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A former Miami-Dade School Board member is set to serve time in prison after admitting to the misuse of school district credit cards for personal expenses, including shopping sprees and vacations.
Lubby Navarro, who previously held a position on the Miami-Dade School Board, entered a guilty plea on April 14 to charges of third-degree grand theft. According to a statement from the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, she received a sentence of 14 months in prison, followed by three years of probation.
As part of her punishment, Navarro is required to repay over $100,000. Additionally, she is prohibited from holding any government position or managing finances in a role that involves public trust during her probationary period, the spokesperson confirmed.
During her sentencing on April 14, Navarro expressed remorse, stating, “I want to begin by apologizing to the children of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, for whom I had the honor of serving for eight years,” as reported by NBC 6. She added, “I believe I can now begin to put this behind me and serve the time.”
The investigation into Navarro began in January 2023 when Miami-Dade County Public Schools noticed potential discrepancies in her outstanding credit bill. According to an arrest warrant obtained by Oxygen, investigators discovered unauthorized charges, requests for increased credit limits, and surveillance footage allegedly capturing Navarro making some of these purchases.
Navarro—who had two credit cards issued by the school district—allegedly spent more than $92,000, in part on beauty products, clothing and household goods, authorities wrote in the warrant, plus more than $42,000 on gift cards for Gucci, Smoothie King, Starbucks and Nordstrom.
A second card, meant for travel, was used to charge more than $9,000 on airfare, hotels, car rentals, meals and more for trips to Punta Cana and Las Vegas, expenses authorities noted in the warrant paid not just for Navarro but also family and friends.
After Navarro’s 2024 arrest, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle criticized her actions as “pathetic.”
“Every dollar stolen and spent by Navarro is a dollar taken from our school system, and therefore, stolen from our children diminishing their possibility for a better future,” Rundle said in a press release. “Lubby Navarro, who had been the Vice Chair of the School Board and had worked for the school system since 2002, knew better than to have gone down this pathetic path.”
Defense attorney Benedict Kuehne did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Oxygen.
“We ask the community to fully accept that she has accepted her wrongdoing. She has started the path to rehabilitation,” Kuehne said, according to NBC 6. “She never intended to hurt the children of this community who she loves. She never intended to cause disruption to the school board, and this is a step to correcting those issues.”
Spokespeople from the School Board of Miami-Dade County and Miami-Dade Public Schools did not return requests for comment from Oxygen.