Citrus Health Network director accused of stealing more than $1 million

MIAMI — Thomas Jardon is being held on a $700,000 bond after being accused of stealing $1.2 million in public dollars from the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust.

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Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle announced Jardon’s arrest during a news conference Wednesday night.

Jardon is the director of housing for the Citrus Health Network. Rundle said that over a three-year period, he turned the organization’s mission of housing homeless people into an elaborate scheme.

According to Rundle, Jardon created five fake companies, drafted bogus leases and collected payouts from the county.

“While our homeless people were sleeping on the street, he had four new automobile purchases,” Rundle said.

The case came to light late last year after a Citrus Health employee raised concerns.

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“As soon as Citrus discovered these problems, they immediately reported the theft to the Inspector General’s Office,” Rundle said.

Ron Book, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, said the problems were uncovered after the trust alerted Citrus that something was wrong with its invoicing.

“They got caught by our alerting Citrus that there was something wrong with their invoicing, that they didn’t add up, that two and two didn’t equal four,” Book said.

Citrus then conducted its own review and reported the matter to authorities, Book said.

“They went back and did their review and they then self-reported that to the authorities,” he said.

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