Is the lead Detective in a headline case lying or is his star witness lying?

Which is worse?  The lead Detective in a headline case lying or the witness whose testimony he built his case on lying?  Last month we discussed how Detective Jorge Baluja interviewed a key witness in the Bernardo Barrera Mortgage fraud case, based on what we found in the deposition transcripts there seems to be some reason for concern.  The way the detective conducted this interview was troubling, in fact the witness was so rattled that she went on to state during her deposition that she wanted to make sure she wasn't going to be criminally charged, you have to ask yourself though, just how far would the witness go to make sure she wasn't going to get charged? 


With the testimony from the key witness in hand, let's see how Detective Jorge Baluja addressed the very same questions that the key witness was asked during her deposition.  Let's start off with whether or not the Detective read the witness her Miranda rights, from the witnesses deposition...

That's pretty clear now, isn't it?  Now let's see what Detective Baluja says when asked the same question during his deposition...

Did we just read that right?  It seems to me that Detective Baluja clearly states that he didn't read the witness her Miranda rights, clearly confused the attorney conducting the deposition asks the detective the question again...

Bizarre.  The witness then goes on to say...

Easy enough.  During his deposition Detective Baluja tells the attorneys that, the witness wasn't being investigated and was not a suspect in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud...

Fair enough right?  According to the Detective, the witness has nothing to worry about...

So why is she worried about getting charged if she's just a witness?  Somethings not right, look again...

Looking at her bank records Detective?  That must have given the poor girl a warm and fuzzy feeling.  Let's see what the Detective has to say...

This causes the Detective to pause for a second (I've redacted the witnesses name for privacy reasons)...

Now we clearly have a problem here as Detective Baluja has contradicted the testimony from the witness regarding her bank records, she says the detective told her he had her bank statements and he says he didn't.  It get's worse, the witness says...

When asked if he was surveilling the witness, the Detective says...

Another inconsistency, the detective again...

Really?  The witness again...

Nice.  Once again Detective Baluja leaves the witness with that warm and fuzzy feeling...

With that said, can you really blame the poor witness...

We're now presented with a serious problem folks, we have the lead detective and the key witness whose testimony the detective built his case on contradicting each other.  Someone's lying.  If the witness is lying then she loses credibility, if the detective is lying then his case is worthless.  Which is it?  We don't know much about the witness but we know the Detective has a poor track record when it comes to telling the truth and dealing with witnesses.  How does that old kids rhyme go Jorge?  Something about pants being on fire? 

I'll leave it to members of the MDPD and it's command staff who we know read our blog to consider the following quote from former Plantation police chief  Larry Massey regarding Joseph Guaracino a lying cop that he fired who was later charged with mortgage fraud...

"If you lie, you die, If you are willing to lie to me over this, what else are you willing to lie about? His integrity was shot.  In the interest of the community I separated him from service."

With the states so called "victim" added into the mix we now have the lead detective, the states victim and key witness with serious if not fatal credibility issues.  It's at this point that any reasonably prudent and competent prosecutor working the case should have had the common sense to put the brakes on this investigation, instead Prosecutor Bill Kostrzewski went full steam ahead.  As we've learned and will see in the near future though, the terms prudent, competent and common sense don't apply to Prosecutor Kostrzewski.  

Clickity Clack Bill, the train has definitely left the station!