HAPPY EASTER!

To all our readers that have contacted me and asked if I'm ok, thanks!  Yes, I am fine, nothings happened to me, no ones gotten to me and no I haven't been locked up!  Besides being tied up with several large projects at work over the last few weeks, I've also sort of been on vacation.  So no worries, all is good and we'll be back on Monday, till then, have a happy easter!

City of Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado Makes a statement regarding the maquinitas

We came across another Maquinita story the other day while reading our friend Al Crespo's website where Al discusses how City of Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado acknowledged to the Miami Herald that the gambling machines aka "maquinitas" that he's been alleging for the last several years are legal forms of amusement are now "illegal".  This statement didn't phase me till last night when I was at a convenience store buying something and saw the front page of the Herald with this headline...

The sight of that headline really drove the point home, Regalado you fucking bumbling incompetent fool!  After all the turmoil you put the city and it's citizens through to protect the owners of these machines who support your dumb ass, now you come out and state the obvious and say that they're illegal!

So what's the story now?  Why the sudden change?  If you're to believe the rumors on the street, perhaps Regalado's about face has come about because there's word that his daughter, Raquel Regalado, is on the short list to replace recently resigned Lieutenant Governor Jennifer Carroll.

Now if the mere rumor of Raquel becoming Lieutenant Governor isn't bad enough, here's something that will make you puke your guts out.  Everyone remember attorney Al Millan?  From Al Crespo's website...

When it came time to present the case against the Chief before the City Commission, the City Manager, Johnny “The Doormat” Martinez proved so incapable of doing the job that out of nowhere, the lawyer Al Millian was brought in to represent the City Manager against the Chief, like a relief pitcher who had been warming up in the bullpen being brought in to save the game in the last inning.

Millan was a lawyer who represented the maquinita owners, and he made no bones about the fact that his “clients” had no problem with his being there, because they agreed with the City Manager’s decision that the Chief needed to be fired.

Guess what Mr. Millan is up to?  The same Mr. Millan that represented the mob that owns the maquinitas and was instrumental in getting police chief Miguel Exposito fired?  Mr. Millan has just filed the required paperwork to run for circuit court judge!  If that isn't enough to make you sick, I don't know what is.

Like Al says, "It's Miami BITCHES!"

More conspiracy theories...

We left off yesterday promising to describe a conspiracy involving the City of South Miami's police chief, his wife's tag agency and the City of South  Miami that was going to knock your socks off.  Remember back when the Miami Herald asked former City of South Miami City Manager Hector Mirabile about the chief sending city business to his wife's tag agency, he responded by saying...

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.

OK!  Fair enough.  Considering we live in the land of "presumed innocent until proven guilty", let's presume that both city manager Mirabile and embattled police cheif Martinez de Castro were telling the truth.  For the sake of our discussion, let's say that neither the chief or the city manager knew anything about the city sending business over to the chief's wife's business despite the fact that it's clearly against the city's own rules and laws.

Ok, now put on your tin foil hats and let's see exactly what would have to happen in order for this to have occurred.  On one end of the story, we would have to have the entire City of South Miami accounting department, police department and city manager's department conspiring to keep the fact that they're sending business to the chief's wife's business a secret from the chief himself.  Remember, everyone involved knew that steering business to a city employee's family business was a violation of the city's ethics rules, so in order to keep the chief out of trouble, they would have had to keep the entire enterprise from being discovered by the chief.  As preposterous as that may sound, this part of the conspiracy had to involve at least half a dozen or more people from the city.

Now on the other end of the spectrum, we have the conspiracy that was afoot over at the Chief's wife's tag agency as well as the chief's own household.  Consider that the chief visited his wife's business frequently during business hours and since he had family members working at the tag agency, it's entirely possible that there was tag agency related discussions over at the chief's house after work.  Now consider that in order for the chief not to know that the family's business was doing business with the City of South Miami, all of the tag agency's employees as well as his family members that worked there would have conspired to keep the illegal transactions a secret from the chief!  Once again, this part of the conspiracy would have involved at least another half a dozen people!

Now that's some funny shit.  Think about it, if we're to believe the chief's assertions that he knew nothing about what was going on between the city and his family's business, we would have to buy into this massive conspiracy between the employees of the City of South Miami and Airways Auto Tag where the deliberately broke the law and kept the chief from finding out what they were up to.  Even worse, for those of you who know Orlando Martinez de Castro's style of micro managing everything he's involved in, it's even more preposterous to buy into his assertions of "I didn't know what was going on".

If you buy that story, then you'll love my new tag that I just got from the chief's wife's tag agency...

Wacky conspiracy theories...

I must apologize to our loyal readers for my sporadic posting of late, I've been extremely busy out in the real world and haven't had enough time to dedicate to the blog and all the things we've been talking about.  Today, I'd like you guys to think of all the various conspiracy theories that we've all heard about throughout the years, whether it's the moon landing hoax conspiracy, the Pearly Harbor attack conspiracy or the JFK assassination conspiracy.  Think about how many moving parts each of these conspiracies have and just how many people have to participate in the stories to make them viable.

With that in mind, I'd like you to revisit this statement from former City of South Miami city manager Hector Mirabile when asked for a statement from the Miami Herald regarding the Chief of Police, Orlando Martinez de Castro, sending city business to his wife's tag agency...

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.

Think about that statement, we'll discuss tomorrow when we discover a conspiracy over at the City of South Miami that will make the moon landing hoax pale in comparison!

Could this be the end of the maquinitas?

We've extensively covered the battle over the illegal gaming machines that are all over Miami Dade county throughout the years, the most famous of which was the war between current City of Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado and Police Chief Miguel Exposito which ultimately ended in his unceremonious firing from the police department.  While Exposito's demise seemed like a fatal blow to those who hoped to rid our city of these illegal gaming machines, the recent scandal involving the Jacksonville-based Allied Veterans of the World that ultimately brought about the resignation of our very own lieutenant governor Jenifer "I'm not a lesbian" Carroll, lit a fire under the anti maquinita camp again which has now culminated with Florida Senate bill HB 155, from the Miami Herald Article regarding the bill...

House Panel Passes Bill To Outlaw Illegal Gambling MachinesMary Ellen Klas
The online slot machines operated by strip mall Internet cafes, adult arcades and Miami-based maquinitas will be officially outlawed under a bill passed by a House panel on Friday.
In a 15-1 vote, the House Select Committee passed the bill (HB 155) just days after state and federal authorities arrested 57 individuals with ties to Jacksonville-based Allied Veterans of the World, a purported veterans charity organization that ran an illegal gambling operation.
The House measure, sponsored by Rep. Carlos Trujillo, R-Miami, makes web-based gambling devices illegal because they are deemed games of chance and not games of skill, as promoters claim. Under the bill, promotional giveaways, like those offered by fast food restaurants or car dealers, will be allowed, but electronic casino-like games disguised as a sweepstakes or arcade game will be banned.
The bill was supported by an unusual coalition that included the Florida Chamber of Commerce, the pari-mutuel industry, the greyhound racing association and the Florida Baptist Convention. No one spoke in support of preserving or regulating the Internet cafes.
The bill clarifies existing law by prohibiting electronic gambling devices for charitable promotions, updates the definition of slot machines to include network-based machines like those used in Internet cafes and bans machines intended to simulate casino games and slot machines.

FINALLY!

Trujillo said the legislation was needed because these cases are "extremely difficult to prosecute and extremely costly...The operators and promoters are very creative and they basically skirted around state law and it comes down to a battle of experts. And the experts have to decide, are these games of skill or games of chance?"

You don't say? Even when experts decide that the machines are illegal, somehow the crooks in the City of Miami still make it impossible to get rid of them! Remember the scandal around the expert witness report that we obtained last year?

The Senate on Monday is set to take up a bill that is “similar or identical to the House’s bill,’’ said Sen. Garrett Richter, R-Naples, chairman of the Senate Gaming Committee. Legislative leaders expect to have the bill reach the governor’s desk by the end of the month.

It's rather obvious that the casino and para-mutual lobby are the ones that are behind this legislation and why the hell not?  Theoretically these guys have legal gambling establishments that are highly regulated by the state, so why shouldn't they protect their businesses?  Remember how the expert witness characterized the maquinitas when compared to legal gaming machines?

In a legal gambling jurisdiction, such as Nevada, New Jersey, or Mississippi, the discovery of a reflexive percentaging scheme in an acknowledged slot machine, would cause Gaming Inspectors to turn that machine off immediately, and would result in fines and disciplinary action for the casino responsible.

Once again, from the Herald article...

Internet cafes are not regulated by the state, but have been allowed to operate under regulation in several municipalities, including Hialeah and Jacksonville. Police have succeeded in closing down operators in some areas while in others courts have ruled the law is too vague to prevent them from operating.

Finally, it looks like by the end of the month the maquinitas will be history and with them goes the underground economy they support along with the worthless shitbag politicians they back.  The lack of funding from the illegal gaming industry in Miami should make for an interesting upcoming election season.

WHOOPS, wait a minute! Have we stumbled upon another scandal?

Yesterday we discovered that the City of South Miami and it's police chief individually had been sued by Florida Highway Patrol officer Donna Watts for abusing the state of Florida's D.A.V.I.D. system to gain access to her personal information.  According to what we've been able to dig up, the city and the chief settled the lawsuit for approximately $13,000.  That's all well and good until one of our readers left us this comment...

If South Miami settled, why isn't there a filed voluntary dismissal? Also, the City Commission would have to approve the payment of the settlement, since it's over $5,000.

I'm not sure why there hasn't been a dismissal filed yet, but I do know for certain that if the lawsuit was settled for any amount over $5,000 that the City Commission would have to approve the settlement.  Unfortunately though after a search of all the commission meeting agendas since the lawsuit was filed, I see no mention of this settlement going before the commission.  Now, I have to admit, I just scanned the commission agendas so I could have missed it, if anyone sees otherwise, let me know.  

Now consider for a moment if I am right, what if the lawsuit was settled without the approval of the commission?  How could such a thing have happened?  If indeed it was settled without the commissions approval, is it possible that the whole deal was handled in such a way as to not bring any attention to the lawsuit?  One thing we know for certain is that since the chief of police, Orlando Martinez de Castro, was named in the lawsuit individually, he had to have been served therefore he can't deny knowledge of the lawsuit.  With that said, is it even plausible for this lawsuit and it's alleged settlement not to have made any noise within the city?  Could this be another major cover up within the PD?  We'll dig a little deeper and see what comes up.

We had another interesting comment from yesterdays post as well regarding the officer that actually used his D.A.V.I.D. privileges to look up Trooper Watts' personal information...

Another fact: South Miami PD Officer Armando Perez resigned after he was charged with accessing the trooper's info in D.A.V.I.D. three times.

For our readers from the City of South Miami PD, can anyone confirm this?  If indeed Perez did resign after this lawsuit was filed, at the very least the timing of his resignation is suspect.  What's funny about this whole deal is that Officer Perez is no stranger to controversy  from the Miami Herald article back in November of last year...

Davidson-Schmich’s “nightmare” began on a sunny Thursday about 2 p.m. The German literature professor said he was riding his bicycle on his way home in a rush to watch a Euro Cup soccer game. He was riding westbound on Sunset Drive between the public library and City Hall, 6130 Sunset Dr., when he saw police officer Armando Perez make an illegal left turn.
But what Davidson-Schmich didn’t know was that the officer was responding to a 911 hang up call at Larkin Community Hospital, 7031 SW 62nd Ave., and was therefore allowed to make the left turn.
The father of two children said he wagged his index finger from left to right “to let the officer know that he should not do this.” But Perez said in his report Davidson-Schmich showed him the middle finger, followed him and then started “yelling profanities” as “a crowd of people started gathering and staring.” Davidson-Schmich said there was no such crowd. Police entered one witness statement into evidence.
Perez arrested Davidson-Schmich and took him to Miami-Dade County jail. Stoddard has photos that show bruises on Davidson-Schmich’s arm when he bonded out the next day.
But even if Davidson-Schmich did make a rude comment or gesture at a police officer, that’s not sufficient reason to make an arrest, said Baylor Johnson, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. Unless a gesture or speech is threatening, it is protected by the First Amendment, Johnson said.
About a week after the arrest, an officer found a witness, Michel Perez, a Larkin Community Hospital employee. He also corroborated much of the officer’s version, although some of the details were different. For example, the witness said the incident took place at 4:30 p.m., while, the police and Davidson-Schmich said it happened shortly before 2 p.m.
Davidson-Schmich was charged with disorderly conduct, a first degree misdemeanor. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office later changed the charge to resisting an officer without violence, also a first degree misdemeanor.

Isn't it funny how things work over at the South Miami PD?  A guy gets arrested for allegedly giving a cop the finger?  And how convenient, a week after the arrest the cops find a witness that saw the whole thing go down?  Amazing how the South Miami PD has the resources to investigate this incident presumably for a full week before they found a witness who only partially corroborated Officer Perez's version of events.  Regardless, if indeed Officer Perez is gone, it seems like Mr. Schmich got the last laugh.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/09/v-print/3089646/south-miami-mayor-city-cops-wrongly.html#storylink=cpy

Abusing D.A.V.I.D.

Nah, we're not talking about a priest molesting some kid named David.  In this case D.A.V.I.D. is an acronym for the state of Florida's Driver And Vehicle Information Database a secured database that's available to every law enforcement agency in the state which stores a persons drivers license information including home address, social security number, driving history etc.  Along with access to the D.A.V.I.D. system, law enforcement agencies also have the ability to search the federal National Crime Information Center (aka NCIC) which is a database of criminal justice information, criminal record history, stolen property information, missing persons, etc.  

That's all well and good when you're a cop searching for bad guys and need to get the low down on them, but what happens when a law enforcement officer or agency abuses the system?  A perfect example of just such an abuse of the D.A.V.I.D. or N.C.I.C. systems would be if a cop sees an attractive woman driving down the road and decides to find out who she is by running her license plate number in order to access her personal information, sounds stalker like, yet it happens on a daily basis.  On the other hand, say you're a cop and decide to abuse these databases to find out sensitive information against your adversaries?  Or what if you're a police chief in a tiny little two and a half square mile city and you have some guy with a blog that's made a hobby out of uncovering your misdeeds?  Does it stand to reason that this chief would go ahead and use one of these databases to delve into his antagonists past?  It's possible, in fact several people have told me that there is one such police chief that does just that, I'm told that this particular police chief uses both the D.A.V.I.D. and N.C.I.C. system to dig up dirt on his adversaries and political detractors with relative impunity.  

That misuse of these databases would be in violation of the terms of use for both these databases, in fact, when you log into the state of Florida's D.A.V.I.D. system, you're greeted with the following warning...

All data contained within the DAVID system is sensitive and privileged information and shall be handled accordingly. To maintain the integrity of this information, the records will be accorded proper management and security, and will only be accessed and used by authorized personnel in accordance with state and federal law. 

Activity associated with any aspect of the DAVID system is subject to detailed monitoring and audits to protect against improper or unauthorized use. Unauthorized use includes, but is not limited to, queries not related to a legitimate business purpose,
personal use, dissemination, sharing, copying, or passing of DAVID information to unauthorized users and could result in civil proceedings against the offending agency and or criminal proceedings against any user or other person involved. Violations
or misuse may also subject the user and the user’s agency to administrative sanctions and possible disciplinary action by their agency, and could result in DAVID access termination.  

Accessing the DAVID system by any individual or agency constitutes their consent to the monitoring of all activities, as well as consent to the suspension or termination of their access privileges during or following any audit that determines misuse of the system.

That's a good enough warning isn't it?  There are two parts of this warning that I think warrant additional attention, first...

Unauthorized use includes, but is not limited to, queries not related to a legitimate business purpose, personal use, dissemination, sharing, copying, or passing ofDAVID information to unauthorized users and could result in civil proceedings against the offending agency and or criminal proceedings against any user or other person involved.

In other words, fuck around with this system and misuse it then be prepared to deal with the consequences.  And then this...

Activity associated with any aspect of the DAVID system is subject to detailed monitoring and audits to protect against improper or unauthorized use.

In a nutshell, what this part means is that once you log in and start running people's names, you're leaving an electronic fingerprint on everything you do.  That's all well and good, it seems like a reasonable system with adequate checks and balances to deal with people who abuse the system.  I don't know much about the federal N.C.I.S. system, but I have to imagine it must have the same mechanisms in place.

So what's this all got to do with anything?  Like I said before, in addition to several different people telling me, I've always had a hunch that a certain police chief that we've been writing about lately and his cronies have been abusing the state and federal databases, I never though much of it as I had no idea that there were such stringent security measures in place that kept records of who was accessing these databases.  What alerted me to this topic was a lawsuit filed by Florida Highway Patrol Officer Donna Watts, for those of you who don't remember Trooper Watts, she's the FHP officer that pulled over the City of Miami cop for speeding on the Turnpike.  After her infamous chase video was aired, a war broke out between virtually every law enforcement agency and trooper Watts regarding the incident, from the Jalopnik article regarding the incident...

A war is brewing in South Florida, but don't look to the police to protect you. They're the ones who are fighting. Members of the Miami-Dade Police Department aren't taking kindly to having one of their own arrested at gunpoint by a State Trooper and now the threats and insults are flying.
It started last month when Miami Officer Fausto Lopez was pulled over in his squad car for driving 120 MPH en route to an off-duty job. Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) Trooper Donna Jane Watts pulled him over, gun drawn, and put him in handcuffs.
Miami cops are complaining that it was an overreaction. Florida Highway Patrol, mostly, is backing up their trooper and claiming the Miami PD is full of would-be David Carusos. And it's getting worse.
The head of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police sent out a letter defending Lopez with the obviously coded remark "Do not be running her information on DAVID, FCIC/NCIC, etc." referring to databases used by law enforcement.

It turns out despite the warnings, several law enforcement officers did just that, once they had Trooper Watts personal information, they started crank calling her, showing up at her house to intimidate her, smearing feces all over her car, etc.  Trooper Watts then turned around and subpoenaed the state and got the names of everyone that used the state's D.A.V.I.D. system to access her personal information and then slammed all the offending cops and their respective agencies.  Here's the lawsuit...

  Trooper Donna Watts lawsuit against the City of South Miami and Orlando Martinez de Castro by  

Wouldn't you know it?  Who's named in this lawsuit other than our friend, embattled City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro!  How do you like them apples!  While the lawsuit doesn't allege that the chief himself used the databases to access the trooper's information, it alleges that one of his officers did, specifically...

Defendant City of South Miami has not provided a determination as to whether Armando Perez has a legitimate law enforcement purpose for obtaining Watts private driver’s license information to Plaintiff.

It goes on to say...

Defendant Armando Perez accessed Watts private personal information three (3) times on November 1, 2011.

Now, why the hell would Officer Perez do such a thing?  Regardless of why Officer Perez abused the system, I think his behavior indicates a pattern of behavior within the City of South Miami PD.  I'll bet that if I were to get together a list of the chief's political foes and submit them to the state that we'd see an inordinate number of them have been run through the states D.A.V.I.D. system or the federal N.C.I.C. system.

With that said, I wonder what happened to Trooper Watts' lawsuit, I've heard rumors that the City of South Miami has settled with her and ponied up $13,000.  If indeed that is the case, I wonder where that settlement money came from.  In the meantime, I think it's time to get an attorney to start looking into the subject of who's been running certain names in the D.A.V.I.D. and N.C.I.C. databases, who knows, maybe I can pick up an extra $13k?

Enough with all the South Miami bullshit.

That's what some of our readers have been telling me, enough with the South Miami centered blog posts.  It's understandable, after all, we don't live in South Miami, don't know anyone that lives in South Miami and despite what some of our detractors have said, I'm not sleeping with anyone involved in South Miami politics or any of the three tellers that were arrested as part of the Airways Auto Tag mess nor do I have a vendetta against the city's police chief or his wife.  

So what happened to our blog that used to discuss all sorts of goings on at the State Attorney's office with tales of dirty prosecutors and lying cops?  What about all the fraudsters we used to expose?  As some of our followers know, we stumbled upon the whole City of South Miami mess because of the Miami Dade Police Department Detective (now patrolman) Jorge Baluja who investigated and subsequently arrested the three tellers that worked in the City of South Miami police chief's wife's tag agency.  From there purely by coincidence did we stumble upon the cesspool that is South Miami politics and the dirty operators behind the scenes like police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro.  Through our efforts we managed to help get the city manager fired and now have the city's police chief on the verge of getting fired because of the ethics investigation we initiated against him.

Why bring this all up now after spending over a year rambling on about South Miami?  It's rather simple, after talking to a friend who's employed by one of the major media outlets, I asked him, why no one is really paying attention to what's going on in South Miami, his answer was as follows:

No one cares about what's going on down there, it's a little two square mile town, it's small time, no one gives a shit.

That's when it dawned on me, what better place for fugitives from the City of Miami police department back political scene to plant there roots?  For these guys, Mirabile, Harms, Martinez de Castro, etc who were chased out of the City of Miami, could you think of a better place for them to take over other than sleepy little South Miami?  "Small Time", no one's paying attention, no one cares, the ideal place to scheme and scam without getting anyone's attention.  Perfect.  In fact, major media cares so little about what's going on down there, I'm told that embattled police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro and his wife sat down with a local reporter to tell there side of their story for over and an hour several months ago.  Has anyone seen anything in the media about said interview?  NOPE.  Why you ask?  When I reached out to the reporter he told me that besides sitting and listening to both of them lie for nearly an hour, nothing they told him, even if true, was interesting enough to write about.  LOL.

Oh well.  At least we now know why we don't here about most of the dirty dealings in South Miami anywhere but here.  Even if no one else gives a crap about what's going on, we're going to stick around a bit longer, at least till the chief is shown the door and the girls from the tag agency are acquitted.

Stay tuned, tomorrow we're going to propose a theory for a conspiracy that went on in South Miami so bizarre and elaborate that it makes the JFK conspiracy theorists look sane in comparison.