Talabisco, along with mayor Harry Dressler and Commissioner Pam Bushnell, during Tamarac’s 50th Anniversary dedication in 2013.
By: Sharon Aron Baron
Twice suspended Tamarac Mayor Beth Talabisco, who is accused of public corruption charges, is scheduled for a hearing at the end of the month.
The hearing, set for October 30, is a status conference with Judge Andrew Siegel, Talabisco’s attorney Larry Davis and the prosecutor. A judge uses a status conference to establish a time frame for concluding all pre-trial activities and may set a tentative trial date at this time.
In 2011, Talabisco, 61, was suspended after being charged with unlawful compensation, bribery, official misconduct, and conspiracy to commit unlawful compensation. In 2012, Judge Cynthia Imperato dismissed the public corruption charges against her citing a lack of evidence. Shortly thereafter, Governor Rick Scott restored her to her office.
Then in July of 2013, the Fourth District Court of Appeal decided that Judge Imperato was out of line when she threw out the case, causing the charges to be reinstated. After the state’s Supreme Court refused to hear her case, the Governor suspended her from office for a second time.
Talabisco was just one of many elected officials in Broward County charged with developers Bruce and Shawn Chait. She is accused of secretly accepting $27,000 in PAC or political action committee money from the father and son to run ads during her 2006 campaign.
In exchange for their contribution, the state claimed that she voted favorably for the Chaits’ company, Prestige Homes, which wanted to build more than 700 homes on two former golf courses near Florida’s Turnpike and Commercial Boulevard while avoiding paying big money in development fees to the city and Broward School District.
