Two City of Miami firefighters convicted of mortgage fraud yet two drastically different sentences...

Perhaps a strange coincidence or possibly something else going on?  Two veteran City of Miami firefighters engaged in massive mortgage fraud conspiracies, former assistant fire chief Veldora Arthur and firefighter Thomas Thelusma, both federally indicted.  Ms. Arthur goes to trial and loses while Mr. Thelusma decides to cut a deal with the government.  While Ms Arthur's mortgage fraud scheme was far greater than Mr. Thelusma's, there seems to be some disparity in their sentences.


As we discussed back in March, Ms Arthur was able to get away without paying back a single dollar to the banks that she defrauded, in case you missed it, here's her restitution order again...

Veldora Arthur Restitution Order

Rather shocking isn't it?  Despite having defrauded several banks out of millions of dollars, somehow Ms Arthur doesn't have to pay them back?!  No restitution whatsoever!  That's all well and good till one of our readers left us this comment last week...

Thomas Thelusma was sentenced and ordered to pay $1,035,000.00 for restitution! That must be some good ***** she has. Did she **** and **** everyone?? 

HUH?  How the hell could that be?  I pulled up Mr. Thelusma's sentencing order and found the following...

Thomas Thelusma Judgement

As I expected, Mr. Thelusma has to pay back the banks that he defrauded to the tune of $1,035,000!

I don't get it, every other convicted mortgage fraudster that we've written about has had to pay the banks they ripped off back.  Joe Guaracino from the Plantation Cops case has to pay the banks back upwards of three million, John Romney from the Bernardo Barrera case, over half a million, etc.  


You have to ask how the hell did Veldora Arthur get away without having to pay the banks back while these other guys are going to be saddled with this debt for the rest of their lives?

A juror from the Veldora Arthur trial leaves us a comment and some comments from the City of South Miami Leo Affairs message board regarding the chief...

You never know who's reading our blog, a couple of days ago we get this comment regarding former City of Miami assistant fire chief Veldora Arthur's federal mortgage fraud trial...

I served on that jury. I am so glad we saw through all the lies and deceit. I cannot believe she got to keep her pension and did not pay restitution!

Imagine that, a juror from her federal mortgage fraud trial not only reads our blog and but seems pissed that she got to keep her pension and didn't have to pay any restitution to the banks that she ripped off!  Sweet!


Now, let's take a look over at the City of South Miami Leo Affairs forum and read some of the comments regarding the Chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro and the matter of his wife's company doing business with the city...

Re: Chief Martinezby Guest » 03/19/12 16:22:56
Talk about corruption. This chief seems like the f--kup of the decade! Who on earth would ever trust a loser like this?

Re: Chief Martinezby Guest » 03/25/12 08:18:32
Is FDLE and the CJSTC looking into this? How can this guy be a Chief of Police? They should relieve him of duty immediately.

• 
  

Re: Chief Martinezby Guest » 03/25/12 08:48:43
The one that can, the city manager, will not. The questions the mayor and city commissioners must ask of the city manager are these: What did he know about this clear violation of the city’ charter? When did he know it? How does he intend to correct the violation?

OK!  The members of that forum go further and on this thread suggest that someone's going to end up losing their job as a result of this matter...

Herald reports on chief's ethics investigation.by Guest » 04/13/12 21:31:32
Splain Jefe!!

Re: Herald reports on chief's ethics investigation.by Flummoxed » 04/14/12 12:42:26
He cannot! Martinez-De Castro; city manager Hector Mirable knew, they all knew these transactions blatantly violated the governing city charter provision. If the mayor and most of the commission had a shred of courage and decency in them, they would fire the most culpable parties. They are cowards; worse complicit. Guess the appearance of impropriety is no longer or never was a concern at South Miami?

Re: Herald reports on chief's ethics investigation.by Guest » 04/22/12 10:11:38
Fire the Chief

Re: Herald reports on chief's ethics investigation.by Flummoxed » 04/23/12 15:54:18
This is not going away! So who’s going to fall on the sword? This is incestuous; it is “Malum Prohibitum!”

 Re: Herald reports on chief's ethics investigation.by Spartacus » 04/24/12 20:28:38
Let me see....Who was in charge of Vehicles the last few years? Hmmm, I know, Let's blame it on Salerno. He's Retired, He's Old. He wont fight back... Lt. Dan, say hello to Mr. Sword...LOL

Re: Herald reports on chief's ethics investigation.by Flummoxed » 04/25/12 09:09:20
No, that will not do! Unless city leaders are willing to sever the manager and chief’s contracts and consequently payout significant sums to both men, an active duty sacrificial lamb is required. Ana Baixauli is it!

Wow.  I don't know much about the inner workings of the South Miami PD, anyone care to comment?

From a simple ethical lapse to a full blown cover up...

Yep, from a simple ethical lapse to a full blown cover up.  That's where we're at now with the story of the City of South Miami doing business with it's police chief's wife's company. This all started with us uncovering a number of transactions between the city and the police chief's wife's tag agency.  Simple enough, that is until we discovered that this relationship between the city and the chief's wife's company was strictly prohibited under the city's own ethics code...

(c)Prohibition on transacting business with the city. No person included in the terms defined in paragraphs (b)(1) through (6) and in paragraph (b)(9) shall enter into any contract or transact any business in which that person or a member of the immediate family has a financial interest, direct or indirect with the city or any person or agency acting for the city, and any such contract, agreement or business engagement entered in violation of this subsection shall render the transaction voidable. Willful violation of this subsection shall constitute malfeasance in office and shall effect forfeiture of office or position. 

Fair enough.  Shortly after we reported on this ethical lapse, City of South Miami City Manager, Hector Mirabile, sends out an interoffice memo that speaks directly to the "related parties parties transaction"...

"A "Related Parties Transaction" form was developed for inclusion to the Vendor Registration process.  Vendors registering with the City must affirm their company or principals do not violate the City's code of Ethics as defined in Section 8A-1.  Completion of the form confirms that no employees, directors or officers of the vendor are related to any City personnel.  The form is under review by the City attorney."

Ok, so it's fairly obvious that our findings have gotten the attention of the folks over at City Hall.

Just a few days later our story gets the attention of the Miami Herald.  Several city officials, including the city manager, go on the record and claim that the police chief nor anyone else within the city had any idea that the city was doing business with the police chief's wife's company.  Fantastic right?  That is until we get the email that we posted on Monday, in case you missed it, here it is again...

I worked at Airways Auto Tag Agency for several years, and in one occasion I processed transactions for the City of South Miami.  At the time of these transactions three individuals from the city actually came in to the office to perform these transactions.  They introduced themselves as being coworkers that were refered by Orlando Martinez De Castro husband of Ileana Martinez De Castro and also chief of City of South Miami.  Before coming to the office a quote for the amount of the transactions was issued to the individuals representing the City of South Miami, and about a week later that individuals came to the office to process those transactions.  Those transactions were paid with a check from The City of South Miami for the amount of the quote. 

After receiving this email, I contacted the person who sent it to me and set up a meeting.  Needless to say, I met with the person who sent me the email and went over the story again and again.  Rest assured, they were able to identify the three people from the city that came over from the tag agency, their interaction both on the phone and in person.  I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of their story as it was backed up by other eyewitnesses that I was able to find that were familiar with the transactions in question.  The icing on the cake?  Everyone I spoke to regarding these transactions are willing to cooperate and give sworn statements to any agency that may be investigating this case.

So now what?  What about the "no on knew what was going on" statements the city officials gave the Herald?  What about the city manager, Hector Mirabile, assertions of the chief not knowing the city using his wife's tag agency?  Bullshit, that's what.  The chief knew exactly what was going on as did the city manager and everyone else involved.  What began as a simple ethical lapse has now turned into a full blown cover up orchestrated at the highest levels of the City of South Miami government and not just because someone has stepped forward saying so, there's more evidence coming in that's going to further bolster my claims, we'll hold back on posting these documents so we can watch everyone involved dig themselves deeper and deeper into the hole they've created.

Now, for those of you who have any hope that Joe Centorino's ethics commission will do anything about the goings on in South Miami, take a look at our friend Al Crespo's site and see how Mr. Centorino and friends screwed up the investigation into the Regalado's campaign finance case.

If a picture is worth a thousand words...

Then this email I received over the weekend is worth far more when it comes to the City of South Miami and it's Police Chief's relationship with his wife's company, Airways Auto Tag Agency.  Remember, ever since we uncovered the City of South Miami's dealings with the police chief's wife's company, clearly in violation of the city's own ethics code, everyone involved from the city has denied every knowing that this unethical business relationship was going on.  Remember, when confronted by the Miami Herald, both the city manager, Hector Mirabile and police major Ana Baixauli simply brushed it off as an innocent mistake that the police chief, Orlando Martinez De Castro knew nothing about.


Take a look at this email which turns the city's version of events on its ear, rest assured, I've verified the source of this email...

I worked at Airways Auto Tag Agency for several years, and in one occasion I processed transactions for the City of South Miami.  At the time of these transactions three individuals from the city actually came in to the office to perform these transactions.  They introduced themselves as being coworkers that were refered by Orlando Martinez De Castro husband of Ileana Martinez De Castro and also chief of City of South Miami.  Before coming to the office a quote for the amount of the transactions was issued to the individuals representing the City of South Miami, and about a week later that individuals came to the office to process those transactions.  Those transactions were paid with a check from The City of South Miami for the amount of the quote. 

Now what?  So much for that "we had no idea this was going on" nonsense, right?  We'll discuss in detail next time.

I'm a scumbag!

That's right!  According to this email from City of South Miami commissioner Valerie Newman I am...

From: Valerie Newman <valerienewman09@gmail.com>

Date: April 15, 2012 4:38:31 PM EDT

To: Eda Harris <pinukh@gmail.com>

Cc: walter harris <walterhrs@gmail.com>, Mayor Stoddard <mayorstoddard@gmail.com>, Josh Liebman <JLiebman@southmiamifl.gov>, "bobnoxious928@yahoo.com" <bobnoxious928@yahoo.com>, Lorie <lay0qku@atlanticbb.net>, yvonneb <beckmany@bellsouth.net>, Antoinette Fischer <toinettefsh@gmail.com>, "hmirabile@southmiamifl.gov" <hmirabile@southmiamifl.gov>, James Dundorf <james.dundorf@att.net>, "OMartinezDeCastro@southmiamifl.gov" <OMartinezDeCastro@southmiamifl.gov>, "beth4@wallflowergallery.com" <beth4@wallflowergallery.com>, Claudia Hauri <dochauri@bellsouth.net>, Daniel Montana <dmontana@bellsouth.net>, "denny@dennywood.net" <denny@dennywood.net>

Subject: Re: CITY MANAGER SENTENCED TO 20 YEARS OF HARD LABOR

An excellent blogger? Oh the ignorance of so many. The blogger in question had his nose out of joint because his wife was arrested for alleged mortgage fraud! The arresting cop was also involved in the arrest of three employees at the tag agency who have allegedly embezzled over $200k. 

According to a Herald reporter the blogger is a real scumbag. Her words not mine. 

Of course then there is Mr Wood. Non resident of South Miami who knows nothing of the Mayor's character nor apparently knows nothing of the Mayor' penchant for stretching the truth or telling outright lies. 

I believe the mayor or perhaps one of the mayors friends made sure the blogger got the records concerning the tag purchase. It is a fact the Herald wrote the story because the Mayor gave them the info. Of course his name is not mentioned. He loves to throw the stone and hide behind his "MASK" !

Sent from my iPhone

 

Well, well, well! This is the part that bugs me the most...

According to a Herald reporter the blogger is a real scumbag. Her words not mine.

 

No kidding?  That's funny.  Let's take a look at the definition of "scumbag":

 

scum·bag/ˈskəmˌbag/

Noun:

A contemptible or objectionable person.

That's no fun now is it?  Let's look to the internet for a more current definition of what a scumbag is...

scumbag A person of poor judgement and no class. You scumbag motherfucking asshole shit for brains you should be shot   A person with no sense of propriety, decency or discretion. He told her to blow him or else? What a scumbag!   1. (n.) vulgar slang for a used condom. This nomenclature has been widely used for decades. 2. (n.) One that is disgusting, disreputable or possessing of low-life characteristics. 1. David, you've got a pile of scumbags on your night table. How about getting rid of them? The aroma is about to make me puke my guts out! 2. Did I overhear someone talking about Jessie Sue's new boyfriend? I've known him for years. He's nothing but a cock-sucking, shit-eating scumbag.   . That's much better.  There's one problem though, I don't think anyone from the Herald called me a scumbag, even worse, I'm told there was an argument after last Tuesday's City of South Miami commission meeting between commissioner Newman and the very Herald reporter she claimed called me a "scumbag" regarding this very email.  From what I heard, the reporter vehemently denies calling me a scumbag which leads me to believe that it was none other than commissioner Newman who has now labeled me as a "scumbag".  That's all well and dandy as I have no problem wearing the label of "scumbag", as a matter of fact from now on anyone reading this blog can feel free to call me a scumbag.

The question you have to ask yourself is what the fuck difference does it make whether I'm a scumbag or not when all I'm doing here is revealing the truth about the goings on between the City of South Miami and it's police chief's family business?  What difference does it make whether I'm a scumbag or not when I've revealed that the chief's wife has railroaded three innocent girls whose lives have been ruined in an effort to cover up some sort of nefarious scheme in her tag agency?

So I'm a scumbag, call me all the names in the book, scumbag, crook, deadbeat, whatever you want Ms. Newman, I'm fine with that.  Everything I write here is the truth, backed up with documents to prove what I'm saying, if that makes me a scumbag, so be it.  I'm curious though, what exactly are you going to call me after I prove that the chief knew about these transactions between the city and his wife's company?

She just wanted to help, that's all!

At least that's what the City of South Miami's police chief's wife said when the Miami Herald asked her about the strange business relationship between the city and her tag agency that's located nearly ten miles away.  According to the Herald article we talked about yesterday, the police chief's wife, Ileana Martinez de Castro, claimed that by doing business with the city she helped "the police officers expedite things quickly".  That's a wonderful sentiment isn't it, especially coming from the police chief's wife.  What with things being so expensive, it's great to think that the chief's wife wanted to help save the citizens of South Miami some money by processing the police departments tag work in the most expeditious fashion.  
Does her statement make any sense though?  Are we to believe, according to the Herald story, that a police officer or other city employee, made their way all the way across the county practically to Hialeah to process a tag in an effort to save money?  Major Baixauli from the city goes on to say...

"They saved us time.  If our officers would have gone somewhere else they would have had to sit and wait for two to three hours,"

Ok, fair enough.  Let's for a moment buy into the premise that a uniformed cop or other city employee would have to wait in line at a tag agency, for the time being, let's just concentrate on how long it would take to get to the chief's wife's business, Airways Auto Tag Agency, from the City of South Miami City Hall.  According to Google maps, the distance between City Hall and Airways Auto Tag Agency is 8.8 miles, based on what Google tells us that drive would take approximately 21 minutes with no traffic, I strongly disagree as I often drive that route myself, depending on traffic I'd put it at something closer to 30 to 45 minutes depending on traffic.  So let's just say for the sake of argument that it's 30 minutes in each direction and add in another fifteen minutes for parking and actually taking care of the transaction, that gives us a total of one hour and fifteen minutes, again, this is a highly optimistic estimate, in the real world this deal would take closer to two hours, regardless, let's settle on an hour and fifteen minutes for the purposes of our conversation.
Now, what about that other tag agency that we discussed a few weeks back that was less than three miles from city hall?  Once again, from Google maps we found that the tag agency located at 5759 SW 40th street is only 2.6 miles away from city hall, according to Google, door to door it's less than seven minutes away.  For those of you who are familiar with the area, you'll recognize that this is just a hop, skip and a jump away from city hall.  Wouldn't this make more sense than driving all the way across town and fighting traffic around the Miami International Airport?  It sure seems like it to me.
Ok, now that we've established that the tag agency over on 40th street is far closer than chief's wife's tag agency over by the Airport, the question we're left with is which is more convenient from the service standpoint?  Major Baixauli claims that if the PD was to use another tag agency, they'd have to possibly wait for hours before their transaction was processed, I guess anything is possible right?  The only way to figure this out was to go ahead and go to the tag agency over on 40th street and see for myself.
Off we went at 15 after 9 till we got to the Red Bird shopping center located on the corner of 57th avenue and 40th street where the tag agency is located.  I found myself there a few minutes before the tag agency opened, so I found a parking spot in the center's massive parking lot, went next door to the cafeteria and picked up a pastry while I waited for the agency to open.  This agency's location is in stark contrast to where the chief's wife's agency is located in an unsavory and nasty part of town, with somewhat less than adequate parking and no amenities anywhere around the agency's location.

As soon as the agency opened up, I walked right in, no one else there except me and two tellers.  If I did have any business to transact, I could have theoretically been in and out of there in less than five minutes.  No lines, no hassle, no wait, very much unlike the atmosphere at Airways Auto tag where there's always a crowd of people inside, always a wait and always a pain in the ass.  If we were to have left from city hall, we could have been in and out of here and back at city hall in a fraction of the time it would have taken us to go over to the chief's wife's tag agency.  
So now, assuming that a city employee actually ever trekked across town to do business with the police chief's wife's business, how could they possibly have saved time by doing so?  We all know that this likely never happened and that the suggestion that it ever did is nothing than an insult to our readers intelligence.  
What about the chief's wife's contention of "just wanting to help?", I think this sums it up pretty well... 

Oh well, just another day in South Miami I guess...  

Taking a closer look at the Herald story from yesterday.

We left off yesterday discussing the Herald story on the relationship between the City of South Miami and the police chief's wife's tag agency.  As we had discussed in the past, it's against the City of South Miami's code of ethics for the city to be doing business with a business owned by family members of a city employee.  Simple enough, right?  Let's take a look at some excerpts from the article where the people involved try to explain what went on.  From the article...

The city has paid Airways Auto Tag about $3,000 for services since 2003.

Ok, so here we establish that the city has been doing business with the chief's wife's company, Airways Auto Tag Agency, since 2003 and has spent roughly around $3,000 with the company.  

City Manager Hector Mirabile said Martinez de Castro knew nothing about the purchases at the time they were made, and when he found out, immediately told his staff to stop using his wife’s company.

Now, does that even sound believable?  The chief had no idea his own police department was steering work to his wife's business?  While I find that hard to believe, let's give the chief the benefit of the doubt.

 She said the chief hasn’t been involved in her business, and that her only intention was to “help the police officers expedite things quickly.” She regrets doing the transactions.

Oh really?  Assuming that the chief had no idea what was going on, how would the City of South Miami's police department even know to send work over to his wife's tag agency?  She just wanted to help the officers expedite things, yet there was no discussion whatsoever with the chief?  Are we to believe when the need for a tag agency arose from the police department that the chief never told any of the members of the PD or anyone in the city that his wife owned a tag agency?  That's a bit of a stretch in my opinion.

South Miami Maj. Ana Baixauli has been overseeing the department’s administrative bureau since 2010. She said the chief never asked her to steer business to the agency.

Ok, Ms Baixauli, we understand that the chief never told you to steer business to his wife's tag agency, but according to the article, you only started working at the city in 2010, the business relationship between the city and the chief's wife's company had been going on since 2003!

“They saved us time. If our officers would have gone somewhere else they would have had to sit and wait for two to three hours,”

WTF?  No kidding?  If your officers would have gone somewhere else they would have had to wait two to three hours?  Can you imagine a single tag agency in this state where a police officer would go in and wait in line for two to three hours?

“It was an unintentional error,” said Baixauli. “I have checked my records and that was the only error I found. We work hard to avoid these types of mistakes, but in the end we are only human.”

An unintentional error?  Are you sure about that?  Somehow I doubt it, that's not how it works.  You just can't walk in off the street and start doing business with the City, there's a process involved with becoming a vendor, applications have to be filled out, a vendor number has to be assigned, etc.  There's no way this was an unintentional error.  More tomorrow...

The Herald covers part of our Airways Auto Tag Agency story...

The Miami Herald decided that part of our Airways Auto Tag Agency story was newsworthy, while they didn't cover the parts of the story that I would have liked them to, what they did cover was the incestuous relationship between the City of South Miami and the police chief's wife's tag agency.  Take a look at look at the story here...

South Miami police bought services from police chief’s wife
By ANDREA TORRESThe Miami Herald
Orlando Martinez de Castro has been South Miami's police chief since 2010. He had been a chief before for a year in 2005.
South Miami police administrators broke city and state rules when they used the services of an auto tag agency owned by the police chief’s wife.
The city has paid Airways Auto Tag about $3,000 for services since 2003. Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro worked for the city from 1998 to 2006 and from 2010 to the present, and some of the purchases were during his tenure. City rules prohibit making any purchases from a relative of a city employee.
City Manager Hector Mirabile said Martinez de Castro knew nothing about the purchases at the time they were made, and when he found out, immediately told his staff to stop using his wife’s company.
Ileana Martinez de Castro is the owner of Airways Auto Tag, 3636 NW 36th St., near Hialeah. She said the chief hasn’t been involved in her business, and that her only intention was to “help the police officers expedite things quickly.” She regrets doing the transactions.
“The $220 headache is just not worth it,” Martinez de Castro said referring to the fees the agency charged for some of the services rendered on 2011.
The chief issued the order after the transactions were mentioned in The Straw Buyer blog. Businessman Mazyer “Mike” Hatami, who lives in Coral Gables, has been writing the blog in his spare time since 2008. He said he was working on another story when he stumbled upon public records that linked the agency, 3636 NW 36th St., to the police chief.
“Why not go directly to the state? Or go to one of the dozen tag agencies in the vicinity? I found it highly suspicious,” said Hatami.
Private tag agencies in Miami-Dade are subject to a set fee schedule. They are responsible for sending monies collected to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. They are also authorized to charge a convenience fee and a transaction fee from customers.
South Miami Maj. Ana Baixauli has been overseeing the department’s administrative bureau since 2010. She said the chief never asked her to steer business to the agency.
“They saved us time. If our officers would have gone somewhere else they would have had to sit and wait for two to three hours,” said Baixauli. “The prices are the same wherever you go. It’s all about saving the city time and money.”
While the offices of tax collectors are open only during normal business hours, private agencies are open after 5 p.m. and sometimes on Saturday.
Baixauli signed off on the checks issued to Airways Auto Tag — including one dated Feb. 28, 2011, for $525. The check was voided and later reissued in September. Baixauli signed off on the use of the state criminal forfeiture funds for the transaction. The trust fund is established to keep revenue from confiscated property. Florida statutes require the City Commission’s approval for the funds to be expended. That did not happen.
“It was an unintentional error,” said Baixauli. “I have checked my records and that was the only error I found. We work hard to avoid these types of mistakes, but in the end we are only human.”
To correct the mistake, Mirabile had the funds reimbursed to the forfeiture account on Friday.
Vice Mayor Josh Liebman and Commissioner Valerie Newman said that in this case enforcing the city ordinance is unnecessary.
"Orlando is a great police chief. He has turned our city around,” said Newman. “No one should be questioning his integrity."
The chief began his career as a police officer with the city of Miami in 1970. He joined South Miami in March 2, 1998. The relationship with Airways Auto Tag began in 2003, two years after the chief’s wife bought the company.
After serving as interim chief, Martinez de Castro was named chief in 2005. Mirabile, a former Miami police major, brought Martinez de Castro back to South Miami on October, 20, 2010. The City Commission ratified his five-year contract.
Hatami said he spoke to the Miami-Dade County ethics commission director, Joseph Centorino, about the violation of the ordinance, but did not file a formal complaint. Centorino declined to comment.
Liebman said that supporting city staff is important for stability.
“I don’t think the procedural details merit a lot of attention. The focus needs to be on the chief’s qualifications and job performance,” said Liebman. “He is a great asset to this community.”
Miami Herald staff writer Christina Veiga contributed to this story.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/13/v-print/2746923/south-miami-bought-services-from.html#storylink=cpy

Take a moment to go through all the comments from that story, we'll discuss the story at length tomorrow.

NO COMMENT GOD DAMN IT!

WTF?!  Somehow no one wants to comment on the possible investigation into the incestious relationship between the City of South Miami, it's police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro and his wife's tag agency.  We've been following the story of the Airways Auto Tag Agency tellers who, at least in our opinion, were framed for the theft of tens of thousands of dollars that all allegedly occurred in one day at the City of South Miami Police Chief's wife's tag agency.  While we find the allegations in the police report against these three tellers to be ludicrous at best, what we accidentally stumbled upon during our investigation of this case was that the City of South Miami was doing business with the chief's wife's business, a clear violation of the city's own ethics code.

A few months back, we met with members of the Miami Dade County Ethics Commission and we brought up this conflict of interest story between the City of South Miami and the Police Chief's wife's business and were assured by none other than the commissions executive director, Joe Centorino, that these were very serious allegations and that they were going to look into this alleged "conflict of interest" right away.  I've tried to follow up several times and the only answer I've gotten to date is "we can't comment".  Ok, the other day a couple of different members of the mainstream media contacted me and asked me what I knew about the investigation after which I asked them what they've been able to find out.  It seems like no matter who they've asked, whether members of the Ethics Commission, City of South Miami commissioners, City of South Miami Mayor or even the Chief of Police, Orlando Martinez de Castro, across the board everyone has the same answer "No Comment"!  WTF?

Thankfully, we have our own sources which tell us that Chief Martinez de Castro has been telling those around him that he had no idea that the city was doing business with his family owned tag agency...

You don't say?  Anything is possible I guess.  While no one want's to comment on what's going on at the Ethics Commission regarding this City of South Miami/Airways Auto Tag mess, there's one thing that we know for sure, where there's smoke there's fire and after watching the way the three tellers from the Airways Auto Tag Agency boondoggle were railroaded, something tells me there's a lot more going on in Chief Martinez de Castro's little fiefdom than meets the eye...

Tomorrow, I promise!

I have to apologize to all our readers, I've been slammed both at work and in my personal life over the last week, so I've been unable to make a proper post here on our blog.  There's a lot to go over and I promise, we'll have a proper post up for tomorrow.

Until then, enjoy this newspaper clipping...

Sounds legit...

Looks like there was a hearing yesterday that we missed...

Unfortunately it looks like I missed a hearing in the Airways Auto Tag Agency criminal case yesterday.  I've had my hands full lately with all sorts of other crap so I wasn't able to keep an eye on the court docket, regardless, the prosecutor asked Judge Bloom for a continuance because of some new evidence that has come to light.  We don't know exactly what "new evidence" may have come to light, we'll discuss that further on Monday.

Till then though, have a happy holiday, I'll leave you guys with some footage of my favorite Easter Bunny...

Are we getting someones attention over at the City of South Miami?

It looks like it!  We stumbled into our City of South Miami mess during the course of our Airways Auto Tag Agency story.  Through a chain of events that I find hard to comprehend, we discovered the story of three tellers at a tag agency owned by the City of South Miami's police chief's wife being accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the agency.  Through the course of our investigation (LOL) we found that the City of South Miami had been doing business with this tag agency that's located well outside of the city's boundaries and coincidentally doing business with the tag agency that the city's police chief has a financial interest in goes against the city's own code of ethics.  From our post a few weeks ago regarding the matter...

(c)Prohibition on transacting business with the city. No person included in the terms defined in paragraphs (b)(1) through (6) and in paragraph (b)(9) shall enter into any contract or transact any business in which that person or a member of the immediate family has a financial interest, direct or indirect with the city or any person or agency acting for the city, and any such contract, agreement or business engagement entered in violation of this subsection shall render the transaction voidable. Willful violation of this subsection shall constitute malfeasance in office and shall effect forfeiture of office or position. 

Ok, so according to the city's own code of ethics, doing city business with a family member or a company that a city employee has a financial interest in is strictly prohibited, as a matter of fact the code of ethics states that the punishment for someone caught doing so is termination...

Willful violation of this subsection shall constitute malfeasance in office and shall effect forfeiture of office or position.  

Last night we learned that City of South Miami's City Manager, Hector Mirabile, sent out an office memorandum on April 3, 2012 that specifically mentioned this issue of the city doing business with family members, it's buried on page 4 under "related parties transaction"...

"A "Related Parties Transaction" form was developed for inclusion to the Vendor Registration process.  Vendors registering with the City must affirm their company or principals do not violate the City's code of Ethics as defined in Section 8A-1.  Completion of the form confirms that no employees, directors or officers of the vendor are related to any City personnel.  The form is under review by the City attorney."

Ok, this new form seems to address this "related parties transaction" issue going forward, but what about what's happened in the past?  Are we to believe that the City's police chief had no idea that work was being steered towards his wife's business?  I find that hard to believe.  On the other hand, I know for a fact that the city just cant randomly start doing business with anyone they'd like, I'm sure there's a process in place where the vendor has to get approved before the city starts doing business with them, once again, are we to believe that the chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, had no idea that the city was doing business with his wife's tag agency?  Regardless, we know that the punishment for such behavior according to the City's own code of ethics is crystal clear...

Willful violation of this subsection shall constitute malfeasance in office and shall effect forfeiture of office or position.  

I wonder what's going to happen?  I can tell you this much though, it's obvious all our blabbering about this issue has caught someones attention over at the City of South Miami's city hall, I also know for a fact that the folks over at the Miami Dade Ethics Commission are looking into what's going on as well.   

It looks like it's time to start shooting out some public information requests to see what we can find out about this cozy relationship between the City of South Miami and the police chief's family business.  Rest assured, that this is only the tip of the iceberg, considering how the three tellers were railroaded with these bullshit trumped up charges of theft, I can only imagine what we're going to find once we start digging...

It's about who you know...

There's no doubt, down here in Miami, it's all about who you know.  For those of you that have been following our Airways Auto Tag agency story, it's blatantly obvious that if the owner of the tag agency was anyone other than the wife of of a police chief, things would have gone down completely differently.  Think about it, when the shit hit the fan, is there any doubt that the chief made a few phone calls and pushed the investigation along?  Does anyone believe that the cops that came out and investigated the case weren't in one way shape or form biased because the alleged victim of the theft was none other than a sitting police chief's wife?  Not to mention a police chief that had long standing personal ties with our own state attorney?  Did the poor tellers that were charged have a shot at getting their stories heard or was their fate sealed before the detectives asked them a single question?  We all know the answer to that, obviously being married to a police chief has it's advantages, especially when the cops (even from an unrelated jurisdiction) are investigating your business.

Bernardo Barrera

So what's the point here other than stating the obvious?  We all know it pays to have friend or family in high places, especially when the cops are looking at you under the microscope, it's these kinds of connections that can ultimately keep you out of harms way.  This brings us back to the first story we covered on our blog, the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case.  Years ago we picked apart just about every claim that Mr. Barrera made about his identity being stolen, we even went so far as to hire our own handwriting expert who proved that Mr. Barrera's actual signature was all over the fraudulent loan documents therefore making him an indispensable member of the organized scheme to defraud, you have to ask yourself though, with the overwhelming mountain of evidence that we compiled against this man who claimed his identity was stolen, how the hell did the cops and the state attorneys office buy his story hook line and sinker?  I could never understand how they ate up every word Mr. Barrera fed them and even after he was proven to be a liar, the state still refuses to go after him, how could this be?  Simple, Mr. Barrera himself tells us how he was able to pull all this off literally in the first page of his deposition from the criminal trial that arose from the alleged theft of his identity...

There you have it!  According to Mr. Barrera his brother is the attorney general of Panama!  How many times do you think he told the police and the state attorney that through the course of the investigation and the subsequent criminal case?  Any doubt that "my brother is the attorney general of Panama" somehow changed the states perception of the case against Mr. Barrera no matter how much evidence there was against him?  


Like I said before, it's all about who you know...