“What’s the latest with the Key West corruption probe?”
The question is a popular one around town these days, as some wait for the next indictment, arrest or interview with FBI officials to be released.
Here’s where things stand.
The grand jury report is complete and should be released in about 14 days. The report is expected to detail all the evidence, interviews and accusations that were presented to the grand jury members, who voted to indict the city’s former city attorney Ron Ramsingh, the city’s currently suspended building official Raj Ramsingh (the two are brothers), and the recently retired code compliance director Jim Young.
Although the report is final, anyone mentioned in it has 15 days to read and review it and discuss any objections or evidence they have with the state attorney investigators.
Once that review period is complete, the report will be made public, and investigative sources, both local and federal, have told the Keys Weekly that the report is eye-opening.
Let’s review
Raj Ramsingh, who worked as the chief building official before being indefinitely suspended without pay earlier this month, has been indicted on eight felony corruption charges, including allegations that he issued fraudulent, improper or falsified building permits for several construction projects within the city, including permits for his own home on Harris Avenue.
His brother, Ron Ramsingh, the former Key West city attorney who was terminated without cause in April by the city commission, faces three felony corruption charges, and now-retired code compliance manager Jim Young faces one charge.
Attorney Ron Ramsingh was terminated without cause in April and walked with a $221,000 city payout. His brother is indefinitely suspended without pay pending the results of an internal investigation into his alleged violations of city policy. And Young retired just days after his April 15 indictment and arrest.
Meanwhile, the state attorney’s office continues to pursue its investigation and trial of the three men. Prosecutors earlier this month released another cache of discovery documents in the case, this one containing summaries of FBI interviews with current and former city employees.
Those who were interviewed weren’t shy in describing an atmosphere of special favors, political influence, cronyism and corruption at city hall in recent years.
Enid Torregrosa, a historic preservation expert who recently retired from the city, described her job as “hell” while working with Raj Ramsingh as chief building official.
She told FBI investigators, according to the interview summaries, that Ramsingh would approve permits and projects without ever letting planning and historic preservation staff know about or review them.
Torregrosa told investigators Ramsingh would routinely go into the city’s permitting software and change entries, at one point making it look like Torregrosa had noted, “No review required,” when Torregrosa had noted several questions about the plans and requirements for a project in the historic district.
Torregrosa told investigators Raj Ramsingh routinely approved permits and variances for himself, his personal friends, coworkers and politically powerful people in town, many of whom had allegedly hired Raj Ramsingh’s own construction company, Stryker-Avery Homes, to do the work.
Torregrosa and others, including current city planning director Katie Halloran, named names and businesses in their interviews, but as those people have not, as of yet, been charged with or indicted for any crimes, the Keys Weekly is not including them.
Torregrosa provided investigators with several documents and printouts from the city’s permitting software showing occasions when Raj Ramsingh allegedly altered entries.
Conflict of interest concerns
The latest release of documents by the state attorney’s office contains copies of dozens of checks that were written to Strykker-Avery Homes, a contracting and construction company that Raj Ramsingh owned and operated before he started working for the city, and which he continued to operate while working as the city’s chief building official, creating significant concerns about conflicts of interest that would arise from a building official also working as a contractor who needs approvals and permits from the city.
City records show that Ramsingh initially had permission from an assistant city manager to operate Strykker-Avery Homes, which became a problem. State corporation records show that Ramsingh dissolved the company in 2021, but investigators obtained dozens of checks totaling more than $250,000 that were written to Strykker-Avery Homes in 2022, 2023 and 2024 for construction and remodeling projects — after the company was purportedly dissolved.
