A demotion for Jorge Baluja? Another Mortgage Fraud case and prosecution by ASA Bill Kostrzewski.

I'm flabbergasted from yesterdays earth shattering news about Detective Jorge Baluja's past adventures. I have to distract myself, if I keep thinking about this dimwit cop, I'll lose my marbles. Like I said in a previous post, I'm starting to get little tidbits from here and there about Detective Baluja, today I'm told that shortly after he made the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case arrests he was moved from the Miami Dade County Mortgage Fraud Task Force and sent down to the Auto Theft department! That's a curious development now isn't it? How do you go from just making a headline case to being transferred to Auto Theft? Does that make sense? How often do you see a lead detective in a case that made news around the nation get transferred in the middle of the case? Strange, I wonder if this is true. I'll have to call the MDPD Economic Crimes Bureau and see if there is indeed a Jorge Baluja in Auto Theft.

Lets move on to the mortgage fraud case that I discussed last week where the husband and wife team were charged with ripping off a family members identity. I was able to quickly find the information on Michele Walters (the wife), the clerk of courts website shows that ALL CHARGES WERE DROPPED 22 days after the initial arrests. As it was explained to me Ms. Walters told the state attorneys office that she had nothing to do with the crime and that it was her husband that was involved at some level or another, lets not forget that Michele Walters WAS THE MORTGAGE BROKER THAT CLOSED THE FRAUDULENT MORTGAGE IN QUESTION! As I mentioned before, the assistant state attorney assigned to this case, Bill Kostrzewski (the same one that is working the case that this blog is about) only 22 days after the arrests dropped all charges against Ms. Walters, surely he threw the book at Ms. Walters husband right?

It was a bitch to find the co defendant in this case, but I finally did. His name is Roberto Hernandez, DOB 03/21/1973. Mr. Hernandez was charged with the following (Court Case #: F-08-036990):

1. GRAND THEFT 1ST DEG
2. UTTER FORGED INSTRU
3. ID/USE/POSSESS/FRD
4. MORTAGE FRAUD
5. FIN INSTIT/SCHM DFRD
6. FIN INSTI/FLS STMT

That's six heavy charges! I wonder what the bail amount must have been, after all from what we've seen in the Bernardo Barrera case, the bail amounts ranged from $75,000 for the attorney to $450,000 for the other two co defendants. This guy here has SIX charges versus the three charges the defendants in the other case had. What do you think, high six figures? Nope, total bail amount for all six charge was only $40,000! What's that all about? Based on what we've seen in the Bernardo Barrera case the bail amount here should have been through the damn roof! Oh well.

Mr. Hernandez is in trouble here, after all his wife had all the charges against her dropped after laying the blame for the crime at her husbands feet. Naturally we'd expect ASA Bill Kostrzewski to throw the book at this guy right? Again, 22 days after the initial arrests, ASA Bill dropped all but one charge against Mr. Hernandez and as its explained to me, the last remaining charge is about to be dropped as well! What a victory for the Mortgage Fraud task force huh? Amazing. I really hope justice was served here.

So far we've looked at two different cases both of which have the charges against the defendants dropped within 30 days. After comparing these two cases, you have to wonder if there seems to be a different standard for the defendants charged in the Barrera case. Logic would dictate that since the charges were similar (if not worse in the Walters/Hernandez case), wouldn't the bail amounts also be similar? We've seen in the Barrera arrests, the bail amounts were EXORBITANTLY HIGH and hardly in line with what we've seen in other mortgage fraud cases. Now we've seen two cases where the prosecution dropped the charges in less than 30 days, yet 10 months into the Barrera prosecutions all the original charges against the defendants remain. I wonder why.

I may have an answer to this mystery. I have to develop my theory a little more before I disclose it.