What's done can't be undone.

Like the title of today's post says, "what's done, can't be undone" or in our case, what's seen can't be unseen...


What are we supposed to do now after we've learned everything we have over the last few months? We've seen everything from poor police work, shoddy investigations, misreporting of the facts, an independent legal opinion from another lawyer involved in the foreclosure case that arose from this mess and now to top it off a confession from one of the defendants. After we've seen how the system has been twisted and misused in this case, how are we expected to sit back and stomach all this? Much like the clown in the video above who finds himself in a compromising position with his daughter, nothing can ever be the same again.

The witching hour is near friends. Has anyone else figured out the last remaining riddle? We'll discuss tomorrow, for now we're off to the courthouse to find more background on another 15 names that were forwarded to us.

The outcome of the David Rodriguez, Nestor Camacho, Jose Delgado, Monica Zuluaga case.

Sorry about not posting yesterday boys and girls, I was observing Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the years for people of my background. Alrighty then, I've tried my best to find out what happened with all four defendants in the Mortgage Fraud Task Force's case against Camacho, Delgado, Rodriguez and Zuluaga that we discussed earlier. For those of you who don't remember, this is where Mr. Camacho was going to buy a condo from a retired cop with a fraudulent mortgage brokered by Mr. Delgado and a closing and cash back scheme officiated by attorney David Rodriguez and his closer Mrs. Zuluaga. Here's what we've been able to find on how that case ended:

Nestor Camacho- charged with Organized Scheme to defraud and Grand Theft, the organized scheme to defraud charge got a nolle pros and the Grand Theft charge where he tried to steal $100,000, Mr. Camacho was given an adjudication withheld and probation. FANTASTIC!

Jose Delgado- I haven't been able to find the outcome of his case.

Monica Zuluaga- charged with Organized Scheme to defraud and Grand Theft,the organized scheme to defraud charge got a nolle pros and the Grand Theft charge where she put together fake hud-1 statements, fake affidavits stating that there was going to be $100,000 worth of work done to the condo that Mr. Camacho was buying, on that charge she was rewarded with an adjudication withheld with 3 years of probation! EXCELLENT!

Last but not least, the remaining defendant, Attorney David Rodriguez, you all remember him right? This would be the attorney that told the retired cop that was selling the condo that he couldn't reflect that actual sales price on the HUD-1 because the bank wouldn't approve the loan and then went on to negotiate a discount with an undercover cop posing as the sellers accountant! Can it get worse than that? YES IT CAN! Remember even before the police got involved, the two checks that were made out to Mr. Rodriguez's trust account by Mr. Camacho as deposits for the condo purchase were returned as NSF! Mr. Rodriguez and his firm neglected to mention that to the seller and the bank that was financing the fraudulent purchase. Once again we must ask ourselves, CAN IT GET WORSE THAN THIS?! YES IT CAN! Even worse than officiating the fraudulent transaction, worse than negotiating a discount for the seller with an undercover cop for the income tax implications for the seller that may arise because of the $100,000 kickback, Mr. Rodriguez (according to the arrest affidavit and records from his trust account statements from Transatlantic Bank) PAID OFF THE SELLERS MORTGAGE 3 WEEKS BEFORE THE CLOSING EVER HAPPENED USING FUNDS THAT THE BANK GIVING THE MORTGAGE TO MR. CAMACHO HAD SENT TO THE CLOSING ATTORNEY'S TRUST ACCOUNT! ZOINKS! So what happened to Mr. David Rodriguez after he got arrested and charged with organized scheme to defraud and grand theft? As far as I can see NOTHING! Based on what's available in the public record, there isn't even a hint of Mr. Rodriguez getting in trouble, except for that pesky press release with his name and photo as well as his name all over the arrest affidavits for the co defendants in this case.


Can someone explain this to me? It's obvious that Mr. Rodriguez had a master of a defense attorney who cut a deal and then got the records expunged. Fantastic for him, but why did was Sgt. Davis's slam dunk case end up like this? We know from reading the arrest affidavit that Mr. Camacho and Mr. Delgado pretty much admitted to everything and told the state exactly what had happened. Mrs. Zuluaga with her prior arrests for multiple grand theft charges, petit larceny, uttering a forged instrument, etc, why the hell was she afforded such a sweat heart deal? After all, from what we're told in the arrest affidavit, she's the one that did all the legwork under the direction of the attorney, why did she get let off so easily? Considering that at least two of the defendants admitted to committing mortgage fraud in obtaining the fraudulent mortgage, why weren't more charges brought against them? According to the arrest affidavit, at least two of the defendants spilled the beans, why the hell would you cut a deal with the other two? WTF?

Besides the wrong doing by the attorney in this case, why wasn't the attorney disciplined by the Florida Bar? As per the Florida Bar website, Mr. Rodiriguez is eligible to practice in Florida with no history of disciplinary action by the bar. What gives? This case was in the media, why doesn't the bar know about the hijinks that went on here? Ultimately the outcome of this case runs contrary to the mission statement of the Mortgage Fraud Task Force. The defendants were slapped on the wrist then sent on their way, the attorney in the middle of this scheme went on with his life and law practice totally unharmed. Who knows what really happened, one thing that did happen for sure is that Sgt. Davis's slam dunk case got flushed down the toilet.

Tomorrow, a confession to the Straw Buyer from one of the defendants.

The week in review, reminiscing and other miscellaneous ramblings...

First lets look back at the last week's events:

1. The task force's first case and some new names.
2. Rechecking our mission statement.
3. We go down to the halls of justice and find a treasure trove of documents!
4. Examining the task force's first case and MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER.
5. Confused and blinded by some breast implants.

With that bit of house keeping out of the way, has anyone figured out the remaining riddle? Think back, the answer is coming up very soon.

I was driving aimlessly this afternoon when I spotted old Porsche 928, the sighting gave me a flashback, it seemed like just yesterday, 1983 to be exact, I was a young punk ogling over nearly the same car in the movie "Risky Business"


Seeing the car did bring back other memories from 1983 though, music like New Order's Blue Monday, the Syncronicity album from the Police as well as other movies like Trading Places, Octopussy and The Year of Living Dangerously to name a few. Another weird habit I had developed back then was watching and deconstructing episodes of the Brady Bunch on TV! WTF was that $hit about? Like I said, it seemed like just yesterday, DAMN THAT $HIT MAKES ME FEEL OLD!

While I'm rambling I might as well mention something that's really gotten under my skin, the Serena Williams outburst at the U.S. Open a few weeks back. Talk about a crappy way to represent yourself and your sport to all the kids that idolize you and look up to you as a role model. Sadly just another example of how our society is devolving.

With that said, did anyone really think we were going to avoid this nonsense?!

I can't figure it out, if someone can, fill me in.

The more we look for answers, the more unanswered questions we find. What I'm learning about the inner workings of these cases and the subsequent prosecution of the people who get arrested make about as much sense to me as these fantastic looking breast implants on this old man at Walmart:


Going back to yesterdays post where the Miami Dade County Mortgage Fraud Task forces Sgt. Davis posed undercover to bring in an incredible case where not only did they get the fraudsters but he actually busted the attorney officiating over the fraudulent deal! That's right, in case you missed it, Sgt. Davis was posing as the sellers accountant in the transaction and had the attorney and his closing girl dealing directly with him in all aspects of the transaction from dealing with the extra $100,000 that was to be kicked back to the buyer at closing as well as dealing with the income tax consequences that the overage at the closing was going to create for the seller!

Unfortunately though, finding the details on the outcome of the case for all four defendants has been very difficult, I'll have to go to the courthouse again and see what I can come up with. I haven't been able to find anything on Jose Delgado or attorney David Rodriguez, at the very least though, I know that Mr. Rodriguez is still practicing law and has no history of disciplinary action with the Florida bar. Considering the facts as they are portrayed in the arrest affidavit, I'd love to know which criminal defense attorney represented Mr. Rodriguez!

With that said, I'll try to get over to the courthouse and dig up whatever else I can find, if I manage to do it today, I'll go ahead and post my findings mid day. I've been flooded with tips regarding what we've been writing about over the last few months, I'll have to pour over everything this weekend and see what if any of it we can write about.

Let's take a look at Mortgage Fraud Task Force case # F07-34446 A-D, the story of MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER and David Rodriguez Esq.

Today's post is going to be a bit long in the tooth, so please bear with me, its worth it! For those readers among us that are in the MDPD or in the legal profession, pay particular attention to this post, its full of interesting tidbits that are rather alarming. As I mentioned yesterday, I've contacted attorney David Rodriguez on three separate occasions via email to see if he wanted to tell us anything about this story before we posted our findings. I still haven't heard from him, so we'll go ahead and see what we can deduce from the arrest affidavit for case # F07-34446 A-D. Early on during our research in this case I came across a problem when I was digging through the county clerks website, I was able to find F07-34446-A, and F07-34446-C but was unable to find F07-34446-B or F07-34446-D. Now, I knew the B and D cases existed, I just couldn't find them. I went back and watched the Mortgage Fraud Task Force's press release and counted four defendants, they are as follows:

1. Nestor Camacho
2. Jose Delgado
3. David Rodriguez
4. Monica Zuluaga

With four defendants, why was I only able to find two with F07-34446 case number? I then searched again and was able to find the following:

1. Nestor Camacho F07-34446-A
2. Jose Delgado F07-34447
3. Monica Zuluaga F07-34446-C

Mr. Delgado's case disposition says "transferred to another case", yet for reasons I can't understand, I can't find the other case. Please be patient with me, as I've explained several times in the past, I have a very limited knowledge of how the criminal court system works therefore I could have erred in some way, shape or form in researching Mr. Delgado's history. Please don't draw any conclusions based on my unsuccessful attempt at figuring out what happened to Mr. Delgado.

That left me with one name that I couldn't figure out, David Rodriguez. His name was in the press release, yet for some reason or another I couldn't find anything on him on the clerks website. Bizarre and all the more reason for me to go down to the court house and look at the file myself. Here's a hint of what I found...


WTF is that black magic marker doing over that name damn it! That really pissed me off! I pour over the arrest affidavit and guys, WHAT A CASE! Sargeant Richard Davis of the Miami Dade County Mortgage Fraud Task Force did a hell of a job on this one! Sgt. Davis posed undercover as the sellers accountant and dealt directly with all the players in the fraud including the attorney! Lets take a look at the affidavit as it appeared in the case file. I'm going to post the affidavit page by page (with a little commentary at the end of each page), if you want to get a better look at the page, just click and the page will enlarge.

Page 1

Here we find that Mr. Camacho was purchasing a condo from a retired police officer, the sales price was going to be $250,000 but they were inflating the sales price by $100,000. When the sellers attorney objected to the extra $100,000 MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER told the sellers attorney that if the HUD-1 reflected the $100,000 going back to the buyer, the lender wouldn't approve the loan. Sgt Davis in his under cover role as the sellers accountant was told that MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's office was going to prepare phony documents that showed that the extra $100,000 was being given back to the buyer for renovations. Very nice.

Page 2

In page 2 Sgt. Davis tells us how WMC Mortgage wired the proceeds of the loan into MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's trust account before the closing took place and then MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER paid off the sellers mortgage before the closing ever took place, without the seller signing a single document. We're then told that David Rodriguez's Office never advised the lender of the addendum that was prepared for the seller to return the $100,000 to the buyer at the closing. WAIT A MINUTE! WHAT THE FCUK? David Rodriguez? Was he MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER? Did a clerk forget to cross his name out? WHY WAS HIS NAME CROSSED OUT IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Page 3

Page three discusses different aspect of the fraudulent loan application and indicates that the sellers attorney contacted MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER and asked him why the $100,000 his clients were to give the buyer at closing wasn't on the HUD-1 at which point MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER tells him that if the $100,000 was on the HUD-1, the lender would not approve the transaction. Monica Zuluaga goes on to tell the sellers attorney the same on behalf of MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's office.

Page 4

Here the sellers attorney calls MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER and asks again about the excess $100,000 that his client was to pay the buyer at the closing, when asked why this wasn't reflected on the HUD-1 MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER tells him once again that if the refund was reflected on the HUD-1, THE LENDER WOULD NOT CLOSE THE LOAN. Sgt. Davis being the bad ass that he his posing as the sellers accountant then goes on to negotiate a $20,900 credit for the sellers so they could cover any potential income tax problems from what would look like a $100,000 profit from the sale of their home! Sgt. Davis is then assured that MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's office will take care of all the documentation to cover the excess proceeds from the transaction. Once again their is a mention of David Rodriguez's office, is this Mr. Rodriguez and MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER one and the same? We'll see.

Page 5

Here Sgt. Davis uncovers the fact that MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER had paid off the sellers mortgage with the proceeds of the loan the buyer had obtained without the closing ever happening! Sgt. Davis then goes on January 10, 2007 nearly three weeks after the sellers loan was paid off posing as the sellers accountant to ask about the potential tax consequences of the $100,000 in excess proceeds. Once again there is mention of the Law Office of David Rodriguez, this time with an address. Again, we ask ourselves, is David Rodriguez and MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER one and the same?

Page 6

MY GOD! Sgt. Davis now lets MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER and Monica Zuluaga in Mr. Rodriguez's office know that he is a COP and that he's going to be seizing the file with all the fraud in it! HOLY $HIT! NICE WORK SGT. DAVIS! Can you imagine the look on MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER and Zuluaga's faces! I wonder if Mr. Rodriguez was in office at the time when this went down?! WOW!

Page 7

WOW! On page seven we find out that in the closing file there were two deposit checks from the buyer, one for $5,000 and one for $10,000 made out to MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's trust account, both of which were returned as NSF! Even though both down payment checks made out to MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's trust account were returned, MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER nor anyone else ever alerted the sellers to this issue. Sgt. Davis then debriefs Mr. Delgado the mortgage broker who goes on to admit that he prepared all the fraudulent loan paperwork.

Page 8

On Page 8, Mr. Delgado goes on to state the MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER and Monica Zuluaga were aware of the fraud and had helped conceal it from the lender! In addition to spelling out how he helped perpetrate this fraud, he goes on to say that he told the buyer not to worry about the NSF checks written to MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's trust account and that not to worry, that MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's office "would cover the issue". WOW!

Page 9

Page 9 details more aspects of how the fraudsters put together the crime then Sgt. Davis goes on to speak to Ms. Sharon Mason the legal representative of the lender, once again there's mention of David Rodriguez's office. Interesting. She goes on to mention that the lender had no idea about the $100,000 overage and had been unaware that the loan application and the documents that had been created by the broker and David Rodriguez's office were fraudulent and fabricated. Once again we have to ask ourselves, is David Rodriguez and MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER one and the same?

Page 10

Sgt Davis goes on to explain the fraud to Ms. Mason who then became enraged at the conduct of the mortgage broker and MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER. Not to mention the fact that MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER PAID OFF THE SELLERS LOAN WITHOUT THE CLOSING HAVING HAPPENED USING THE LENDERS MONEY!

I must say, FCUKING BRILLIANT WORK SARGEANT DAVIS! WOW! This man does the citizens of Miami Dade County proud! Sgt. Davis busted not only the fraudulent buyer, the fraudulent mortgage broker, but he gets the closing processor Monica Zuluaga and MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER! But what about the attorney David Rodriguez? Our fearless Mayor told us in the Mortgage Fraud Task Force press release that Mr. Rodriguez was arrested, so why can't I find anything in the clerk's website regarding the arrest? Not to mention WHO THE FCUK IS MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER?! Is David Rodriguez Esq. and MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER one and the same? Baffling huh? It would be a mystery if not for the funny little camera that I used to take photos of the arrest affidavit. Take a look at how the camera captured this instance of the black magic marker being used to obscure a name...

Draw your own conclusions. Regardless of the fact that someone forgot to cover Mr. Rodriguez's name several times throughout the affidavit, even where they did cover his name, it was clearly visible beneath the black magic marker. There is no misreading this case, after all a great deal of the interaction with the fraudsters was with Sgt. Davis directly while he was posing as the sellers accountant! This is what in my book is called a SLAM FCUKING DUNK CASE! My hats off to the fantastic investigation and under cover work done by Sargeant Davis of the Miami Dade Mortgage Fraud Task Force. Its this kind of brave police work that is woefully under reported in the media, my hats off to you sir. JOB WELL DONE.

How does this explain Mr. Rodriguez's name being deleted (albeit poorly) throughout the case file and from the public record? Its a mystery to me. Now that we've seen how Sgt. Davis flawlessly put this case together, the case now goes to the State Attorney's Office. Once the baton is passed to the State Attorney's Office, its up to the Assistant State Attorney assigned to the case to prosecute the bad guys that the PD brought to justice. Tomorrow we'll see how the SAO handled the task forces fantastic case and we'll see if we can get some clarification as to why David Rodriguez's name was deleted from the record.

HOLY CRAP!!!!! Jorge, you're in for a boat load of fun!!!!!!

I got a bug up my ass today to go down to the halls of justice and see what I could find on those names I mentioned a few days back. I went up to the ninth floor, gave the clerk the case numbers that I was able to find and in short order they pulled the files I had requested. Rather than give me the files though, they locked me in a 6 x 12 room then passed the files through a window. I guess they wanted to make sure I didn't leave the room with any papers, let me tell you WHAT A $HITTY SMELLING ROOM! God, the funk was so bad in that room, I had a hard time concentrating! After getting acclimated to the horrific funk, I settled down and started going through what turns out to be Miami Dade County's Mortgage Fraud Task Force Case #1!! My lord what a case! This one involves some SERIOUS misconduct on behalf of attorney David Rodriguez, who closed the transaction in question, this one wasn't investigated by the likes of Jorge Baluja, no sir! This case was done from the ground up by none other than the #2 man in the Mortgage Fraud Task Force!!! Sergeant Richard Davis! The same Sgt Davis that teaches the task forces detectives all about mortgage fraud during their task force training. Let me tell you boys and girls, this guy did a hell of a job, he even went so far as to pose under cover as the seller's accountant! This case is full of juicy tidbits but before I write about what I read in the arrest affidavit, I'm going to let the attorney that was arrested have a chance at telling his story. I've emailed him several times to no avail, if I don't hear from him, I'll go ahead and post the arrest affidavits and let them speak for themselves. I must say the Sgt. Davis, NICE WORK!

After I spent a few hours going through a couple of other cases that the Mortgage Fraud Task Force had prosecuted, I somehow got the idea to go ahead and see if they'd give me the file on the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, I mean why not? I'm already here! I fill out the papers, then am greeted with two huge folders full of paper work! GOOD LORD! I then start going through the piles of papers in the files then realize I HAD HIT THE DAMN JACKPOT! Included among these files were three transcripts of the witnesses that had been deposed to date by the defense attorneys! HOLY CRAP! The first one I pick up reads:

"DEPOSITION OF DETECTIVE JORGE BALUJA"

OH MY GOD!!! I spent another two hours pouring over this transcript, I was left SPEECHLESS! If our loyal readers think that what we've uncovered about the good detective on the Straw Buyer was bad, you guys have no idea what's in those transcripts! Lets just say that what we've shown isn't even the tip of the iceberg. I don't know if it's kosher to reproduce the contents of the transcript here, I don't want to potentially hurt the defense so I'll hold off on posting whats there until a later date. If curiosity has the best of you though, go over to the 9th floor in the criminal courthouse, go to the records department and ask for case # F08-36522B. I promise its going to be worth your while. I can't begin to describe what kind of fail is in that transcript, its simply beyond comprehension, I'll give you guys a little teaser. Can you imagine during the deposition, Detective Baluja couldn't figure out where Doral is located? Here's Jorge being asked a question about the Doral Police station:

Jorge, let me help you out here. The Doral substation has never been part of the City of Miami Police department, as far as I know, Doral has never been within the city limits of the City of Miami. I'll go a little further, you work for the MIAMI DADE POLICE DEPARTMENT, take a look outside your office, you'll see white, green and gold cars that look like this:


If Doral was in the City of Miami, when you looked out the window, you'd see a bunch of blue and white cars that looked like this:


Jorge, the mayor of the county that you work for looks like this:


Now, if Doral was located in the City of Miami, the mayor would look like this:

Is that clear Jorge? I though Detective Baluja not being able to figure out how to execute his own mortgage was bad, that's nothing compared to not knowing where the FCUK your office is! I wish I could say that this depo was all fun and games but its not. What I read in that depo is an insult to all the good, hard working cops out there. Based on what I found in the file it looks like Detective Baluja took some liberties with the facts, not unlike what he did in the Blanton Harris accident investigation, even better, when asked about said accident investigation, HE LIED ABOUT IT! From what I see Jorge, I would suggest planning a new career, your days as a cop are numbered buddy! You can take that $hit right to the bank!

I promise our readers an in depth study of Mortgage Fraud Task Force Arrest #1 over the next few days, both in how the police handled the case and how the State Attorney prosecuted the case. Interestingly enough my little field trip to the court house left me running behind schedule the rest of the day, by the time I caught up with everything I had to do, I found myself traveling home towards the Grove on US-1 just before seven PM. When I was stopped at the traffic light at US-1 and 27th avenue, you'll never believe who pulled up next to me and looked right at me!

HA! We'll see you tomorrow!

The more we look, the worse it gets.

Like the title of this post says, the more we look into this case, the worse it gets. As we peel back the layers of this case we find more misconduct, more sloppy lawyering, more illegal and unethical behavior and none of it on the defendants side! Throughout our quest to find out what's really gone on here, we've found instances where the state's victim has committed mortgage fraud, we've seen the lead detective in the Barrera case screw up the simplest of accident investigations, we've shown that Detective Baluja whose job it was to investigate mortgage fraud couldn't execute his own mortgage correctly and we've just received documents that seem to conclusively prove that there is a fatal flaw in the states case. Could this get worse? Yes it can.

Remember the civil foreclosure case that arose from the purchase of the home on Oak Avenue? Interestingly enough the court had appointed a Guardian to look into the person who allegedly posed as Bernardo Barrera at the closing for the home, the Guardians findings mimicked exactly what was written in the Miami Herald and had a few other tidbits thrown in by someone else involved in the case. In a nutshell, the Guardian DIDN'T DO A THING! What about this other character that made statements that the Guardian took as fact? As a lay person, I have to wonder how someone involved in this case could make these statements, furthermore, I have to question how the Guardian wrote his report without doing any investigating on his own. To make matters worse, I received a copy of an email correspondence between a tipster and the guardian several months ago where the Guardian is shown where to look to find documents that would cast serious doubts on the statements that Mr. Barrera made to the court. You know what the Guardian did? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Alarming huh? How can officers of the court behave this way? This reminds me of the old Hebrew National commercial...

As the creator of this mess we call the Straw Buyer, we have no one to answer to, yet there are some of the people involved in this case that have to answer to a "higher power" and have to hold themselves to a higher moral and ethical standard than we do. Unfortunately these people through their actions over the last year have proven themselves to be behaving in an immoral and unethical manner and in doing so have reflected their professions in a very poor light. I'll discuss the case with the Guardian at length tomorrow, today we're off to dig through old files to see what we can unearth regarding the names we mentioned yesterday.

I've often wondered since the creation of this blog if we're doing the right thing by continuing to write about this mess we call a case. One comment I've heard over and over again is "damn that cop FCUKED UP, but you've destroyed him!", that sounds harsh doesn't it? Should we have let Detective Baluja's misconduct remain a secret? The answer is a RESOUNDING NO! We're now going to shed some light on some of the other people on the states side so we can get an idea of who they are. I was having some doubts about the direction of our journey, so I turned to martial arts expert Chuck Norris to see what he thinks...

YES! WE'RE GOOD TO GO!!!!

Some new names and an interesting legal opinion.

Today we find ourselves trying to decipher a cryptic email from one of our readers, the email didn't offer much other than three names that the writer suggested we investigate, they are:

1. David Rodriguez, Esq.
   
2. Monica Zuluaga
3. Ana Ferrer

Now, don't get me wrong, I do appreciate the tip, but please next time someone decides to send us a tip, please be a little more detailed. Who ever sent me these names obviously knows the story behind them, save us a little grief and agravation and please send along whatever you know rather than have us figure out whatever your trying to tell us! Don't fear though, give us a little time and we'll figure out what's behind those names.

Moving along, today were going to look at the word Vendetta, lets see what the definition of that word is:

• 1 : blood feud
  

2 : an often prolonged series of retaliatory, vengeful, or hostile acts or exchange of such acts vendetta against those who opposed his nomination>

Now before we get carried away here, I know what you're thinking, I'm sure everyone thinks we have a vendetta against Detective Baluja, that is absolutely wrong. There is no vendetta behind the Straw Buyer, none at all, we have no axe to grind with Jorge. Regardless of the fact that Detective Baluja is a terrible cop who couldn't investigate his way out of a wet paper bag, he's not the culprit here, he's only a wheel in the machine. In fact the only objective of this blog is to FIND THE TRUTH, funny as it may seem that's the job of one of the other players in this story, yet he REFUSES TO SEE THE TRUTH that's put forth in our story. Sadly enough though, there is a member of the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case who has a vendetta, we'll expose him a little later on.

Last Wednesday I mentioned a package of documents I received regarding the Barrera mortgage fraud case, I forwarded a copy of these documents to one of the attorneys that was working on the civil foreclosure case that resulted from the Oak Avenue home purchase. I asked this attorney to give me their opinion on Mr. Barrera's involvement based on the documents that I had sent him, his findings are as follows:

Wow, that's pretty interesting isn't it? Consider how damning the documents that we have are to cause someone to reach this conclusion. If indeed I am correct, then what kind of impact does complicity on the victims part have on the rest of the case? Even if there is no impact, doesn't it make the MDPD and the Assistant State Attorney look like asses? As I mentioned before, I still don't have the green light to post the documents that we received, while we're waiting though, we'll start learning the nuances of Mr. Barrera's handwriting.

Now onto something a little less serious! I caught glimpse of this car wash over the weekend:


All those wonderful scantily clad women WASHING HYBRIDS?! WHAT A FCUKING WASTE! Everyone knows that guys that drive those things have no interest in WOMEN!!!!!!

The week in review...

Can you stomach more of this...

1. An answer to at least two of our three riddles.
2. Don't I know you from somewhere?
3. We got's to go!
4. What an interesting bunch of documents...
5. Dead dogs and pornography.

Until next time!

Victims statements and how Detective Jorge Baluja processes them.

We mentioned early on that perhaps Bernardo Barrera's claims of identity theft were suspect to say the least, after further examination of Mr. Barrera's background and other identity theft claims, his assertions of ID theft definitely warranted a closer look. Despite all these red flags, Detective Baluja took Mr. Barrera's word as gospel then forwarded his findings to the assistant state attorney who also didn't believe it necessary to investigate the victims claims, instead both the Detective and the ASA were OFF TO THE RACES! These two guys had a DEADLINE THEY HAD TO MEET! More on that later!!

Now that we've established that the MDPD and the state attorneys office rushed headlong into this case without doing the proper due diligence, they've laid the groundwork for a faulty, error prone investigation and the subsequent defective arrest affidavit. Wouldn't you think at the very least the state attorney would go through the detectives findings with a fine tooth comb before allowing a potentially life destroying case to go forward? But $hit guys, when your under the gun to bring home a case before a DEADLINE, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? Based on what we've seen in the handling of the Barrera case, lets take a look and see how Detective Baluja would have handled this case from Akron Beacon Journal police blotter...


Now lets put ourselves in Detective Baluja's shoes, what would he do after hearing this poor mans story? I think he would immediately put out an A.P.B. for a man holding a gun in one hand, a video camera in the other, a pocket full of mushrooms and fresh giz stains on his clothes. Once Baluja's done icing down the mans freshly masturbated genitals, he'd then forward his findings to the Assistant State Attorney who would already have a warrant ready to go for animal cruelty, illegally videotaping a sex act and probably another charge for some sort of fire arm violation. Sound absurd? This is precisely what happened with the Bernardo Barrera Mortgage fraud case. The reality is if the victim here was investigated, you'd probably find that he was watching porn, got so hot and worked up that he banged the dog till it dropped dead then in a fit of shame he called the cops and concocted this story about this mystery man who videotaped him waxing his weasel then fed his dog some mushrooms causing it to expire.

Early on in this blog I expressed my doubts about the validity of Mr. Barrera's claims, with yesterdays findings, my suspicions have been proven to be true. As soon as I have the green light to post the documents that I received yesterday, I'll go ahead and decimate Mr. Barrera's claims of innocence and as I mentioned before, I CAN ONLY HOPE THAT THE STATE DOESN'T HAVE THE DOCUMENTS THAT I RECEIVED. If indeed the state does have these documents and has not acted upon them, then my friends we have all the ingredients of A MAJOR SCANDAL.

Have a nice weekend y'all!

OMG! Sorry about yesterday!

Sorry guys, I screwed up and didn't make the update I promised yesterday, lets just say I had my reasons! I was contacted last week by a "concerned reader" who told me that they had a package of documents they wanted to give me regarding the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, we set up a meeting yesterday morning all the way in BF Egypt, so I had to haul ass all the way across town first thing in the morning to make the meeting. There was nothing cloak and dagger about the meeting, I just showed up at the agreed upon location and had a manila envelope waiting for me, inside was a 267 page document that made me $hit my pants. Lets just say in regards to the Barrera case its a...

This file is made up of documents from the Bernardo Barrera mortgage for the Oak Avenue home as well as actual documents from Citi Mortgages own internal mortgage fraud investigation. I can only assume that the MDPD and the SAO already have these documents, if they do then the level of humiliation that's about to unfold is going to be FCUKING EPIC! Lets hope for the sake the citizens of Miami Dade County that the state doesn't have these documents. If indeed our friend Detective Baluja had these documents and decided not to use them, rest assured its going to be a career ending blunder for him. The implications are worse though if the State Attorneys Office has these documents and hasn't acted upon them, I guarantee you friends that if I make these documents public, the entire Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case will be turned on its ear. Before we get all worked up and excited, I have to run this scenario in front of our own attorney to see if its kosher to post the documents. While I'm waiting for a response I will go ahead and at least forward these documents to one of the attorneys who's working on the Barrera foreclosure case for their opinion.

Cross your fingers, if we get the go ahead, I promise one hell of a RIDE!

It's early and we gotta GIT!

We have a rather unusual circumstance today, there's an interesting event occurring this morning that the Straw Buyer has to attend. I'll fill you all in a little later in the day. For now, take a look at what a typical morning looks like for the straw buyer...

A chance encounter with with one of the players in the Barrera case...

As I get older, my memory seems to be failing me. I knew one of the players in the Bernardo Barrera criminal case was somehow familiar to me, I just couldn't figure out where I knew him from, it dawned on me last night. About a year and a half ago a friend told me about a travel agent that had fantastic deals on Royal Caribbean cruises, somehow this travel agent was able to book cruises at half price! The best staterooms, the best cruises, the best dates all for half price. With the trying economic times we were all in, who wouldn't jump at this deal?

I booked a cruise for my family which would have cost nearly $12,000 all for the paltry sum of $5,000, what a deal! It seemed like the more people I asked in my group of friends, the more people had given this travel agent money! In some instances we were even going to be on the same cruises! With the dates booked, we anxiously awaited our confirmation and reservation information, first she explained there was some delays, then as we drew within a week from the sailing date still no confirmation, she assured us that everything would be alright though. Now we were two days before the date the ship was supposed to sail and STILL NOTHING! One day before the trip was to start, STILL NOTHING and now we couldn't get the travel agent (at least the woman that was posing as the travel agent) on the phone. At this point we had given up and figured we got screwed.

Once we all came to the realization that our money was gone, we had all gotten together and tallied what we had given this charlatan, we were able to account for a little over $100,000 (just from our group of friends) that had been given to this crook. I can only imagine how many other people are out there that are unaccounted for. From what I'm told this so called "travel agent" did manage to get a couple of families onto a caribbean cruise, but during their stop over and Puerto Rico, the cruise was boarded by the FBI and these families were taken off the ship, detained and questioned about how they got their tickets. They were subsequently forced to pay for the full fair before they were allowed back on the ship!

After trying for months to find the woman and get our money back, we were left with no choice but to pursue legal channels. A number of the families involved went ahead and sued the woman civilly and one of the victims who was an attorney decided to go on behalf of all the victims to the State Attorneys Office and open a criminal complaint against this woman. This attorney went over to the State Attorneys office and spoke at length with an ASA from the Economic Crimes Unit about how the travel agent had screwed us out of over $100,000. Our hopes were high as we expected the woman to be criminally charged, we weren't going to get our money back, but at least we would have the satisfaction of seeing this BITCH behind bars!

After hearing our story, what do you think the ASA's conclusion was? An investigation? A call to the MDPD to go pick the woman up? An immediate arrest affidavit? NOPE! After all this, the best the ASA could do was to tell the attorney that there was nothing that he could do and in fact this was a CIVIL MATTER! WTF?!


We lost over $100,000 (not to mention the victims that we don't know about) and this assistant state attorney decides that THERE'S NO CASE HERE?! JESUS FCUKING CHRIST! I kissed my money goodbye long ago, we should have known better than to think we could get help from the state attorneys office. All of this was forgotten though, until last night when in a moment of clarity the name of the ASA who came to this conclusion dawned upon me. Does this story ring any bells for any of our readers? Can anyone guess the assistant state attorneys name who came to this conclusion?

Our riddle from last week.

Remember our riddle from last week? We asked the MDPD and Detective Baluja if the following statement made any sense after reviewing our posts from the beginning of September:

Is there anything that's Nouvelle to you? Has anyone looked behind the Red Door yet?

If our friends in the MDPD Mortgage Fraud Task Force or the State Attorneys Office were paying any attention then this should have been a no brainer. The "Red Door" refers to the name of the title company that conducted transactions for the homes located at 3146 Hibiscus Street and 107 Frow Avenue , both of which were sold the same day the seller purchased them. In the case of these two homes the title company that conducted the transactions is named "Red Door Title Insurance Agency".

What about "Nouvelle"? Again, go back to the two homes that we discussed at 3309 William Avenue and 3773 Frow Avenue, the title company that closed these two transactions is named Nouvelle Title Services Inc. What's so Nouvelle about these two transactions? Not only were the homes purchased within 24 hours of them being resold, but guess what? THE SELLER IN BOTH OF THESE HOMES WAS ALSO A PRINCIPAL IN THE TITLE COMPANY THAT DID THE CLOSINGS! DAMN! Take into consideration what may have gone on in these four transactions then go over and review what the Barrera case, strange huh?

So how did you all do with our little riddle? You would think it should have been a no brainer for our friends at the task force and the state attorneys office, but somehow I think all this is a total surprise to them, perhaps its the first time they're even hearing about all this. From what I'm able to gather, simple RE flips where the sellers made six figure profits by busting out homes is no longer the flavor of the day at the Mortgage Fraud Task Force, to remain relevant, the task force has to keep finding new bad guys. A few months ago their new target was Foreclosure Defense clinics, then recently over the last few weeks the flavor of the day became "Short Sale scams". In a nutshell for the people behind the four transactions that we mentioned, rest easy, you're no longer a newsworthy target and after all, that's what the task force busts are about, MAKING NEWS. We'll investigate why a little later this month.

Now, for something a lot less serious, lets take a look at this comment one of our readers left over the weekend on this post:


YO! Am I getting a little too close for comfort? The Straw Buyer is writing about a story no one cares about, yet you keep reading? There is a joke in what we're writing about, a joke on the citizenry of Miami Dade County, its going to reveal itself over the next three weeks.

The week in review...

What we got YO?

1. The evolution of the Straw Buyer and a new direction for Roger Besu.
2. We couldn't find the $2 million, but it looks like someone better find $5 million!
3. Riddle me this...
4. A dirty little secret.

Another week boys and girls!

The Mortgage Fraud Task Force's "Dirty Little Secret" and our riddle from yesterday.

So I'm trolling the Internet for more information on Miami Dade County's Mortgage Fraud Task Force and I come upon this little gem of an article in the Daily Business Review archives. In the article the writer quotes an anonymous Assistant State Attorney who says:

"the “dirty little secret” about fraud investigations is that many investigators don’t know how to examine loan files"

DAMN! In my humble opinion it seems really arrogant for an ASA to come forward ANONYMOUSLY and make such a statement, even though it might be true. I wonder if the anonymous state attorney was referring to our friend Detective Baluja? The fact of the matter is that through our research we've found the training that is provided to the task force detectives is laughable, unfortunately, real estate transactions are fairly complex and can not be learned after a week of training. I will suggest this though in defense of the fine men and women at the MDPD; the state attorneys office's understanding of Real Estate transactions isn't much greater than that of the PD, again making that anonymous statement even more annoying. Take that kind of arrogant and condescending statement into consideration, next time you guys get thrown under the bus, at least now you know whose driving it!

Further along in the article an anonymous attorney says the following regarding the Task Force:

"The task force members, he said, either don’t show up at meetings or are overly self-congratulatory."

BINGO! I love that "overly self-congratulatory" part! As in those fancy press conferences, perp walks, flow charts with the bad guys, 7 figure fraud accusations, etc, all in the name of grabbing media attention. Over the next few weeks, we'll go back and find those flow charts and see how those cases ended up, surely after all the media hoopla the players involved must have gotten some serious time, right? Ask yourself, why does this task force need all the media attention? How often is it that you see the PD out in the spotlight announcing its achievements? We mentioned the story of the lawyer who stole millions from his clients, yet there's no mention of it by the PD or the media, you would have to imagine though if that story had ANYTHING to do with mortgage fraud it would more than likely be ALL OVER THE PLACE! Think about what all the exposure could achieve for the task force, the answer should be pretty easy to figure out especially now where local governments budgets are in such bad shape.

How did you guys do on our riddle from yesterday? We'll discuss the answer next week. With that I'm signing off till Monday, I need to get away for a couple of days! Unfortunately due to budgetary constraints I can't afford to stay in some five star hotel, so I'll have to settle for...

A riddle for our friends at the MDPD and Jorge Baluja.

Enough with all the serious stuff for today, I need a little distraction. For all our friends following along at the MDPD and the Mortgage Fraud Task Force, lets play a little game and see if anyone can figure out what we're talking about, as a matter of fact, lets have Major Juan Odio call over the detective that he commended for his investigative prowess to take a look and see if he can figure this one out. Come on Detective Baluja, pull your head out from under the hood of whatever car your looking at and take a moment to join us. Read over the posts from the beginning of the month;

Is there anything that's Nouvelle to you? Has anyone looked behind the Red Door yet?

Good luck with that! Figuring that one out is going to be too much like police work, after all if Detective Baluja couldn't figure out who the man was that "supposedly" posed as Bernardo Barrera at the closing for the Oak Avenue home, how the hell will anyone figure out our little riddle?! I'll warn you guys though, if you are able to figure it out, you're going to have a ton of work on your hands...

I haven't really had a chance to keep up with the news lately but I have heard a lot about county budget cuts. I really hope our friends at the MDPD don't get hurt too bad...

Headlines or lack thereof. Revisiting the case of Roger Besu.

I'm sure everyone remembers yesterdays post where we discussed the arrest of disbarred attorney Roger Besu. According to the county corrections department website, Mr. Besu was arrested on Sunday and is being held at the Pre-Trial Detention Center with $5,000,000 bail, that's right FIVE MILLION DOLLARS BAIL! Consider also that Mr. Besu was accused of stealing nearly TWO MILLION DOLLARS of clients money from his trust account. Now ask yourself why you haven't heard about this anywhere other than on this blog? Isn't the story of an attorney stealing from his trust account newsworthy? Isn't his arrest and subsequent five million dollar bail amount worth mentioning? Really, we've all heard about the girl getting shot over a parking spot over the long weekend, the media is bombarding us with stories about Hurricane XXXXX that's fizzled out in the middle of nowhere, yet the story of Roger Besu hasn't made the news?!

Does everyone remember the headline from the Miami Herald on October 3, 2008? In case you forgot, here it is again:

"Coral Gables lawyer, 2 others charged in mortgage fraud."

That headline and the story that followed were very much about a lawyer that was accused of breaking the law and not so much about the other two people arrested who made off with over $300,000. Yet in the case of Mr. Besu the media is quiet, why? The reason the media hasn't reported this story is because there is no political motivation to publicize this case, no one in the MDPD or the State Attorneys Office will benefit from the public learning about Mr. Besu. Consider that in the October 2008 mortgage fraud arrests either the MDPD or the State Attorneys Office made a press release on the arrests, ask yourself who had the most to gain by the story being published, who needed the publicity to keep their machine moving? The answer is rather disturbing and is a sad commentary on our county government and the political ambitions of its leaders.

Although it was this blog that had written about Mr. Besu's and the missing $2,000,000, we cannot take credit for being made aware of the arrest this past weekend, that credit has to go to one of our anonymous readers who posted the following:


Disregard the first comment for a moment and look at the second which was made on September 7, 2009. This comment at least in my tin foil hat wearing mind is very telling about who exactly is reading our blog. Taking into account that the arrest was made over a long weekend and that it wasn't mentioned anywhere in the media, who exactly would have knowledge of this event? Did you come to the same conclusion that we did? Interesting isn't it? Now with that conclusion in hand, consider that we wrote about Mr. Besu's situation and just a week or so later the cops nabbed him. It's a stretch, but considering who we already know to be reading our blog and what we learned from the comment above, is it fair to conclude that our story may have had something to do with this arrest? Here we are typing away about stories that no one wants to hear then come to find out we could have this kind of effect?! WOW!


Back to that other comment about "selective prosecution" from the post on August 27, truer words have never been spoken!

Straw Buyer 2.0 and an update on Roger Besu.

Everyone remember Roger Besu? He was the attorney that we discussed last month that made away with $2 million dollars of clients money from his trust account. Based 0n what we see in the clerks website, he was arrested on September 7, 2009, bizarre as it may seem though when we wrote the original blog post on Thursday August 27, 2009 there was no record of a case on the clerk of courts web page, yet now when you check the case the clerks website shows that case was opened on April 28, 2009?! Is that strange or what? I don't pretend to be some sort of mental giant or well versed in the inner workings of the legal system, but you have to admit that is bizarre.

Moving right along, lets discuss for a moment the term "Straw Buyer", what exactly does that mean? Here's the definition of a "Straw Buyer" according to this guy:

A straw buyer is a person who uses or allows their credit to be used for the purchase of a property they never intend to use or control. Straw buyers can also be used to purchase non-owner occupied properties by being paid simply for the use of their credit.

He then goes on to suggest the following recruitment ad for said "Straw Buyer"

CREDIT PARTNER - GET PAID FOR DOING NOTHING!
All you need to do is let us use your credit score to purchase properties and we will handle everything else. We will make the down payment and pay the monthly mortgage note and give you $10,000 for each purchase you make. You don't even need to come to the closing! Call Leroy at 404-555-1212 and I will give you $10,000 cash on your first deal by the end of this month!

I take issue with the guy calling the Straw Buyer recruiter "Leroy", considering today's geopolitical atmosphere I find that to be very racially insensitive!

"Get paid for doing nothing!"

I've been doing nothing for 40 years and haven't gotten paid a cent! DAMN, where was I when this ad was published! Regardless though, we all know the scam, at the height of the mortgage and housing bubble banks were literally lending money to anyone with a pulse, whether the loan was for a home, car or anything for that matter. Pay off the "Straw Buyer" for the use of his credit, bust him out and move on. In these instances the guy who sold his credit wasn't a pillar of society anyway and more than likely didn't give a rats ass about his credit going down the drain, the lure of cash in hand was far more attractive than a credit score! For the sake of our discussion lets call this guy "Straw Buyer V. 1.0."

Lets now move into the twilight of the easy credit era, a time where banks were tightening up their lending standards, lets say for the sake of argument that this period was the end of 2007 through 2008. With credit getting harder to come by, what was the scamster to do? By now the mortgage fraudster knows that his stable of "Straw Buyer V 1.0's" is nearly useless, now you need real people with real credit histories! People who fit this description aren't going to give up a sterling credit history that they've worked so hard to achieve! What to do?! Never underestimate the criminal mind, where there's a will there's a way, when there is money to be made, the scammer will figure out a way to get it.

I'm going to propose the perfect scam, please keep in mind that I'm not accusing anyone of doing anything illegal, this is a purely hypothetical situation. We've established that the "Straw Buyer V. 1.0" has outlived his usefulness, now lets figure out how to lure the "Straw Buyer V. 2.0". What if I came up with a way to use someones credit to pull off a six figure scam and at the end of the day had the person who sold me their credit off the hook for the loan I obtained with their credit? Check it:

1. Recruit a "Straw Buyer" to sell their identity.
2. Find a home that will allow a fraudulent transaction with a LARGE PROFIT.
3. Use the "Straw Buyer's" identity to obtain a mortgage for the transaction.
4. Create false identification using the "Straw Buyer's" identity but with someone else posing as them.
5. Close the transaction with impostor, pay off the "Straw Buyer" and pocket a nice chunk of money.
6. Make the payments on the fraudulent transaction for slightly more than one year.
7. Once at least one year has passed, have the person whose identity you used in the transaction scream identity theft.

Once the loan becomes at least one year old, if it does go into default the loan is looked at with a lot less scrutiny than a loan that went into default in less than one year since its inception. Most importantly though, once a loan is one year old, the mortgage broker that initiated the loan is no longer responsible if the loan goes into default, if its less than one year old, the mortgage broker is obligated to buy the loan back. After a year when the "Straw Buyer V. 2.0" screams identity theft, the bank goes back and looks at the loan, realizes that indeed the person who signed the documents was not the person who's identity got "stolen", the bank discharges the loan and that's it! If anyone goes back to the seller, what are they going to say? They knew nothing! Plus, its not illegal to make a profit now is it?! The "Straw Buyer V. 2.0" walks away unscathed, the seller walks away with a nice profit, no one is ever able to finger the guy who signed all the loan documents and the bank gets the shaft.

Perfect isn't it?