Coincidence or a disturbing pattern of behavior regarding prosecutors handling of sensitive and perhaps exculpatory evidence.

Over the last few weeks we've discussed in detail how the the prosecutor and police detectives responsible for the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud prosecution sat on sensitive evidence which would have radically changed the way their key witness testified against the people who were ultimately charged.  This key witness was shown a clean copy of a cashiers check that was used as the down payment for the purchase of the home at the center of the alleged identity theft and mortgage fraud, a copy from the bank that issued the check...

The witness after being mirandized and scared shitless by the detective and the prosecutor tells them what they want to hear after being confronted by this check, she tells them that she had never seen the check before.  Months later after the arrests were made, this same witness was shown a second copy of the same check during a deposition...

After seeing this copy of the check with her handwriting her memory is suddenly jarred and she remembers handling the check as well as processing it.  Funny how testimony has a way of changing when your not under threat of being arrested and the fact that your handwriting is all over the check!


Our contention is that the State Attorneys Office and the Miami Dade County Police Department have had a copy of the check with the handwriting all over it since day one but chose not to show the witness the check on purpose.  Does any of this ring a bell for our readers?  Does this scenario sound vaguely familiar?  Everyone remember the Michelle Spence-Jones case right?  At the heart of the states allegations against Spence-Jones was that she forged a letter from Barbara Carey-Shuler authorizing the release of $50,000 to Spence-Jones, when Carey-Shuler was shown a copy of the letter she told prosecutors that she had not written it or signed it, here's a copy of that letter as it was shown to her by the state...

Damn!  But then months later, the states key witness against Michelle Spence-Jones, Barbara Carey-Shuler, is shown another copy of that damning letter that she said she never wrote or signed during a deposition...

Coincidentally this copy of the letter has Carey-Shuler's handwriting all over it.  After being shown this copy of the letter, Spence-Jones defense attorney Peter Raben asks...

"Whose handwriting is that?" Raben asked Carey-Shuler. "It's mine," she replied. 
When Raben quizzed her if the final version -- the one prosecutors alleged was a forgery -- was "genuine," Carey-Shuler said: "That's correct."

WHOOPS!  Now, in this case the state alleges that this copy of the letter with Carey-Shuler's handwriting all over it was buried in a box somewhere in the prosecutors office.  Some excuse huh?  The state can't take enough care before ruining someones life, career and reputation to search through every single document in their possession before pressing charges, that's rather careless isn't it?  Is this the kind of care and caution that a prosecutor uses before making such a high profile case?  I can't speculate as to what exactly happened in the Spence-Jones case or why the state do a thorough investigation into their own files before showing this letter to their star witness against Spence-Jones, for the sake of this argument, let's just say this was a tragic oversight on the part of the prosecutor.

So what about prosecutor Kostrzewski and Detective Baluja not showing their star witness in the Barrera mortgage fraud case the copy of the cashiers check with her handwriting all over it?  Unfortunate mistake or an intentional manipulation of the evidence and coercing their witness to say what they needed her to say?  Perhaps the second copy of the check with the witnesses handwriting all over it was buried in some box in the state attorneys office?  Perhaps they never had a copy of the check with the handwriting until after the arrests were made?  Or maybe they had a copy of the check with the handwriting all over it faxed over to them before the arrests were made and they conveniently decided to bury it so they could make their bullshit case and affect the arrests?  YIKES!  I can only imagine what the repercussions of something like that could be.  God forbid something like that actually happened...

So what do you think about these strange instances of key evidence being omitted from the states star witnesses when the states putting together a case?  Coincidence or just another day for a corrupt, inept morally and ethically challenged prosecutor?