Did Coral Gables Commissioner Melissa Castro violate state ethics law? What we know

Coral Gables Commissioner Melissa Castro and her permit-expediting business are under scrutiny ahead of the city’s upcoming November election after investigators said they found probable cause that she violated state ethics laws while conducting business in the Gables.

The probable cause finding by the Florida Commission on Ethics means investigators have gathered enough evidence during their preliminary investigation to determine that there could potentially be an ethics violation of state statutes. But the investigation is ongoing, and no final determination has been made. The case will now go before a judge in an administrative hearing for final judgment.

Castro, who is running for a second term, has denied any wrongdoing and told the Miami Herald she believes she will eventually be cleared. Meanwhile, Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago is now calling for her resignation.

The case

The probe, which was sparked by a complaint alleging that Castro was using her city position to benefit her permit-expediting business, focuses on Castro’s longtime company, M.E.D. Expeditors, now known as M.E.D. Expediters — with an er instead of or.

The complaint, filed by West Palm Beach lawyer Matthew Sarelson in November 2023, alleges that Castro continued to do business in the city after she was elected in April 2023 and that doing so has created a conflict of interest. It is unclear how Sarelson, a self-described “celebrity attorney” who does not live in Coral Gables, became familiar with the matter.

The state Ethics Commission came back with the probable cause finding in January. The news was first reported by the Aesop’s Gables blog on Wednesday morning. The Herald has since obtained documents and audio recordings related to the probe from the state Ethics Commission through a public records request.

Castro says her company is no longer doing business in the Gables. Instead, clients in the Gables now go through a separate business called M.E.D. Expeditors of Coral Gables that is run by Madeline Perez, one of Castro’s former and trusted employees. Both companies shared the same phone number and address for a time, but Castro told the Herald in a statement that she does not own, manage or profit from M.E.D. Expeditors of Coral Gables.

Castro and her attorney, David Winker, have denied the complainant’s allegations under oath, telling investigators she stopped working on Gables permits in June 2024, about a year after she was elected. They have both told the Herald that they expect the state’s ethics probe will eventually give the commissioner a “clean bill of health.”

Castro faced a similar allegation in front of the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust shortly after she asked the agency for guidance on how to operate her permitting business after she was elected.

The county Ethics Commission determined that Castro and her business could continue working in the city as long as the scope of the work was clerical and did not involve advocacy on behalf of clients, otherwise “a prohibited conflict of interest may be found.” Castro ultimately declared that she and her company would no longer work in the Gables to avoid any potential conflict of interest.

What Castro says about the two companies

Permit-expediting businesses like Castro’s help people and businesses speed up the permitting process. Douglas Ramirez, the Gables’ deputy director of development services, described the job of a permit expediter to state investigators as someone who knows how the city’s departments operate “and when to follow up on matters, know who to call, and keep up with important deadlines.”

In a declaration that was submitted to the state Ethics Commission on July 25, 2025, Castro said that since June 2024 “neither I nor my company have pulled a single permit or conducted any business in the city,” describing it as a “proactive step to eliminate appearance of conflict of interest.”

Lago, who is often at odds with Castro and has publicly questioned Castro’s permit business operations in the city, on Wednesday said Castro had shown a “stunning failure of responsibility and transparency.”

“Commissioner Castro was given multiple opportunities to address these concerns and failed to explain them, while residents were left in the dark for months about a state ethics case involving potential conflicts between her public duties and private financial interests,” Lago said in a statement to the Herald. “Public officials have an obligation to be forthcoming with the people they represent, especially when the State raises questions about conflicts involving their public office and private business interests..”

On Wednesday, Castro dismissed the allegations in a phone call with the Herald, and later in a lengthy statement, stating that she is not connected to, or making money from, Perez’s business. Castro said she gave Perez the Gables side of her business and allowed her to use M.E.D. Expeditors, the original name of Castro’s late mother’s business, because she trusted Perez to uphold her mom’s reputation. Castro insists the two companies are now separate and said Perez is no longer her employee, though she is now an occasional contractor for Castro’s business.

“I have not received any direct or indirect compensation, profit, referral fee, economic benefit, or other financial interest from Coral Gables permitting matters handled by M.E.D. Expeditors of Coral Gables. I do not own that company” or have any ownership interest, Castro’s statement says.

The Herald has reached out to Perez for an interview.

Ramirez, the Gables’ deputy director of development services, told investigators that city staff had previously expressed concerns over how to handle M.E.D. permits now that Castro was a city commissioner and were eventually advised to treat them like any other permits “and not provide MED with any preferential treatment,” according to the state’s investigative reports. Ramirez also noted, according to the reports, that while M.E.D. continued to submit permits for clients after her election, he never saw Castro personally represent any permit application.

What investigators say

Investigators with the state Ethics Commission weren’t able to verify whether Castro’s claims of no longer working in the city are true, noting in a supplemental investigation report in August 2025 that 132 permit applications were submitted or processed between June 5, 2024 — the day the county Ethics Commission released its opinion — and July 30, 2025, with the email [email protected].

Perez’s company, which was registered with the state less than a month before the local ethics opinion came down, shared the same phone number and address as Castro’s company, at least for a time, according to the preliminary investigation reports. Castro “did not participate in the Commission’s investigation,” one of the reports states.

Perez’s company also doesn’t have much of an online presence. Only Castro’s company seems to have a website. It still lists Coral Gables as one of its service areas, though Castro told the Herald that the website is outdated and that she had sent a request a while back to fix it.

Attorney Melody Hadley, who works for the state’s Office of the Attorney General and is “an advocate” for the state Ethics Commission, told the state Ethics Commission in a closed-door January meeting that “based on the supplemental report of investigation, Castro’s declaration that she is no longer doing permit business in the city is not confirmed.” The Herald obtained a copy of the hearing’s audio through a public records request.

Castro told the Herald this week that she “did not receive direct or indirect economic benefit from those [132] permits.”

“Following my decision to discontinue Coral Gables permitting work, Coral Gables matters were handled through Ms. Perez’s separately owned company,” Castro said. “The presence of an MED-related email address or a historical common office address does not, standing alone, establish ownership by me, compensation to me, or financial participation by me in those projects.”

Perez didn’t change her company’s address until about a month after the state’s “probable cause” finding, according to a Herald review of state business records. Castro said the address change — from Castro’s business address to an address for a Miami-Dade home — was prompted by Castro’s concerns that sharing an address would “create confusion regarding the independence of the businesses” and that Perez’s company now has “separate contact information, including a separate telephone number and email address.”

But Hadley, in the January meeting, noted that regardless of those permits, investigators do know — and Castro and her attorney have acknowledged — that Castro did do permit-expediting work in the city for at least a year, from her election in April 2023 until June 2024, while waiting for the county Ethics Commission’s guidance. The state’s Ethics Commission did not review Castro’s case until the county’s Ethics Commission gave its opinion.

Castro “had a conflict in employment that would create continuing and frequently recurring conflict between her private interest and the performance of her public duties or that would impede the full and faithful discharge of her public duties,” Hadley said. “I recommend the finding of probable cause.”

Hadley said the probable cause finding is related to a state statute that bars public officers and employees from being employed by or having a contractual relationship with a business or agency “that will create a continuing or frequently recurring conflict between his or her private interests and the performance of his or her public duties or that would impede the full and faithful discharge of his or her public duties.”

So far, a date has not been set yet for the administrative hearing, according to Winker.