Henry Rodriguez grew up poor in Washington Heights, a tough New York City neighborhood in Manhattan bordering the Bronx. His parents — a seamstress and a building superintendent — were Cuban immigrants.
That should have made his top-of-the-world success story even more satisfying.
This is when, in his 30s and 40s, he developed dozens of commercial and residential real estate projects in Sarasota; donated and raised millions of dollars for politicians, including both Charlie Crist and Rick Scott for their gubernatorial runs; sat on and chaired multiple boards; and acquired many of the trappings of wealth, down to a Gulf-front mansion on Casey Key so fancy it had a nickname, Casa Salamanca. Prior to real estate, Rodriguez had success in technology sales and in investing in telecommunications firms, saying he was a multimillionaire by the time he was 30…