Alex Daoud

Alex Daoud
Mayor of Miami Beach
In office November 5, 1985 – October 31, 1991 (suspended from office)
Preceded by	Stanley H. Arkin (acting)
Succeeded by	Stanley H. Arkin (acting)

Alex Daoud is the former mayor of Miami Beach, Florida who served the City from 1985 to 1991. On October 29, 1991, Daoud was indicted for 41 counts of bribery and served eighteen months in a federal prison,^[1] after which he retired from politics.

Biography

Alex Daoud was born and grew up in the City of Miami Beach. His grandparents were Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic immigrants from Lebanon. His mother, the youngest woman to pass the New York bar exam in the early 1920s, and his father, an antiques dealer, moved from New York to Florida during World War II. At the age of six, Daoud contracted polio and recovered without lifelong disability.^[2]

Daoud was elected to the Miami Beach City Commission in 1979. He was re-elected to a second term in 1981 and then a third term in 1983. In 1985, he became the first Roman Catholic to be elected Mayor of Miami Beach. In 1987, he won re-election by eighty-six percent of the popular vote. In 1989, he was re-elected to an unprecedented third term as Mayor of Miami Beach.

Daoud is still active in the community. In 2007, he published Sins of South Beach, an autobiographical depiction of Miami Beach in the 1980s and its regeneration as a premiere vacation and nightlife destination in the United States. In it, he recounts going on vigilante patrols with the Miami Beach Police Department while serving as both city commissioner and mayor.

Lawsuit - Hyman vs. Daoud

In 2012, Kelly Hyman, the daughter of the former mayor, filed a complaint against her father in Miami-Dade Circuit Court over a corporation dispute.^[3] Hyman, who is the wife of the Chief Bankruptcy Judge Paul G. Hyman of the Southern District of Florida, claimed that she was the sole owner of the corporation, Bouganvilla Investments, that was used to purchase the $1 million property in Miami Beach where Daoud resides.^[4] Kelly Hyman sought to evict her father from the house, so she could sell the property.^[5]

In November 2014, Miami- Dade Circuit Judge John W. Thornton ruled that Kelly Hyman is entitled to 50 percent of the company, while Daoud’s trust owns the other half.^[6] Judge Thornton, in his 14-page ruling, said that “The court finds that Ms. Hyman has tendered insufficient evidence to support her contention that she is the 100 percent owner of the Bouganvilla Investments.”^[7] Judge Thornton stated that Hyman's claim of ownership was "not credible".^[8]

References