By Francisco Alvarado, FloridaBulldog.org
MAGA money is pouring into a Miami-Dade judicial race with the intended purpose of taking out a judge who temporarily blocked a controversial sweetheart deal to donate public land for Donald Trump’s presidential library project.
A platoon of Republican lobbyists, lawyers and state lawmakers with close ties to the 45th and 47th president is backing Destiny Alvarez, who has only five and a half years of experience practicing law, over incumbent Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Mavel Ruiz, who has been on the bench since 2014. What may have seemed like a typical circuit court challenge has turned into a referendum by Trump-world donors to punish Ruiz for slowing down the land giveaway.
Between April 1 and June 12, Alvarez raised nearly $160,000, with about a quarter of that coming from MAGA figures and political committees chaired by current and former Republican legislators, including term-limited Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez, whom Trump recently picked to be U.S. ambassador to Brazil.
Alvarez did not respond to two phone messages and two emails by Florida Bulldog requesting an interview.
The Trump-aligned contributions to Alvarez show that even nonpartisan judicial races are not immune to special interests looking to tip the scale, said Robert Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Davie.
“I think most voters know that judicial candidates, just like other candidates for public office, have supporters who have political agendas,” Jarvis said. “Moreover, this sort of information nearly always comes out prior to Election Day…voters can push back against it by voting for Ruiz.”
The Group 67 race between Ruiz and Alvarez, like four other circuit court contests, is on the August 18 primary ballot.
THE TRUMP LAND FIGHT
Ruiz drew the ire of Miami’s pro-Trump legal class when she presided over a lawsuit filed by retired Miami-Dade College professor Dr. Marvin Dunn that challenged the state’s effort to take control of a prime publicly owned parcel of downtown Miami for the proposed Trump presidential library project.
In early September, the college’s board of trustees voted to convey the 2.6-acre parcel at 500-540 Biscayne Boulevard to the State of Florida. Within days, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his Cabinet voted to donate the land to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, a nonprofit organization led by a three-member board that includes the president’s son Eric Trump and Michael Boulos, Trump’s son-in-law.
A promotional video depicts a computer-generated mixed-use tower featuring gold statues of Trump and a life-size replica of an Air Force One plane in the lobby of the proposed building. Trump told reporters in March the skyscraper will likely include a hotel and offices.
In October, Dunn sued Miami-Dade College, alleging the school’s board of trustees violated Florida’s open government laws by failing to give adequate public notice before approving the land transfer. Ruiz initially sided with Dunn, issuing a temporary injunction blocking the land giveaway until the case went to trial.
Her ruling did not last. In December, the board of trustees held a second, properly advertised meeting and gave the public an opportunity to speak. The outcome was the same, with the trustees unanimously voting to donate the site to Trump’s foundation. As a result, Ruiz dismissed Dunn’s lawsuit.
In April, an appellate panel found that Ruiz showed bias toward Dunn by hugging him after a December hearing and appearing to thank him for filing his lawsuit. The decision overruled Ruiz’s denial of a motion by Miami-Dade College’s lawyers that she disqualify herself from the case. The three-judge appeals panel ruled that Ruiz cannot preside over any pending or future litigation tied to the library land deal.
Now, Trump allies are looking to make Ruiz sweat her reelection.
In May, Alvarez’s campaign issued a press release touting that she had raised more than $100,000, noting the haul represented “a growing coalition of community leaders, legal professionals, and residents who are rallying behind [her] vision for a fair, efficient, and community-focused court system.”
The fundraising efforts for both candidates are close enough to make the race feel competitive. Ruiz has raised $164,824 since last year, while Alvarez pulled in nearly $160,000 between April and this month. Ruiz’s reelection run is primarily funded by prominent Miami-Dade law firms that tend to support judicial incumbents.
Alvarez’s campaign filings reveal her candidacy is a political payback operation fueled by Republican VIPs who accounted for $38,500 of her war chest.
MAGA DONORS LINE UP FOR ALVAREZ
Leading all of Alvarez’s MAGA-affiliated donors are the principals of Coral Gables-based lobbying firm Continental Strategy. Founding partners Carlos Trujillo and Jesus Manuel Suarez, along with their wives, each contributed the maximum $1,000. Their firm and its affiliate law practice, Continental PLLC, donated a combined $2,000. 245 Alcazar Building, an entity managed by Trujillo and Suarez that owns Continental’s office headquarters in Coral Gables, gave $1,000, as did Trujillo Aviation Group, another entity controlled by Trujillo.
Continental Strategy principals James Card and Lazaro Fields gave candidate Alvarez $1,000 and $500, respectively. Christopher Kise, one of Trump’s former criminal defense lawyers who is of counsel at Continental Strategy, gave Alvarez $1,000 as well. Continental’s total contributions to Alvarez: $10,500.
Trujillo’s MAGA bona fides date back to 2016, when he was an electoral delegate to the Republican National Convention. He again served in that role in 2024. Trujillo, a former state representative, was appointed four times to various posts by Trump during his first term, most notably as ambassador to the Organization of American States. Attorney Suarez represented Trump in civil legal proceedings in New York and Florida. He is currently chairman of the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission, appointed by Gov. DeSantis.
Another bundle representing $12,000 came to Alvarez from a dozen political action committees chaired by current and former Florida legislators, mostly from Miami-Dade. Two of the PACs are Conservatives For A Better Florida and Miami United, both chaired by outgoing House Speaker Perez, who won a special election in 2017 to represent a House district that encompasses most of south Miami-Dade.
Other Alvarez campaign contributors aligned with Trump who gave the maximum $1,000 include Clifford Robert, a New York-based lawyer who represented the president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, in the 2022 Trump Organization civil fraud lawsuit, and Tridente Strategies, a lobbying firm led by Republican political consultant Jesse Manzano-Plaza.
Jose Felix Diaz, a managing partner with Ballard Partners, another lobbying firm plugged in with the Trump administration, also contributed $1,000 to Alvarez. Diaz, who served in the state House from 2010 to 2017 and was a contestant on season five of Trump’s television show, The Apprentice, is also on the Miami-Dade College Board of Trustees. He was the only Alvarez donor identified in this story who responded to Florida Bulldog’s requests for comment.
Diaz denied his donation to Alvarez was because of Ruiz’s handling of the Trump library case. “It had nothing to do with it,” Diaz told Florida Bulldog. “I am an old friend of [Alvarez’s] husband and he always helped me when I ran for office.”
ALVAREZ STEPS IN TO CHALLENGE RUIZ
Alvarez’s resume reflects the path of a political insider on a trajectory toward a judgeship. A member of the right-wing Federalist Society, Alvarez graduated from the University of Florida’s law school and obtained her Florida Bar license in 2020, the same year she served as a gubernatorial fellow in the DeSantis administration. She followed up her stint in Tallahassee with a two-year tour as an associate at the law firm Gray Robinson.
In 2022, she joined her father’s Naples-based practice, Goede DeBoest & Cross. She was named the firm’s partner overseeing strategy and operations last year, according to Goede’s website. Her online bio states that Alvarez has extensive experience representing clients on land use and homeowner association matters. But a Florida Bulldog search of Miami-Dade civil cases using her Florida Bar license number shows that she has been involved in 29 cases as co-counsel for a lead attorney since 2020.
In 28 of those cases, she was defending Citizens Property Insurance, the state-run, non-profit governed by a board of directors led by Gov. DeSantis, against claims brought by homeowners and contractors.
The 30-year-old Republican was registered to vote alternately in Collier and Alachua counties until at least 2024, state records show. Since then, she changed her voting address to Coral Gables, where her law firm has an office and where she bought a home with her husband, Miami-based attorney Nicholas Alvarez.
She qualified for a judgeship with just over five years of legal experience, the bare minimum required under Florida’s rules. Before running against Ruiz, Alvarez had already been picked by the Judicial Nominating Commission for a county court opening, with her name pending before Gov. DeSantis.
When she applied to the JNC, she did so as Destiny Goede Alvarez. She used the same name when she initially filed to run against Ruiz on April 1, her candidate qualifying documents show. But two weeks later, she submitted revised candidate paperwork showing that she had dropped Goede and is now known simply as Destiny Alvarez. A Naples native, Alvarez is non-Hispanic.
Miami-Dade judicial races are notorious for attracting non-Hispanic candidates who suddenly adopt their Hispanic married surnames to court Hispanic voters. In Alvarez’s case, she was still using only her maiden name, Goede, until last year, before she decided to seek a bench seat.
In 2023, she married Nicholas Alvarez, but mortgage documents filed in Miami-Dade County that she and her husband signed in November 2024 show she was still using the name Destiny Goede. In May 2025, she was still Destiny Goede according to her byline for an article about condo laws published by Naples Daily News.
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