How to interview a key witness according to Detective Jorge Baluja.

Say you're going to interview a key witness in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, how would you go about doing it, especially considering that your entire case is based on the testimony that this witness allegedly gave?  Let's think for a moment, you would think that you'd want to make the witness feel calm and at ease, you certainly wouldn't want the witness to feel threatened.  On the contrary, the more relaxed the witness is, the more likely they are to tell you what you want, right?  Although that approach would make sense to a person with a modicum of sense, let's not forget that we're dealing with MDPD's pride and joy, Detective Jorge Baluja.  We've seen several instances over the past year of Detective Baluja coercing witnesses and  instructing witnesses to lie, so is there any doubt that he screwed up this witness interview?

Like we said before, wouldn't you want to make the witness feel comfortable in order to gain their trust?  Let's see how Jorge achieves that trust, from the witness's deposition transcript...

There you go!  What better way to make a witness feel right at home than reading them their Miranda Rights!  Remember, we're not cops nor do we have any policing experience, this could be a standard run of the mill procedure for interviewing a witness (we doubt it), it just seems a bit odd to mirandize a witness that you're trying to elicit favorable testimony out of!  You would think that this would be a great time to tell the good detective to go fcuk himself and call an attorney.  Regardless, nothing has made sense from the inception of this case so there's no reason for anything to make sense now.

Moving right along, now that the witness has been mirandized, what does Detective Baluja do next?  Remember, it's our contention that as a detective you'd want to develop a repertoire with the witness, make them feel at ease so they can tell you everything they know about the crime being investigated, let's take a look at what the good detective does next...

FANTASTIC!  What better way to make the witness feel comfortable than to let them know that you're investigating them!  Hey there witness, I've already looked through your bank records, I've got photo's of you and your husband, run criminal background checks on you and your family and conducted surveillance on you and know what you do with your time, now would you like to answer some questions for me regarding a real estate transaction you were involved in?  Now, if the detective reading you your miranda rights wasn't enough to get you to stop the conversation and call your attorney, this certainly should be!  

Now, you've been mirandized and have now been told that the detective has turned your life upside down and has actually been following you around, assuming you haven't called your attorney by now, what are you going to do?  If you're a young woman that's never been questioned by a cop, especially the way Detective Baluja has handled himself, one can only assume that your going to do everything you can to save your ass, let's see what the witness says...

There you have it.  The witness was going to make sure she wasn't going to be charged with anything.  With the witness now backed into a corner, what good is anything they say?  If indeed the sole objective is "to make sure you were not going to be charged", then what are the chances of getting accurate testimony from the witness?  I for one would say whatever the hell the detective wanted just so I could get the fcuk out of there!

As expected, the testimony that Detective Baluja elicited from this witness is full of problems, big problems.  Did you guys expect any less?