Sylvia Poitier's Sentencing Slated for January After Judge Denies Reversing Guilty Verdict

Broward Sheriff's Office

Sylvia Poitier

​Suspended Deerfield Beach Commissioner Sylvia Poitier is still guilty of four misdemeanor counts of falsifying public records after a judge denied her attorney's motion to reverse the jury's guilty verdict and acquit her of the charges.

Her sentencing is now scheduled for January 11.

Poitier, 76, was arrested in April on five charges of falsifying documents -- which were related to a loan from her brother to a city-tied organization -- although the fifth count was dismissed by the judge during the trial.

The five misdemeanor charges against Poitier were related to her actions after her brother's loan to the Westside Deerfield Businessmen Association.

According to her arrest affidavit, in May 2006, Poitier proposed sending a $30,000 grant to the Westside Deerfield Businessman Association -- the same agency her brother had loaned $46,000 to -- and then voted on the proposal without any disclosure of the relationship or filing of the necessary paperwork.

Poitier's daughter, Felicia Poitier, was also vice president of the WDBA since 1995, and Dan Poitier, a cousin of Sylvia Poitier's ex-husband, was executive director of the organization.

Both Felicia and Dan Poitier, as well as Ferguson, confirmed to investigators that this loan existed.

Sylvia Poitier then proceeded to vote to use that loan in a "limited partnership" instead of handing over federal grant money and further failed to file any conflict-of-interest documentation. At later meetings, she claimed not to be related to anyone involved in the matter, then eventually claimed he was her brother.

The trial lasted only three days and ended with a guilty verdict on November 16.

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