The Miami New Times and the Miami Herald pick up our Ana Alliegro story.

Our friend Francisco Alvarado over at the New Times picked up our story on "republican bad girl" Ana Alliegro's criminal past and was nice enough to give us credit for our work, his story can be found here.  Also, Marc Caputo from the Miami Herald also picked up our story yet somehow forgot to give us credit.  Oh well.  More tomorrow...

The other Ana Alliegro...

Easy on the P-Chop Ana!

While everyone one is out running around looking for Ana Alliegro, has anyone wondered just who the hell this woman is?  We'll let our friends and fellow bloggers over at Eye on Miami describe her...

Ana was managing the campaign for Democrat Justin Sternad running against David Rivera. Sternad is believed to be a shill put in the race by David Rivera and Sternad's campaign also was believed to be financed with David Rivera's help. There were $100 bills stuffed in envelopes paying for Sternads's extensive campaign flyers said a mail house operator who was also a former government agent. Ana Alliegro's lawyer and her mother both have not heard from her.

It's a pretty shitty convoluted story, essentially this woman is a self described "republican political operative" or in her own words a "Republican Political Guru and Conservative Bad Girl!"  Remember that "Bad Girl" part, we'll come back to that in a moment.  From what we've been able to dig up on Ms. Alliegro, at one time she dated republican local politician Alex Diaz de la Portilla and according to county records she was even married to ex City of Miami Mayor Joe Carollo for a couple of months!  WTF?!  Joe was nearly 15 years older than Ms. Alliegro, regardless, we'll see that Ms. Alliegro has a penchant for older men.

What little we're able to find about Ms. Alliegro online shows her hobnobbing with powerful politicians otherwise there isn't much about Ms. Alliegro online.  Not much going on in the Dade county clerk of courts website, I even went so far as to look and see if she had any criminal history on the clerks website, this is what I came up with, as always, click on the image to enlarge...

Joe Carollo

So according to the clerks website, there's no criminal record for Ms. Alliegro.  Oh well, it's a one in the morning, so I figured, screw it, nothing to see here, move along, I'm off to bed.  But then I realized that there was something haywire going on, I knew she was married to Joe Carollo at one point, so why wasn't I able to find any record of her divorce online?  Normally, I'd go to the clerk of courts site and look up a name through a civil/probate justice screen, which in this case showed nothing, so I figured why not look her up using the Marriage license search?  I did so and found this...

Moshe Cosicher

Come to find out Ms. Alliegro has been married twice, most recently to Mayor Joe Carollo, but before that she was married to another guy named Moshe Cosicher.  Like I said before though, it turns out that Ms. Alliegro has a thing for older men, in Moshe's case she was 21 years older than Mr. Cosicher.  Still, nothing groundbreaking here, right?  I was still perplexed as to why I couldn't find anything in the clerk of courts criminal justice system especially since the mainstream media kept talking about some sort of pending case against her, so I figured I'd try searching again, this time using either the Cosicher or Carollo last names.  Nothing came up under Carollo but I did find something under Cosicher...

Rut ro!  Two separate criminal cases, let's look at the first one, case #F-07-001660...

SWEET!  Improperly exhibiting a firearm, discharging said firearm and false imprisonment!  Holy shit!  Now onto the second one, case #B-09-038964...

Yikes!  She's a petty thief as well!  It looks like she got off on both cases, the first one with the help of old Miami doper attorney Simon Steckel.  What these two cases give us though is a completely different picture of Ms. Alliegro, not the clean doctored image of a political operative that we've seen flashed throughout local media, but a new picture of a gun toting, false imprisoning petty thief...

No P-chop going on here!

WTFsauce folks?  Is this what republican politics have come down to?  This gun toting hostage taking whack job is a political operative?  Even worse, considering the shitstorm congressman David Rivera is in the middle of, why the hell would he want to have anything to do with this train wreck of a woman?  On another note, why hasn't anyone in mainstream media dug into this woman's background?  We'll have to take a look and see whats going on.

Just how bad are things over at the City of Miami?

Could they possibly be this bad?

I've seen this City of Miami Fire Department Suburban several times this week with a busted out rear window covered with a plastic sheet.  Could things really be this bad that they can't afford to replace the rear window?  Overall I've noticed that the city's fire trucks and equipment were worn out and ragged out looking, either really dirty or with the paint faded out so bad that they no longer look red but more like a dark pink.  Could the city be so tight on money that they can't afford to keep up their equipment any longer?  I know the rest of their vehicles already look like shit, especially the police cars, but generally the fire trucks and assorted fire department vehicles are generally in good shape.

On another note, I'm sure you've all heard that former North Miami Mayor Beach Myron Rosner has been arrested on corruption and grand theft charges.  What's most interesting about this case is that it arose because of a blogger named  Stephanie Kienzle who's been after Mr. Rosner for years through her blog named Voters Voice.  Congrats to Stephanie, good work.

We'll leave off with another scandal that's rocked the Miami Dade Criminal Court system over the last few weeks, the story of the leopard print underwear.  In this case a public defender named Anya Cintron Stern decided to take photos of her clients underwear and post it on her facebook page.  From the Miami New Times story...

The family of defendant Fermin Recalde, who stands accused of a 2010 Hialeah murder, dropped off a bag of clothes to wear during trial. Public defender Anya Cintron Stern apparently thought the leopard-print man-briefs included in the bag were hilarious, and posted a photo of similar briefs on Facebook with a caption insisting they weren't "proper attire for trial." One of Cintron Stern's friend tipped off the legal system. She was fired and the case ended in mistrial.

What a horrific situation for the defendant, rather than concentrate on defending him the attorney somehow finds time not only to take photos of his underwear but then has the audacity to publicly post photos of said underwear on facebook. I'm glad she got fired.

Another letter from Krome...

Warren Papove

Those of you who follow our blog know all too well the story of Warren Papove, the South Miami handyman that got caught in the crossfire of a nasty political battle between City of South Miami commissioner Valerie Newman, Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro and Commissioner Bob Welsh.  Based on what we've seen Mr. Papove became a pawn in the quest to discredit Commissioner Welsh and as a result he was picked up by the police and handed over to ICE who then transported him to Krome Detention center where he remains to this day awaiting deportation.  Mr. Papove managed to get us a message the other day and over the weekend we received yet another message from Mr. Papove outlining his current situation in Krome.  Here it is in it's entirety...

Greetings from Krome; a legal limbo land where rights aren't given by the constitution, but by ICE agents. After 68 days I haven't seen a judge or my deportation officer. Apparently I have the right to neither. You see in 1988  I signed a voluntary deportation order in California. It was explained to me that I couldn't return for 5 years. In Nov'93  I returned via Amtrak from Montreal to Mobile, Alabama where I continued working with my employer. Later in Florida he abandoned myself and another worker. He owed us both bonuses.      On the word of a snitch and a single ICE officer this deportation order was reinstated denying me any right to see a judge. The deportation officer assigned to me has left her job and did little prior to leaving. I've not spoken to her or her replacement. The officers  come on UNIT for about 10 minutes on Thursdays. 5-7 officers for 60-65 people. Mine doesn't show although the others claim he/she is downstairs and will be up shortly.        Allow me to clarify my most serious offense,Cocaine possession. Threre was no cocaine, there was a pipe with residue. I was sentenced to 24 HOURS OF PROBATION !!       After having access to me denied by a Canadian Consular official I visited  with MIAMI HERALD REPORTER ANDREA TORRES.She was physically removed part way through our visit. I was transferred the next day to Glades facility in Moore Haven. Transfers are not only due to overcrowding. They are also used as punishment for those who dare fight their case.      Transfers involve hours of waiting, shackled  at both the departure and arrival sites besides shackled traveling. All non-local calls are $2.85 connection fee and 50 cents / Minuit. Visiting is hindered , envelope procurement is interrupted and money earned ( $1.00 /day is possible ) is partially transferred and partially confiscated. Case defense suffers. The day after my transfer to Glades I was charged Federally with REENTRY and returned to Krome for a few hours before being sent to the Federal Bureau of Prisons in downtown Miami.      I saw a judge for bail purposes only. Only a quarter of a million dollars. One week later the charge was dismissed. I didn't get to see the judge. While  in Federal prison I was hungry. Lunch was often a sandwich and soup. If you hadn't somehow already bought a bowl you couldn't get the soup! No drink without purchase of a cup either. No water fountain. There was a sink, remember I was not convicted of anything, nor had I seen a judge regarding case merit.       Now I'm back at Krome where the guards are privately contracted (DOYON)  but ICE makes all relevant rules and decisions so there is a layer of separation.          Hundreds of people have passed through since I've been here have been deported before. I know two others charged with RE-ENTRY. One has twice served 4 year sentences, the other has a more lengthy record.          After  90 days they must review my case. They could renew the 90 day process in perpetuity. Unlawful confinement?          Most people I've talked to here have children and either wives, finances or girlfriends/ ex's. Most will be leaving voluntarily or by force. Your tax dollars hard at work here now will undoubtedly be working hard in the future.       Thanks for everyone who has supported me. Warren Papove, Krone Detention Center, Sept 12,2012

This is fucking crazy.  I hope the people responsible for putting Mr. Papove where he is are proud of themselves.

On another note, check out the Miami Herald article regarding absentee ballot brokers and the Miami Dade Judicial races.  Am I the only one thinking that all the absentee ballots from the recent election should be thrown out?

Kim Rothstein criminal information...

I know that this is slightly off topic from what we've been talking about lately but I think it's worth mentioning.  We've talked about convicted ponzi schemer and disbarred former attorney Scott Rothstein several times over the years, when his ponzi scheme first imploded his wife Kimberly somehow avoided getting charged criminally in his nefarious scheme to bilk investors out of over a billion dollars.  A couple of weeks back, Mrs. Rothstein along with her best friend, Stacie Weisman, her attorney, Scott Saidel, as well as a prominent Fort Lauderdale jewler, Patrick Daoud were criminally charged with trying to hide over one million dollars in jewelry from the bankruptcy court presiding over the dissolution of her husbands law firm.

There seems to be a lot of speculation over what exactly the defendants were charged with, so to try to clear some of that confusion up, we've obtained a copy of the criminal information from the federal court...

Scott Saidel, kimberly rothstein, stacie weisman, patrick daoud criminal information

As you can see the conspirators were charged via an "information" therefore one or all of them are cooperating with the feds and have already cut deals.

Back to our absentee ballot fraud story tomorrow...

The fix is in, so much for getting justice in the absentee ballot scandal...

Lately it seems like there isn't a day that goes by with some sort of mention of the absentee ballot scandal that's rocked Miami Dade county.  First we had the alleged Hialeah absentee ballot broker Deisy (wtf kind of name is that?) Cabrera get arrested for illegally collecting at least 31 absentee ballots in the August 14 election.  Shortly thereafter we had Sergio "el tio" Robaina, former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina's uncle get arrested for allegedly filling out absentee ballots for voters and collecting several ballots which is against the law.

There's nothing new here, absentee ballot fraud has been going on for ages in Miami, in fact several of my friends who have run for elected office have told me about these people approaching them during their campaign and offering to deliver them x-amount of votes for a fixed price.  Shortly after these two arrests we saw newly reelected Miami Dade County Mayor, Carlos Gimenez, distance himself from these ballot brokers stating that...

"If I didn't hire her, how am I blamed for something that I didn't do?  These ladies do not work for my campaign"

That's all well and good, it's entirely possible that Mayor Gimenez had nothing to do with these ballot brokers despite the various photos of them together floating around.  Next we saw our State Attorney, Katherine Fernandez Rundle, jump into the fire and recuse herself and her office from the absentee ballot fraud case after which Florida governor Scott resigned the case to Broward County State Attorney Michael Satz, as if that's really going to make any difference at all.

So here we are now nearly a month after all this ballot fraud noise started and it seemed for a brief moment that we might have a chance of getting some sort of real justice, that is until today.  The first thing that struck me as being strange was the Miami Dade State Attorneys Office asking Judge Milton Hirsch to push back Robaina's arraignment.  Now that struck me as bizarre for two reasons, first, considering that there's a major election looming just over the horizon, wouldn't you want to get to the bottom of the absentee ballot fraud as fast as humanly possible?  The second thing that makes no sense is why is the Miami Dade State Attorneys Office asking for the arraignment to be pushed back (according to the Herald) when the Miami SAO was supposed to recuse itself from this case?  What am I missing?

So here we are, is all this hoopla in the media about the absentee ballot bullshit just that, bullshit or is there really a meaningful investigation going on that will end up with some of the players behind this age old scheme going to jail?  I was really hoping that it was the later, that is until I got a call today from one of my sources in the Miami Dade Police Department who gave me some really disturbing news.  Before we go any further, I'd like to make it perfectly clear that what I was told has not been substantiated so until the time that I can confirm what I was told, treat what I'm about to tell you as unsubstantiated rumor, strictly fiction to amuse ourselves with.  As I mentioned earlier, the absentee ballot fraud is pervasive and has been part of the Miami political game for as long as anyone can remember.  In this most recent case, there's been talk about the scandal reaching up the chain to the highest circles of Miami politics, perhaps even going up as far as our county Mayor.  In the most recent election, it seemed like the absentee ballots provided the razor thin margins that several of the candidates were able to win there seats with so it's easy to understand why some very powerful people are going to want this whole scandal to go away quietly. 

Now, here comes the unsubstantiated rumor part.  My source from the PD tells me that recently there have been moves made recently to transfer the Major in charge of Public Corruption in the MDPD out of his position and replace him with an old friend and lacky of Mayor Gimenez, a fellow from the Hammocks named Major Hernan Organvidez.  Again, this is no way shape or form anything more than an unsubstantiated rumor, but consider for a moment if it was true.  Who better to oversee a critical investigation into voter fraud that may affect you and your colleagues than an old friend?  I don't need to elaborate on the advantages of this possible arrangement, you all have a good enough imagination to be able to figure out how things could work to your advantage when one of your friends is conducting a criminal investigation into you and your campaign workers actions coming up to an election.

So is the fix in?  I don't know but with the SAO delaying Robaina's arraignment and the possibility of the Mayor's buddy taking over the MDPD public corruption unit,  it certainly looks like it!

The Maquinita wars, once again the MDPD get it right...

It seems like the ongoing battle with the ever present illegal gaming machines (aka maquinitas) was all but forgotten from Miami's landscape then lo and behold last night we came across this...

Once again it looks like Miami Dade County Police did a kick ass job of busting an illegal gaming establishment which is in stark contrast to how the police over in the City of Miami handle these machines and their owners...

County cops arrested the 76 year Santiago Acosta who owns the market where the machines were located and charged him with several charges relating to the ownership and operation of these machines.  Mr Acosta is still in jail as of this morning awaiting bail.

Congrats to the folks over at the MDPD for a job well done, nothing to worry about over at the City of Miami though as these machines are perfectly legal!

A disappointing turn in the Warren Papove story...

From what we'd heard last regarding the story of South Miami handyman Warren Papove who was used as a political pawn by certain factions of South Miami politics, Mr Papove was supposed to be released from Krome detention center and was going to be going back to South Miami.  In fact the federal inmate locator website already shows that Mr. Papove has been released...

Sadly though, this is not the case.  Although the governments case against Mr. Papove was dismissed, it turns out that he is still going to be deported because of a minor drug possession charge from a few years back.  That's rather unfortunate, at first I was told that Mr. Papove was going to fight the deportation but now I'm told that he's going to voluntarily leave and go back to his native Canada.  It's an unfortunate turn of events, especially when Mr. Papove had nothing to do with the political undercurrents that got him where he is today.  

With that said though, Mr. Papove managed to get a message to us from Krome that he asked be published on our blog.  Keep in mind, these are his words and not ours...

Warren Papove's Good Bye to South Miami

Warren tells South  Miami , "I am not a crook"!

Warren hopes Sharon McCain achieves her goal by wrecking just one life and not any more.

Warren says that if Valerie Newman watched her diet maybe she would be happier with herself, and maybe if she worried about her own well being she would be less abusive toward others.

Warren says that Chief Martinez's guayabera is too small and to not knock on Connie's door, she is 91 and to please keep the jackboots away from her. Warren says that the streets of South Miami are safer now that he is gone. He asks chief Martinez if he will stop at nothing to get what he wants.

Warren says that if detective Mendez would have explained that not having an ID was not a criminal offense he would have walked in the back yard and closed the fence gate behind him.

When asked how he feels about Latins deporting Anglos he says next time he wants to be deported by someone who speaks English.

He says now that Hispanic officers are deporting Anglo tree guys, will the few Anglo officers be in charge of deporting Hispanic tree guys?

He says that as racially tense as the City is at least the Code enforcement officer (who stopped him and went on and on about clear cutting oak trees) can be of a different sexual persuasion than most in South Miami and still keep his job.

God speed to you Mr. Papove and good luck with your new life in Canada, at the rate we're going down here, you might be better off!