Charges have been dropped against Andy Santana, the campaign treasurer for former Miami-Dade County mayoral candidate Alex Otaola. Santana had been arrested last year on accusations of sexually abusing and drugging a teenage boy. However, according to a memo dated January 31, the alleged victim, a 17-year-old, recanted the accusations three times since Santana’s arrest in October. The teen also claimed that he had been threatened by a masked person before going to the police and was coerced into making the allegations against Santana. As a result, prosecutors decided to drop the charges.
The teen allegedly claimed that he didn’t report the masked person out of fear for his family safety.
According to the memo, the teen presented a photo of him kissing Santana on the lips and said the photo was taken to make his boyfriend back in Cuba jealous. He however claimed that nothing sexual occurred between him and the accused.
Santana was arrested in October after the teen claimed that Santana had reached out to him on social media, engaged in conversation with him and then sexually abused him beginning in May 2024.
The teen reported the unlawful sexual activity — which sometimes included bleeding, handcuffs, and ignoring his pleas to stop — continued at the home where he lives with his mother and at Santana’s apartment, according to police. The teen also accused Santana of offering him alkyl nitrites, a drug known as “poppers.”
The teen told a detective that after their “relationship” ended, Santana handed him a vape and told him to smoke it without letting him know that it had marijuana, which impaired him just before the last unlawful sexual activity the two had on Sept. 15 in the back seat of Santana’s car, police said.
According to the arrest report, Santana refused to comment when presented with the victim’s photographic evidence at the police station.
He initially faced charges of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
