Let's take a look at the purchase contract for this fraudulent purchase!

Before we start today, I'd like to thank all those readers over the last week or so that have sent us emails complimenting our work on the blog, it's because of you guys that we keep writing about the misdeeds of people like Detective Jorge Baluja and the others that we've outlined in our blog.  At the very least, the people who we've been writing about now know that we have a growing studio audience...

 

 Everyone remember the quote from Detective Baluja's arrest affidavit a few days back that got our spidey senses tingling?

 

It was that quote and the mention of "other grantors" that really got me wondering and caused me to dig through the mountains of paperwork I've accumulated in order to find the purchase contract for the home that's at the center of this mortgage fraud.  From what we've been told by Mr. Baluja and what the state has asserted, we are to believe that Bernardo Barrera had no involvement with the purchase of this home and that John Romney purchased the home from Maxine Andrews "and other grantors".  Shortly afterwords Mr. Romney turned around without the consent of Mr. Barrera and unlawfully used his identity to obtain a fraudulent mortgage for this property.  The point of finding the original purchase contract for the purposes of this blog was to discover who the "other grantors" were, let me tell you folks, I was totally unprepared for what I found.  Take a look for yourselves...

 

 Do you guys see that?  Look whose name is listed on that purchase contract!  It's non other than the states victim, Bernardo Barrera!  

 

That doesn't mean anything right?  Anyone could have written his name in the contract, let's move on...

WELL!  Look at that!  Just to the left of Mr. Romney's and Maxine Andrews initials at the bottom of the first page, is another set of initials, there's a third set of initials!  Who could this be?  Moving along...

UH OH!  Whose signature is that Jorge?!  I would hate to think that could be Bernardo Barrera's signature on this purchase contract!  NEXT!

 

GOODNESS!  Whose address is that Jorge?  Is that Bernardo Barreras primary residence?  Look at the date next to the signature Jorge, 1/14/08!  That's months before Mr. Barrera claimed he found out his identity got stolen!  Can it get worse?  

Not looking good Jorge!  More initials that don't belong to either John Romney or Maxine Andrews!  Oh boy!

OH $HIT!  There's that set of initials again!  Could there be more?!

 

OH CRAP!  What do you think Jorge?  Mr. Kostrzewski?  Any thoughts?  Here we've laid out evidence that YOUR victim Bernardo Barrera may have been involved in this fraud from the get go.  Remember, this isn't the contract for the purchase of the home by Barrera from Romney, this is the initial purchase contract from the original seller that Romney purchased the home from that includes Bernardo Barrera!  How the hell did you guys miss this?  Or did both Detective Baluja and the man who was running his investigation Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzweski know about this evidence but chose not to act on it?  Before we get carried away we're going to have to collect other samples of Mr. Barreras signature and initials then compare them to what we've found on this purchase contract.  If indeed the samples do match up it looks like the real victims of fraud are the citizens of Miami Dade county.

Enjoy your weekend!

LOOK OUT FOR TOYOTAS!

Let's take a break from our regular programing for a moment to discuss the latest Toyota recall news!  Unless you've been living under a rock, you couldn't have missed the third consecutive recall by Toyota for nearly their entire model line up because of unintended acceleration which they blame on faulty accelerator pedals that have a tendency of getting stuck.  The first recall was a few months ago, they blamed the problem on the floor mat getting stuck in the accelerator pedal causing the accelerator to get stuck.  Then earlier this week they made another recall covering millions of cars they've produced over the last several years and then yesterday they not only recall more cars but Toyota has now gone so far as to shut down all of their assembly lines!  YIKES!  What a nightmare not only for Toyota owners but for the rest of us motorists on the road that could possibly get hit by one of these out of control damn TOYOTAS!


So what does this have to do with us do you ask?  Well, the other night I'm on my way home and I notice a car behind me that is driving very erratically.  As I'm watching in my rear view mirror the car is darting in and out of traffic, tailgating, cutting people off, etc.  Now a few weeks back I had something similar happen where the driver ended up being drunk, so in that instance I called the cops and they actually pulled the guy over, this time I was going to do more than call the cops though, I WAS PREPARED TO TAKE VIDEO!  I ended up taking several videos, but since it was dark only one of them came out halfway decent...

Once the car gets a little closer to me, I realize that it's a damn TOYOTA!  Jeeze!  Was I witnessing a Toyota with one of those faulty accelerators?  Was the poor driver unable to control his car and about to get into a horrible accident?  OH MY!  Once the car gets a little closer, I notice that the driver had this horrible look on his face, not the look of a driver who didn't have control of his car though.  This guy was screaming at something, waving his hands around and just being the typical road rage filled Miami driver, mind you, I was driving at a constant speed of 45 MPH throughout that video.  At this point I grew a little concerned for my own safety so I pulled back a little and let this driver get far away from me, just before he did though, I got a closer look at the driver.  Lo and behold the driver looked just like Assistant State Attorney William J. Kostrzewski!  I wonder if that was him?  What a small world if it was.  I'd hate to see you get stuck in an out of control Toyota Mr. Kostrzewski, so if indeed that was you weaving in and out of traffic, cutting people off then slamming on the brakes when you got in front of me, please for the sake of our readership, get your car over to a Toyota dealer and make sure its safe...

Houston, we have a problem. I think?

So we're scouring the arrest affidavits prepared for the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case by non other than Detective Jorge Baluja for more comedic material for today's post when all of a sudden something struck me as odd in the affidavit.  For the uninitiated among our readers, one of the mortgage fraud cases that we've talked about on this blog has to do with the fraudulent purchase of a home by a man named John Romney who then according to the state turned around and resold the home using the stolen identity and credit history of Mr. Bernardo Barrera for a nearly $400,000 profit.  Throughout the last nearly two years Mr. Barrera has claimed to have been a victim of this fraud and has asserted that he had no prior knowledge of this transaction and that it occurred without his consent.  That's all fine and dandy, we've expressed our doubts about Mr. Barrera's assertions of innocence several times, but for the sake of today's post, let's give him the benefit of the doubt and move on.


While reading the arrest affidavit, I stumbled upon this paragraph that struck me as strange...

Nothing really wrong there, what struck me as strange was the following...

Purchased the home from Maxine Andrews and other grantors?  I don't know why this bugged me, but for whatever reason the "grantors" part stuck out like a sore thumb.  Was there more than one seller?  I kept reading and rereading the arrest affidavit until I found this...

Ok, that makes sense now.  The woman that is mentioned in the arrest affidavit as being the seller of the Oak Avenue home only owned 1/3 of the property and at least another 1/3 of the property was owned by the estate of Mr. Horace Young.  Nothing wrong there, as a matter of fact I actually knew a few people that would cruise the obit columns and contact the families of the deceased with the hopes of buying up their homes on the cheap and then flipping them for a profit.  Like I said, nothing illegal about such a deal, just a different approach to making money in Real Estate I guess!  What struck me as strange though was the following...

See that?  Why is the sale described as being from "Maxine Andrews and other grantors" elsewhere in the arrest affidavit and then described as just "Maxine Andrews to Property Collateral" here?  What does this omission mean?  Probably nothing, but it has raised our interest.  I've searched through the case file in the criminal court house several times for the original purchase contract for the Oak Avenue home and have come up empty handed.

What does this mean?  It means we have to take a trip to the courthouse tomorrow.  Stay tuned.

From gibberish to eloquence...

Yesterday we took a look at some random samples of how Detective Jorge Baluja spoke during his depositions in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case.  I'm sure you all were as surprised as I was listening to Mr. Baluja fumbling through those depositions spewing at times pure gibberish from his mouth.  Maybe the Detective has trouble speaking, perhaps he's a better writer?  Let's take a look at some of Detective Baluja's writing as it appears in one the arrest affidavits that he prepared for the Barrera mortgage fraud case...

From the affidavit...

What?!  "Your affiant"?  "In this capacity ...concerning identity theft"?  This hardly sounds like the guy who said:

"I didn't read them straight from the -- verbatim of the page, no, I didn't."

Let's look further...

 Really?  "purchased the same home for $185,000.00 from a Maxine Andrews and other grantors..."  No kidding?!  Does this sound like it came from the same man who said...

"It's a recorder that has the listening, so you can put it in your ear while you talk."

 

That doesn't seem right now does it?  Some how something seems off kilter here.  Let's look at one last excerpt from the arrest affidavit...

No kidding?  "earnest money"?  "induce the lender"?  That's rather nice considering the man who "supposedly" wrote that arrest affidavit gave us this gem...

"that's what she wrote in the writing"

You know what I think folks?  I've discussed our theory regarding the state prepared documentation that's in the case file before.  Unless Detective Baluja is some sort of idiot savant who can't speak yet can write as eloquently as we've seen in the arrest affidavit then there is something else going on.  Boy's and girls, I'm going to propose something ground breaking here, something that if true will land one of the major players in the Barrera mortgage fraud in a HEAP OF TROUBLE.  I'm going to suggest that the state prepared paperwork in the case file was not prepared by Detective Baluja, I believe that someone else wrote everything that's in there.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure the Detective had some input into what was written and was perhaps present when some of the documents were written, but I'm almost sure that he wasn't the author of said documents.  That's huge folks.  We'll look closer tomorrow...


As our loyal readers have noticed, we didn't make a post on Monday, too much happening in the real world and I just couldn't make the time to sit down and write.  Don't worry though, plenty to write about over the next few months (trust me) and in case you were worried, just because we miss a post here and there doesn't mean that we aren't keeping an eye on what's going on...

Gibberish, by Jorge Baluja.

Here we are at the end of another week in our protracted story of mortgage fraud, sloppy police work and goofy prosecutorial antics.  We learned yesterday that the lead detective in one of the mortgage fraud cases that we've been discussing paid so much attention to his investigation, went into so much detail in the depth of his investigation and took so much care during the course of his investigation that HE COULDN'T EVEN GET THE NAME OF HIS VICTIM RIGHT!  Simple mistake?  Let's give Detective Baluja the benefit of the doubt, surely he was much more careful throughout the rest of his investigation to make sure he got the facts of his case correct right?


Anyone remember us discussing something about a "familiar voice" throughout the state generated documentation in this case a few months back?  Our contention was that through reading the witness statements, arrest affidavits, etc that were in the case file, we got a feeling that the same person had authored all of the documents.  Nothing wrong with that right?  It's safe to assume that Detective Baluja wrote his own arrest affidavit and since we've already seen examples of the Detective making witnesses say what he wants him to say, it's also safe to assume that he wrote the witness statements (or heavily coached) them as well.  Fair enough right?  I was willing to buy this theory until I started reading through some of Detective Jorge Baluja's deposition transcripts the other day, through these transcripts, I started to get a feeling for how Detective Baluja spoke and wrote.  Let's take a random sample of the dreck that seems to flow out of Detective Baluja...

"I didn't read them straight from the -- verbatim of the page, no, I didn't."

Huh?  What the hell is that?  Remember folks, Jorge has had issues with that word "Verbatim" before...

"It's a recorder that has the listening, so you can put it in your ear while you talk."

It has the listening so you can put it in your ear?  WTF is that?  You're losing me here Jorge...

"that's what she wrote in the writing"

ALRIGHT THEN!  What language is Detective Baluja speaking in?  Let's give it a shot, "hey Jorge, how do you like what you're reading in the reading?"  HUH?!  This is what's known as gibberish.  Let's look at the definition:

Gibberish: unintelligible or meaningless language.

Detective Baluja sort of reminds me of someone else that was proficient in gibberish.  Take a look...

That's all for now folks, Monday we'll look at some of the documents that Detective Baluja supposedly authored and see if you guys think this man that is so proficient in gibberish could have actually written those documents.

Have a great weekend.

The state's victim, WHO DAT IS?

Just like the title of this post says, the state's victim, "WHO DAT IS" YO?!  I think by now those of you who've been diligently following our story of a botched mortgage fraud investigation know that the man that the state alleges was the victim of the mortgage fraud that involved the home located at 3390 Oak Avenue is none other than Bernardo Humberto Barrera.  Smile for us Bernie...  

Finally we have a face to attach to the name that we've been throwing about for the last seven months or so.  Unfortunately we here at The Straw Buyer have a hard time buying Mr. Barrera's claims of identity theft, we discussed our doubts at length several times, when it comes to Mr. Barrera's claims of being in the dark regarding this transaction, I have to defer to an old friends favorite saying, "NO SALE!".  I digress.  The other day I'm listening to some recordings from the latest court hearings regarding this case and I noticed that Assistant State Attorney William Kostrzewski among other things kept mispronouncing Mr. Barreras name.  I didn't thing anything of it until I heard the judge make the same mispronunciation.  WTF I asked myself?  There was so much more comedic material in that hearing that I let the mispronunciation slide and I quickly forgot about it until this afternoon when I heard someone else pronounce a name that sounded very similar to Barrera but with the same mispronunciation as the ASA and the judge had made.  I thought for a moment that perhaps I had miswritten Mr. Barrera's name at some point and then kept miswriting the name again and again.  So I decided to go back through the mountain of paperwork I've accumulated and find the original incident report that Mr. Barrera filed with the MDPD.  Here is what I found:

That's the card that the police officer (in this case a PSA) gave Mr. Barrera when they took down all his information in the form of a MDPD "Offense-Incident Report".  Let's take a look at the first page of the incident report and see if we can find Mr. Barrera's name...

There it is in red (I've outlined it in red for the sake of clarity), let's take a closer look at that name...

Ok, so the man who claims to be the victim of identity theft is Bernardo Humberto Barrera.  So far so good, only problem is that I keep hearing an "I" in his last name every time ASA Kostrzewski or the judge says his name.  What gives here folks?


To say we here at The Straw Buyer were frustrated would be an understatement.  We needed an explanation, what better place to start than the arrest affidavit prepared by none other than Detective Jorge Baluja?  So here it is...

Uh oh!  Did anyone catch it?  Let's take a closer look...

Bernardo Humberto WHO?  Barreira?  That's the damn "I" that I kept hearing!  Perhaps that was just a typo, let's take another look:

Who is the "true Bernardo Humberto Barreira"?  I thought the victim was name Bernardo Humberto Barrera?  Let's take another peek...

Ok, now you got me Jorge, who's the "alleged buyer Barriera"?  Was this a typo or is "alleged buyer Barriera" and "true Bernardo Humberto Barreira" one and the same or two different people?  Then who the hell is Bernardo Barrera?! FCUK ME!  Is this for real?  I'm beginning to think I'm stuck in an Abbott and Costello "who's on first" routine!

Ok, I know what you all are thinking.  I'm sure what's going on in everyone's mind is "damn the straw buyer is being more of an a$$hole today than normal", what gives?  Remember folks, in this story of mortgage fraud and the subsequent botched investigation, PRECISION IN EVERYTHING!  If names, dates or amounts are screwed up then the outcome of the case can be completely different than what Detective Baluja intended.  I would like to think that the extra "I" in Detective Baluja's arrest affidavit is simply a spelling error, but I can't rest until I confirm that theory.  Let's now move on to one of Detective Baluja's deposition transcripts and see if the state's victims is Bernardo Barrera, Bernardo Barriera or Bernardo Barreira.  What say you Detective Baluja?!

WELL SPANK MY ASS AND CALL ME CHARLIE!  Jorge, WHO IN THE FCUK IS ROLANDO BARRERO?  Good lord!  Let's see how many victims the state now has:

1. Bernardo Humberto Barrero
2. Bernardo Humberto Barreira
3. Bernardo Humberto Barriera
4. Rolando Barrero

HUH?!  Who's on first Jorge?  Now I'm really confused.  It's a god damn shame that Detective Baluja put together a document that was going to permanently alter the lives of three people AND HE COULDN'T EVEN TAKE ENOUGH CARE TO GET THE VICTIMS NAME RIGHT!


Is anyone surprised?  I'm certainly not.  What we've seen here today is not just an example of sloppy police work, it's just another incident of piss police work that Detective Baluja has exhibited throughout this mortgage fraud investigation.  Disappointing to say the least.  I do have a theory that would partially exonerate Detective Baluja from most of the blame for these mistakes, what if Detective Baluja didn't write this arrest affidavit on his own?  What if Detective Baluja didn't write this arrest affidavit at all?  Consider for a moment if someone else wrote it for him, I wonder who would be so kind as to do that for him?  Any guesses folks?  We'll examine that theory in more depth tomorrow.  On the other hand, If Detective Baluja did write this arrest affidavit then there's only one word that can describe his performance...

Time for a little break and a TRIP!

As I mentioned a few days ago, I was feeling lost about the direction of our blog.  For the first time ever, I found myself at a corner watering hole drowning my sorrows in a bottle of vodka.  I was down and out, without direction, unable even properly deal with advances from the ladies, see for yourself...

 

So I figure, it's time for a little break, perhaps time to take a little trip on the Straw Buyers yacht, yes, you read that right, we hear at the Straw Buyer have our own yacht, not the most luxurious but it gets the job done (photos here).  So where are we off to?  Why don't we ask our friend disgraced attorney Roger Besu?  Take a look at this email that I got from Mr. Besu last night (as always, click on the image to enlarge)...

 

Damn that sounds tempting!  White sand beaches, "walking without worries for miles", it's tempting isn't it?!  Before we cast off though, can one of our dear readers do the research on the extradition treaty between the U.S. and the Bahamas?  I'd hate to spend the money and end up getting my ass shipped back here in case of trouble!  

On second thought, maybe we should skip the trip altogether.  I understand internet service is spotty over there and judging by the emails that you guys sent me after I didn't post yesterday, I can't leave you hanging.  Back on track tomorrow then!

Martin Luther King day.

Here we are on the third monday of January, the day that we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who made the ultimate sacrifice for a cause that some today may take for granted.  Among the many notable MLK speeches and quotes, I find this one most interesting...

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Till tomorrow folks. 

Game changing events...

I've been driving around aimlessly this morning, I had a crappy nights sleep and found myself somehow unable to get into the swing of things this morning.  I was oblivious to where I was going and found myself in a neighborhood that I wasn't familiar with, I looked up then saw this...

Is that incredible or what?  I had no idea that such a thing existed.  Seeing an avenue named after our own State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle got me back on track.  I have to ask myself, does she know about what we've been discussing  here on the blog?  I've learned so much (perhaps more than I bargained for) about how the assistant state attorneys operate with relative impunity and seem to be getting away with all sorts of misbehavior.  The more I learn and the more I ask other attorneys about what I consider to be questionable behavior by at least one ASA in that office, the more I'm told "it happens all the time", "he's been known to do that again and again" or "no one's going to do anything about it", does that seem right?  Peoples civil rights being violated, prosecutors playing hide and go seek with evidence, said prosecutor engaging in all kinds of questionable conduct and clearly stepping outside his role as an advocate, is this the way the system is supposed to work?

As I mentioned in the title of the post today, certain game changing events have occurred since the last time I posted.  It looks like the company that our domain name is registered to leaked a little bit of information to us that we weren't supposed to know about, information that makes our story much bigger than the Miami Dade county mortgage fraud task force and the botched Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud investigation.  I'm disappointed by what I've learned, but get ready loyal readers, things are about to get much, much more interesting.  I can't wait!

Tyrants?

My apologies to our readers for not posting yesterday, I was on my way back to Miami from a horrific trip to Montreal, even though its not exactly Miami like weather today, its sure nice to be back.  So you ask yourself, what does the word "tyrant" have to do with our story?  Let's first start with the definition of the word:

tyrant

n.

1. An absolute ruler who governs without restrictions.

2. A ruler who exercises power in a harsh, cruel manner.

3. An oppressive, harsh, arbitrary person.

Simple enough, someone in a position of power that doesn't have to answer to anyone.  History is full of such figures, Stalin...

 Mao...

 

and closer to home, Fidel...

So what am I getting at?  What do these infamous men in history have to do with our Mortgage Fraud story?  It comes down to power and accountability, in our story there are a few players that wield extraordinary powers over the citizens of Miami Dade county, both in the MDPD and in the State Attorneys Office.  We've seen the former lead detective in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud investigation, Jorge Baluja bumble his way through a simple traffic accident investigation and then went on to learn that there's a system of checks and balances (both through the internal affairs investigation and the subsequent Independent Review Panel hearings) that held him accountable for his misdeeds and went on to reprimand him for his lousy (at least in our opinion) police work.  Perhaps if the consequences of his improper investigation of the Blanton Harris traffic accident were more serious, Mr. Harris would have gone ahead and sued Mr. Baluja and the MDPD, in this instance both the police officer and the PD would have liability in such a suit as they only enjoy Qualified Immunity, let's take a look at what that term means:

Qualified Immunity-The qualified immunity doctrine protects government officials from liability for civil damages "insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982).

Too much lawyerspeak for my dumb ass, basically as I read it, if a cop or government official knowingly screws you, they're liable.  Fair enough?  On the other hand though, Prosecutors enjoy a different kind of immunity, something called Absolute Immunity, which in a nutshell means that when a prosecutor acts within the scope of his prosecutorial duties he is nearly immune from a civil lawsuit no matter how egregious his behavior.  The Supreme Court in 1976 ruled that "prosecutors, like judges, must be free to do their jobs without fear of being sued later", fair enough right?  This means that the prosecutor knows beforehand that almost no action that he takes in a case will result in civil or criminal punishment. This is an open invitation and temptation to act in the manner of a tyrant.  As we know, history is full of examples of what happens when a powerful man is not held accountable for his actions.  Don't fret though, as we saw last week, this shield of absolute immunity around the prosecutor is slowly being chipped away.  Before we go running for the hills, also remember that a prosecutor is only afforded Absolute Immunity when he is acting as a prosecutor, the minute he steps outside his role as an advocate and into the role of an administrator or investigator, he loses that shield of Absolute Immunity and enjoys the same Qualified Immunity as the police do.  


Where is this going?  Be patient, you'll see.

Making a difference, Straw Buyer style...

There's been several occasions since the inception of our blog that we've written about something then seen an immediate reaction by one of the players in our story.  Now, don't get carried away, I'm not talking writing about the other instances of mortgage fraud that we uncovered in Coconut Grove then having the members of the MDPD and the Mortgage Fraud Task Force turn around and bust the people that we wrote about, nothing like that.  I'm talking more along the lines of people like Detective Jorge Baluja getting upset about something we've uncovered or assistant state attorney Bill Kostrzewski commenting to someone in the courthouse about something we've written, all in all events that have no bearing on anything of consequence yet they do provide a bit of comic relief in an otherwise non funny subject matter.


With that said, does anyone remember a few months back when we asked how our respective blog followers found our blog?  We seemed to have one particular blog reader that kept googling "Detective Jorge Baluja", as we mentioned before, they arrived at this screen:

Then from here they navigated through the blog, now take note we made that post on November 20, 2009.  I've mentioned before that through the blog software that we use that I can see what the individual readers are doing, how they get to the blog and where they go after they read the blog, with that said, let's take a look at the web log for this particular user starting in October 2009...

No problems, we see that whoever this user is that keeps googling "detective jorge baluja" gets to the site the same way, every day.  Let's keep going...

More of the same, no problem, moving on...

All good, now we get to November 20, 2009 the day that we wrote the story about how to get to the blog and what do we see?  Take a look at what's outlined in red...

HOLY $HIT!  Did you see that?!  From what we see whoever this is that has googled "detective jorge baluja" nearly 100 times in order to get to our site after reading our blog entry on how to get to our site using our web address now types in our URL to get to the site!  WOW!  We've made a difference!!!!!  Amazing!!!

I wonder though, who would this person be that googled "detective jorge baluja" all those times?  If you're thinking what I'm thinking then it goes to prove that we have someone intimately involved in the case that is religiously reading every single word we write here, no big deal though, we already knew as much. With that bit of light heartedness out of the way, tomorrow we have something far more serious coming up, plea hearing number 3 for non other than Bernardo Barrera Mortgage fraud co defendant John Romney.  Let's see what happens tomorrow.

So you made a mistake, now what?

Here we are wrapping up another week in our story, so in light of the fact that its Friday, let's keep it short.  We all make mistakes now and again, don't we?

Imagine for a moment that you're busy writing about whatever and you make a mistake, whether you've misinterpreted something, was told something that wasn't true or you just simply made a mistake while you were writing whatever you were writing.  What are you to do?  If you're writing by hand using a pencil, you go ahead and use one of these...

Simply apply the eraser to whatever you wrote, move it back and forth over whatever you're trying to erase and start over again.  Simple isn't it?  Now what if you've used a pen?  Perhaps if you're lucky you've used an erasable pen...

Nifty huh?  The permanence of a pen with the erasablity of a pencil!  Fantastic!  Moving on, say you're above actually handwriting what ever it is that you have to write and instead you're using a computer, what do you do now if you've made a mistake?  Take a look at the upper right hand side of your keyboard and you'll find one of these...

Simply depress the "back space" key and whatever you wrote in error will disappear!  I think you get the idea, worst case scenario you can just throw whatever you had written incorrectly in the trash and start from scratch, so simple it's not even worth mentioning right?  Perhaps this concept of correcting a mistake in something you've written is so simple that some may say it's "common sense"?  So where are we going with this?

I think by know anyone whose read at least a couple of pages of our blog is well aware that "common sense" isn't one of Detective Baluja's strong suits.  Consider for a moment that Detective Baluja was the lead detective in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud investigation, not only is the ability to correct a mistake made in a written statement of the utmost importance but 100% accuracy in his investigation is ESSENTIAL!  Imagine if the good detective were to make a mistake in one of his written statements and present something to the prosecutor that wasn't accurate, god only knows what kind of trouble that could create for everyone involved.  Now that we've established how important it is for the detective to produce accurate written statements in his investigation, what if he didn't know how to correct a mistake that was made in the writing of a statement?  Surely the police department took such a possibility into consideration, perhaps there was some part of the detectives training in the police academy that dealt with such situations?  Well, wonder no longer, let's ask the Detective himself!  From his second deposition...

WOW!  WTF?!  Surely there was some part of the detectives training in the police academy that dealt with written statements, yet they didn't cover fixing inaccurate written statements?!  Oh boy.  Did anyone expect any different from our favorite detective?

Have a great weekend!