Indicted City of Miami assistant fire chief Veldora Arthur and firefighter Thomas Thelusma on paid leave?! And "Operation Cop out", what's in a name?

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Could this be true? Several sources as well as several of our commenters tell us that both Veldora Arthur and Thomas Thelusma have been on paid administrative leave since they were federally indicted for mortgage fraud! From our comments section...

Anonymous said...

Where the F*^k are the Cops!Veldora Arthur has been on PAID LEAVE since March! Now Thomas Thelusma has the same special 'LEAVE' Plan!! WTF I total agree that all are innocent until proving guilty BUT that doesn't mean you CANT WORK. But then again we DON'T Get IT.....because its a 'Black Thing'.

May 19, 2011 10:09 AM

While I don't agree with the "black thing" comment, the rest is very troubling if true. As we've said time and time again, we believe in the presumption of innocence, innocent till proven guilty, but this business of getting federally indicted and then being put on paid administrative leave is a bit much, isn't it?


What's even more troubling is the fact that the cops indicted in operation "Cop out" aka the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case were put on "leave" without pay after they were indicted. Why did the cops get sent home with no money while having to prove their innocence while the City of Miami fire department employees get to stay home while still raking in six figures? Worse still, with the City of Miami teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, how the hell can they justify paying these federally indicted employees while they're sitting at home? Can we really afford to have anyone sitting at home while getting paid as if they were at work?


Now, going back to the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud case, aka "Operation Cop out", we learned yesterday that the decision to go after the cops was made by FDLE special agent Dennis Roadruck...

In the spoilation hearing before this court Lead Agent Dennis Roadruck testified that he in his sole disgression limited this investigation to the cops.

I wonder what it was about the cops that caused agent Roadruck to focus his attention on them and them alone? We've been told time and time again throughout the course of this investigation and subsequent trial that the mortgage brokers involved, Rene Rodriguez and Matt Gulla, had committed hundreds if not thousands of similar frauds. Even worse, the government was not only aware of these other cases of fraud but they also had the mortgage brokers records and hard drives which contained proof of these frauds, so why did this investigation only zero in on the cops that were indicted?

You guys hash it out and we'll discuss further next time.