The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • A1

LOCAL STATE, 3A Charges are dropped against Patriots owner Robert Kraft AMERICAS, 13A U.S. donates field hospital to help Jamaica handle COVID-19 surge VOLUME 118, No. 11 STAY CONNECTED MIAMIHERALD.COM FACEBOOK.COM/MIAMIHERALD TWITTER.COM/MIAMIHERALD WINNER OF 22 PULITZER PRIZES FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 25 2020 SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 26 2020 $2.50 H1 Business 9A Classified 34-35A Comics 31A Deaths 14A Local news 3-5A Lottery 12A People 28A Puzzles 28A, 30A, 32A Television 29A CUSTOMER SERVICE To subscribe or report delivery issues, 800-843-4372 or miamiherald.com/customer-service Mostly cloudy with scattered storms See 35A FINS SKEWER JAGS FOR FIRST WIN SAM GREENWOOD Getty Images The Miami Mike Gesicki catches a touchdown pass against the host Jacksonville Jaguars on Thursday. The Dolphins improved to 1-2 this season. Their next game is Oct.

4 at home against Seattle. More, 19A DOLPHINS 31, JAGUARS 13 Florida and Election Day less than six weeks away, the largest left-lean- ing grassroots organizations and political field oper- ations are making a push to get back in front of voters in a crucial bat- tleground state where President Donald team has been on the ground since June. Biden has no ground game in Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general and a Progressive activists backing Joe Biden in Florida say made millions of phone calls, sent hun- dreds of thousands of text messages and written thou- sands of letters to convince voters to support the Demo- cratic presidential nominee. But one thing that largely not doing and growing increasingly wor- ried about is talking to voters face-to-face. Now, with the number of coronavirus cases down from their July peak in current Trump campaign surrogate, said Wednesday on Fox News.

have the best ground game in the In order to address what they believe is a gap, left- leaning political and issue advocacy organiza- tions are turning to Michael Bloom- berg, the billionaire former New York mayor who pledged this month to spend $100 million in the state to help Biden win Florida on Nov. 3. Nearly two dozen organi- zations have pitched advisers on a unified get-out-the-vote CAMPAIGN 2020 BY DAVID SMILEY Florida groups ask Bloomberg to fund door-knocking for Biden With President Donald Trump campaigning in person in Florida, groups are asking Michael Bloomberg to fund voter outreach for Democrat Joe Biden. Michael Bloomberg SEE BLOOMBERG, 4A Leaked bank records trace a trail of money between bank accounts tied to a Palm Beach Realtor and an ally of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad. The automated monitoring system at a South Florida branch of Bank of America first flagged the suspicious activity.

An otherwise unremarkable bank ac- count belonging to a Realtor suddenly began transferring cash to and from loca- tions across the globe, including to Rus- Sberbank. The recipient of funds at the Russian bank was a Syrian, Issa al-Zeydi, who was later included on a sanctions list of the U.S. Treasury Department after being accused of propping up the regime of Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad. So how did a West Palm Beach real estate bank account end up associated with now-sanctioned entities? Nearly a decade later, thanks to a large leak of secret bank documents, the puzzle pieces from across the globe are fitting together. And the details include a gallery of characters who together under- score the whack-a-mole challenge of com- bating money laundering.

THE FINCEN FILES BY KEVIN G. HALL AND SHIRSHO DASGUPTA How Palm Beach account funneled cash to allies of Assad SEE MONEY, 2A WASHINGTON President Donald Trump declined for a second straight day to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he lost the election, repeat- ing baseless assertions that the voting would be a want to make sure that the election is honest, and not sure that it can Trump told reporters on Thursday before leaving the White House for North Carolina. The president doubled down on his stance just hours after prominent Re- publicans made it clear that they were committed to the orderly transfer of power, without directly rebuking him. winner of the November 3rd election will be inaugurated on January Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, wrote on Twitter early Thursday. will be an orderly transition just as there has been every four years since CAMPAIGN 2020 Trump again refuses to promise to honor the vote BY REID J.

EPSTEIN, EMILY COCHRANE AND GLENN THRUSH The New York Times President Donald Trump said not sure the election will be Congressional leaders rejected assertion that what before accepting an election outcome. EVAN VUCCI AP President Trump claimed the voting would be a SEE TRUMP, 4A Raul Mata, 45, was ar- rested this week in Wat- sonville, and will be extradited to Miami. He is accused of murdering 16-year-old Dilcia Mejia, who was found with her throat slit inside the bedroom of her north Miami- Dade trailer home on Sept. 17, 2004. a family, we are always sure Raul Mata was responsible for her Sixteen years after a Miami Beach High student was stabbed to death in- side her bedroom, police detectives have arrested her stepfather on a murder charge, the department announced Thursday.

The key evidence, ac- cording to an arrest war- rant: the DNA was found underneath her fingernails, suggesting she scratched him during a frenzied fight for her life. her cousin, Trinidad Gon- zalez, said at a press conference on Thursday. Police for years had said Mata was the chief sus- pect. According to police, mother left for work at 5:30 a.m. from the unit at the Colonial Acres mobile-home park on the 9600 block of NW 10th Avenue.

Mata claimed he left shortly before 8 a.m., then returned home just past 9 a.m. and discovered her body. need some- one to come he told a 911 dispatcher, according to audio of the SOUTH FLORIDA BY DAVID OVALLE Arrest is made in 2004 slaying of Miami Beach High student Raul Mata was long the suspect in the grisly murder of his 16-year-old stepdaughter, Dilcia Mejia, whose throat was slit inside her mobile home in 2004. DNA underneath her fingernails led to his arrest, police said. SEE ARREST, 4A Dilcia Mejia was 16..