to participating in
an organized scheme to defraud Miami-Dade County. He received money
from Miami-Dade’s housing agency for land contracts which never
existed, and built only two of the 28 homes he promised. Diaz, the
second major figure to plead guilty in the scheme, which prompted a
federal take-over of the agency and was described in a report
after a seven-month investigation, was sentenced to three years of
probation and ordered to complete 326 days of work with the county’s
Habitat for Humanity charity, helping to build houses for low-income
buyers. He returned $940,000 he had received from the agency and vowed
never to seek a contract with the county again.