Ex-Margate employee sentenced for kickbacks
former Margate grants manager accused of illegally making city deals in exchange for kickbacks was sentenced to 18 months in state prison Wednesday.
Kim Liakos, charged with 11 counts including bribery, bid tampering, unlawful compensation and grand theft, arrived in court and removed her necklace before agreeing to a plea deal that sent her to prison.
She pleaded guilty to eight of the counts — three were dismissed because they were too similar to other charges — instead of a trial where contractors would have been called to testify against her.
Had Liakos gone to trial and been found guilty, she could have been sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison.
Margate police said she arranged to get more than $33,000 in kickbacks, as well as repairs at her house, in exchange for giving builders contracts on city projects at inflated prices.
Liakos, 58, was hired in 2011 to manage four programs that used state and federal money to purchase and fix up houses and sell them below market value to low-income families, and revitalize existing homes to people whose income qualified them for the help.
The 22-month police investigation involved a forensic accountant scouring paperwork on the city’s affordable housing program and Liakos’ relationship with several contractors.
Police said she handpicked the contractors to do the work by giving them confidential bid information so they would win the city contracts and then permitted them to overbill in exchange for cash and home repairs.
Police say she is behind the city’s loss of nearly $1 million from state and federal grants.
She resigned in September 2015. She was arrested in July, a week after a judge signed a warrant for her arrest. Police tracked her down at a Fort Lauderdale hospital.
After her prison term, she’ll be on probation for 10 years and have to pay the city restitution, at an amount to be determined later. Her atA torney, Michael Weinstein, told the judge Liakos has “significant mental health issues.”
Her husband and daughter left the courtroom as she was being fingerprinted.
Weinstein said after the hearing that she has “accepted responsibility.”
Prosecutor Catherine Maus told the judge that the city of Margate could be forced to pay back millions of dollars to the federal and state government in grant money.
Maus also said Margate must deal with 57 houses that Liakos oversaw that need to be reinspected and work redone because there were no permits.
Also amid the fallout from the scheme, the city was forced to outsource its housing program.
Broward County now manages the program that allocates state dollars for home repair. Suzanne Weiss, manager of the county’s Home Ownership and Repair Section, said she’s combing through Margate’s waiting list, which is six years old and has 120 households on it.