Miami-Dade Business Briefs - Oct. 2006
? The Hilton Key West Resort & Marina has been reflagged as a Westin hotel. The 178-room, 37-cottage property on Sunset Key off the coast of Key West will be called the Westin Key West Resort & Marina.
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Miguel Angel Mejia, acting superintendent of the GSA's property and maintenance division, has been charged in a bribery scheme for allegedly demanding a kickback from an air-conditioning installer bidding on a city contract. Mejia faces up to 15 years in prison.
? Four Miami-area executives -- Total Bank Chairwoman Adrienne Arsht, Gator Leasing President James Hammel, Stiefel Laboratories President and CEO Charles Stiefel and Adonel Concrete President Luis Garcia -- have received Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award for Florida.
? Miamibased PBS&J, one of the nation's largest engineering firms with 75 offices in 26 states, will move its headquarters to Tampa. About a dozen of the firm's 300 employees in Miami will be relocated with the rest remaining in the Miami office.
? Korean Air, the world's largest cargo carrier, has selected Miami as its new hub for Central and South American cargo service.
MIAMI-DADE
? Targeting the growing executive jet market, European aircraft maker Airbus has opened a corporate jetliner sales showroom at Miami International Airport, its first sales center in North America.
? A federal judge has sentenced former Hamilton Bank Chairman Eduardo A. Masferrer to 30 years in prison for his part in a $20- million fraud and cover-up. Two other former executives, Hamilton Bank President Juan Carlos Bernacé and CFO John Jacobs, received 28 months in prison. The group was convicted in a wide-ranging securities fraud scheme involving the illegal transfer of faulty Russian loans to conceal the bank's losses.