Former South Miami police officer Richard Munoz's federal indictment and subsequent plea agreement.

As the title of today's post states, here they are...

  South Miami Police officer Richard Munoz federal indictment by The Straw Buyer

  Former city of south miami police officer richard munoz's federal plea agreement

Considering that Mr. Munoz was indicted by "information" it means that he had cut a deal early on and was cooperating with the feds.  It should be interesting to find out what the result of his ongoing cooperation with the feds will be.  

Ex South Miami cop federally indicted...

Our comments section has been abuzz about this recently, from the Herald...

By Brenda MedinaThe Miami Herald 

Authorities arrested a former South Miami detective on extortion and fraud charges in a case that reaches into Sweetwater.

Richard Muñoz, a 15-year South Miami veteran until his retirement last year, pleaded guilty March 14 on charges of taking advantage of his position and using false information with intent to commit fraud.

Muñoz’s crimes may be linked to charges against Sweetwater officer William García, arrested in August on charges of identity theft and credit card fraud, but public documents in the federal case did not provide details. However, sources familiar to the case said Muñoz, 45, will be an important witness against García.
Muñoz, who was arrested on March 10, reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors last week after he agreed to be on a list of more than 50 potential witnesses against García when his trial begins in April.

Muñoz had pleaded not guilty when he was first arrested. He is now free on bail and his sentencing has been scheduled for May 9, at which time he could face up to five years in prison.

Muñoz’s lawyer, Gustavo Lage, could not be reached for comment.
South Miami Police Chief Rene Landa said on Wednesday that the crimes committed by Muñoz do not reflect the culture of his department.

“We were not aware of these activities until now, when they were made public,” Landa said. Muñoz was detached to the Drug Enforcement Administration on a task force for more than a year, Landa said.

According to the agreement with federal prosecutors, Muñoz was not charged with giving false information in an official DEA statement.

Sweetwater suspended García after his August arrest. He has maintained his innocence. His defense attorneys say their client acted within his authority as an officer and, in several cases, under orders from his supervisors.

In early March, García asked the city to pay his legal fees. Sweetwater commissioners denied the request.

FBI agents arrested García in August, accusing him of using counterfeit credit cards and stealing credit card numbers, including the card of a suspect he had arrested. García worked with an informant, who later agreed to cooperate with the FBI.

García’s arrest was another scandal that shook Sweetwater in 2013. The FBI also arrested then-Mayor Manuel “Manny” Maroño on charges of accepting bribes in exchange for official favors using his position as an elected official. Maroño plead guilty and is now in federal prison, serving a 40-month sentence.

The scandal also affected other officers. Octavio Oliu and Reny García have been suspended with pay since September, while federal and county authorities conduct an investigation of the Sweetwater force. Auxiliary police officer Richard Brenner also was suspended, but was reinstated, then fired late last year.

Also, as part of the investigation, authorities are reviewing the activities of a towing company linked to Maroño in connection with the police department.

Interesting, we'll dig up the criminal file and discuss tomorrow.

The Miami Dade Commission on Ethics and Public trust fines City of South Miami Vice-Mayor Josh Liebman.

Back in October we wrote about City of South Miami Vice-Mayor, Josh Liebman, campaigning for one of his friends while on the dias.  You can see him babbling on here in this video endorsing his friend Donna Shelley...

Mr. Liebman's plug for his friend clearly violated several different laws and last week, the Ethics Commission saw it fit to punish Mr. Liebman for his actions.  From their press release...

South Miami Vice Mayor Josh Liebman agreed that there is Probable Cause he violated the “use of public property” section of his city’s Conflict of Interest and Code of Ethics Ordinance when he endorsed a candidate for office in his official capacity during a televised and web-streamed city commission meeting. To avoid the time and expense of litigation, Liebman reached a settlement to the complaint (C 13-41), by entering a plea of No Contest and paying a fine of $250 and investigative costs of $500, which was approved today by the COE. His support for candidate Donna Shelley in last month’s election came during the “commissioner’s comments” portion of the October 15, 2013, city commission meeting. The Code prohibits the use of publicly-supported property to the advantage of the official or any other person.  Vice Mayor Liebman was speaking from the dais in a meeting that was broadcast throughout the city and is maintained on the city’s website, which is considered a public resource.

I suppose the punishment fits the crime in this instance, no children or animals were hurt, so I slap on the wrist and $750 in fines and costs seems more than appropriate.  

It's refreshing to see the Ethics Commission get something right for once after years of disappointments and free passes for the politically connected.  With that said, back to our regular programming tomorrow...

It's a matter of perspective.

Really, it is a matter of perspective.  Two different people can view the same situation in two completely different ways.  Let's cut to the chase today and compare the two accounts of what happened that fateful night back in 1986 at 2:26 am when a future detective gets pulled over by a sworn officer for having an improper exhaust and see just how different their accounts of what happened really are.

We'll start with what the suspect claims had happened in a letter that he sent in as part of his job application to the City of South Miami PD.  I'm going to skip the part about why and where he got pulled over as there's no dispute about that, here we go...

"While reaching for my driver's license and registration, I realized I had left my wallet at my friends car earlier that day, so I turned around and told the officer I did not have my drivers license with me but I did have my registration and handed it to him."

The cop said..

"...he stated that he didn't have his license with him and began looking for the registration and began looking for the registration in a black zipper bag." 

Ok,  so the subject said he left his wallet at his friends house but then after arresting the subject, the officer finds of all things, THE SUBJECTS WALLET...

"Search of wallet produced a Florida restricted drivers license #____________ which was altered by changing the expiration date with D's year of birth from 67 to 63."

HOLY SHIT!

Not only did the police officer find the subjects wallet that was allegedly left in a friends car, but he also managed to find the subjects drivers license as well!

Let's keep going, in his letter the subject goes on to say...

"The officer then lit the inside of the vehicle with his flashlight and noticed there were three passengers in the vehicle and also noticed a small empty vile (sic) lying inside the vehicle.  The officer pointed to it and asked me to get it for him.  As I handed it to him, I informed the officer that the vile (sic) did not belong to me and that I had never seen it before."

Ok, it sounds plausible, let's see what the officer saw...

"...he began looking for the registration in a black zipper bag.  This officer saw in the bag and observed a small brown glass vial containing a white powder residue suspect cocaine (sic).  Search of D's black bag further produced an envelope containing job cigarette papers and D's insurance papers, court records in D's name."

Wait a minute now, the subject says the vial of cocaine was on the floor while the cop said it was inside a black zipper bag along with a bunch of other crap that was undeniably the subject's!  Unless then we are to believe that the subject asked the fellows riding in the car with him to hide "their" vial of cocaine inside his "black zipper bag" that contained all his personal stuff.  Honestly, WTF?

Obviously, someone's full of shit.  I'll reiterate, it's not a matter of a young kid making a mistake and getting caught with some drugs in his car, it's a matter of a "man" several decades later deliberately misleading a police department about a mistake he made decades before.  Big difference, especially when the position he's looking to fill requires the utmost honesty and integrity and to uphold the laws of our state.  It's more than a matter of perspective, it's about deliberately misleading someone.

More coming, until then, have a great weekend!

Maybe it's all a misunderstanding?

While the detective who lied on his employment application about his previous drug arrest never admits why he forgot to tell the police department that he's currently working for about his past criminal history, he does make a fairly novel attempt at explaining away the whole incident in a letter I found the other day.  Take a look for yourselves...

Now, go back and compare that narrative to the police report we posted a few days back, take a good look, we'll discuss in detail tomorrow.

If you claim you've never been arrested on your job application, how do you explain this?

We left off a few days ago discussing a police detective who claimed that he had never been "arrested, convicted, or plead no contest to any violations of the law, police regulation, ordinance, traffic violations which resulted in fines or(sic) of more than $100.00" on his job application for the police department where he's currently employed.  We also raised the issue of the detectives integrity being compromised because of his dishonesty on his job application.  Since we made that post, our readers have been running wild in our comments section with all sorts of different comments ranging from arguing about the legality marijuana to allegations of the subjects of my recent posts being some sort of vendetta.  Whatever.

With that said, it's time to take a look a the police report from the incident that the detective forgot to mention on his job application, take a look and as always, click on the image to enlarge...

So from what we're able to glean from the report, the subject gets pulled over for some sort of improper exhaust on his car, the officer pulls the guy over then asks him for his drivers license and registration at which time he pulls out a black zippered bag and starts looking through it for his registration.  While he was doing so, the officer spotted a vial with some cocaine in it then decides to arrest the subject.  It gets better, once the officer starts searching through the bag, he finds some "job cigarette papers" aka "rolling papers" and a altered drivers license where the date of birth was changed from 1967 to 1963 which coincidentally would have made the subject 23 years old instead of 19, IE the perfect fake id to use to buy alcohol.  At the end of the day, the subject was then transported the the Dade County Jail where he invariably spent several hours in a holding cell after being booked.

The question that begs to be asked though, is considering how traumatic this experience must have been and the impact it must have left on the subject, how could he have forgotten all about it when it came time to fill out his employment application for a job as a police officer?

We're going to dig deeper into this story next week, in the interim, for all our readers that have been going on and on about marijuana and who's smoking and who's a pot head etc, please tell us, what exactly were those rolling papers found in the subjects vehicle used for?

So you lied on your job application...

Like the title says, so you lied on your job application.  Under normal circumstances, this may not be that big of a deal.  After all, whats a little white lie on a job application?  Maybe you added a few years of work experience on your resume, made bogus claims about your education or even made up a job to fill in long spells of unemployment.  No biggie, right?  How about lying about past problems with the law?  I can understand why people would be reluctant about disclosing prior arrests and convictions, after all, as an employer, I certainly wouldn't want to hire someone with a questionable past.

So what if you have had past brushes with the law?  I guess if you lie on your employment application, you run the risk of the prospective employer checking your background, maybe you get lucky and they don't and perhaps you get the job?  That may work for some, but what if the job you want is in law enforcement?  Shouldn't you disclose everything about your past, even if it involves an arrest and a conviction?  After all, if you want to be a cop, isn't it a prerequisite for a cop to at the very least be honest, especially on an employment application?

Here's what were getting at, take a look at this screen shot of a particular detective's employment application (click on the image to enlarge)...

Now, clearly where it says "Have you ever been arrested, convicted, or plead no contest to any violations of the law, police regulation, ordinance, traffic violations which resulted in fines or(sic) of more than $100.00?" the applicant checked off "NO".  What we're going to find over the next several days is that indeed the individual who filled out this employment application was indeed arrested, convicted and plead to a violation of the law.  Furthermore, the individual who filled this application out was subsequently hired and made a detective.  

Now, you all tell me, how can any of the cases that this fellow put together during his career or any of the testimony he may have given for those cases be worth a shit when he perjured himself at the very get go when filling out his employment application?  This situation seems like a steaming pile of shit to me.  Even worse, if I were a defendant in a case put together by this fellow, I'd want my attorney to know about this situation with his employment application as it shows that from the very beginning of his career, the subject cop was dishonest.

It ain't easy writing this blog...

Throughout the last several years, we've often struggled with the subject matter of this blog.  Whether the story was about a crooked politician, dirty cop or other fraudsters that haven't been found out yet, it's tough writing about these people.  Each and everyone one of them has a family that for the most part may have nothing to do or even know about the nefarious schemes our subjects have been involved in yet by outing these folks we invariably do great harm to the people around them not to mention outing whatever crooked business they're engaging in.  So it's tough to write about some of our subjects over the years knowing the kind of collateral damage that will occur as a result of our work, nothing drove this point home more than watching the friends and family of then City of Miami assistant fire chief Veldora Arthur during her federal mortgage fraud trial.  It tore me up to watch them have to sit through the trial and ultimately watch her get convicted and sent off to jail, regardless, in my opinion, considering her position and how she abused her position, it was a story that needed to be told.  Perhaps she should have thought about her children before she engaged in a ten million dollar plus fraud?

Regardless, we're now working on a story involving a dirty cop who thinks nothing of manufacturing false police reports, fabricating evidence, etc.  When our story comes out, this cop is sure to loose his job and more than likely his law enforcement certification.  I've held off on putting this story together considering the impact it will have on his family, who more than likely have nothing to do with this guy being a piece of shit.  When considering the consequences of outing this guy, you have to take into account that this guy thinks nothing of writing bogus police reports and fucking with people simply because he can.  A dirty cop?  I think so.  Does he deserve to be outed?  What do you guys think?

FPL backed candidates in yesterdays South Miami Elections get TROUNCED!

The title says it all and our friends over at Eye On Miami said it best...

Incumbent South Miami mayor Philip Stoddard won reelection to a third term last night, with a galloping 62 percent of the popular vote. 1897 ballots were cast, representing 26 percent of eligible voters. Running for city commission, former mayor Horace Feliu -- a stand-in for Florida Power and Light -- lost to Walter Harris by a 20 point margin; the second time Feliu has been turned away by South Miami voters.

They left out Gabriel Edmund also trounced Donna Shelly for the commission seat that Valerie Newman vacated.  Congratulations to Mayor Stoddard, Commissioner Harris and Commissioner Edmund.

With that said, we were fortunate enough to obtain this video from the Newman/Feliu campaign headquarters that was taken just after the results came in...

Its election day in South Miami!

Hold on to your hats, it's election day over at the City of South Miami.  First and foremost we have the mayoral race where termed out city commissioner Valerie Newman is running against incumbent mayor, Phillip Stoddard.  There's also the race to fill the commission seat that Newman is vacating and commissioner Walter Harris is running for reelection against former city mayor and commissioner Horace Felieu.  

Unfortunately though, at least one of the candidates seems to have broken the law during the course of this election, I was ready to throw a post together detailing the crime the candidate was alleged to have committed but I was told that I should hold off as the police are investigating.  Oh well.  For the time being, we'll sit back and wait for the election results.

Michael Miller, co-publisher of Community Newspapers, offers an alternative view of the Horace Felieu campaign sign stealing incident.

Our friends over at Eye on Miami covered the Horace Felieu sign stealing incident yesterday on their blog.  Michael Miller, co-publisher of Community Newspapers and Horace Felieu's former employer gave this version of events in the blogs comments section...

MIchael Miller said... 

Here's what I heard: Horace and two other people were out campaigning and parked their car in a friends driveway.Upon exiting the car,Horace walked across the street and started talking to a gentlemen who was in his garage. Horace chatted for about 10 minutes about the election and about the gentlemen's dune buggy. 

At some point, Horace asked him about the Stoddard sign that was attached to the street sign.Horace pointed out the the sign was illegally placed on city property.The gentlemen said that it wasn't his and Horace asked if he could remove it. Which he did. Soon thereafter, the woman of the house objected to the removal and Horace suggested that if she wanted the sign, that it be moved off the public swale and placed on their own property. The women agreed and Horace carefully placed it on their own property and not on public property. 

Next..Back to where Horace had parked his car(across the street from the dune buggy.) Horace and two others were invited in and spent more than five minutes inside his friends home and they were told by the homeowner that the Walter Harris sign that was on the side of their property line did not belong to them and that they wanted a Horace sign.
Horace then went to the side neighbor and asked if the Harris sign belonged to them,which they denied. At their request, Horace put up his sign and the Harris sign was removed and given to them. 

And BTW, Horace's car did not have signs in it that belonged to Harris, Stoddard,or Obama nor Clinton or Christy 

So there ya go..Another way to look at that event.

Michael Miller

Essentially through his interpretation of events, Mr. Miller is calling William "Billy" Calcoa, the man who made the report to the police, a liar.  While most of his comment is hearsay, he does go on to state this part as fact:

And BTW, Horace's car did not have signs in it that belonged to Harris, Stoddard,or Obama nor Clinton or Christy

Oh, ok.  Glad Mr. Miller is taking inventory of what's in Mr. Felieu's trunk, thanks for that.

Even if you take Mr. Miller's word for how things happened, the one thing that Mr. Felieu can't escape is his role as a wanna be code enforcement officer who's cruising the streets of South Miami pointing out what he alleges are illegal signs.  Once again, from Mr. Miller's version of events...  

Horace pointed out the the sign was illegally placed on city property...and Horace carefully placed it on their own property and not on public property.

Honestly, WTF?  This part's my favorite though...

So there ya go..Another way to look at that event.

Ok, granted, that is another way to look at the event but so is blaming the whole thing on aliens, only thing is, the alien version of events is more probable than Mr. Miller's!

City of South Miami former mayor and current candidate for city commissioner, Horace Feliu, accused of stealing campaign signs.

Talk about WTF?  A South Miami citizen has reported former mayor and city commission hopeful, Horace Feliu, to the police for ripping off campaign signs!  WTF?!  What makes this allegation even more bizarre is that the person who allegedly witnessed Mr Feliu stealing the signs said he was stealing Mayor Stoddard’s signs for the mayor race, a race that Feliu isn’t even running in?!  Take a look at the report as it was given to the South Miami police…

  City of South Miami former mayor and current candidate for city commissioner, Horace Feliu, accused of stea...

City of South Miami mayoral candidate, Valerie Newman, is a racist.

Ever since we started covering the goings on over at South Miami, we've consistently heard stories of off handed racist remarks made by current city commissioner and now mayoral candidate Valerie Newman.  Whether its a comment disparaging Jews or blacks, there's plenty of rumors running around about different racially insensitive remarks made by Commissioner Newman, problem is that most of these comments were made in person and have been hard to prove.  That is till now, one of our readers forwarded us a video which contains a copy of an email where Commissioner Newman explicitly says "screw the black vote".  Take a look for yourselves, here's the email...

In case you missed it, here it is...

The video goes on to give several more examples of Commissioner Newman behaving "rude, boorish and tyrannical ", take a look for yourselves...



Screw the black vote, huh?  I suspect Commissioner Newman is going to be in for a nasty surprise come election day.

A quick look at the mayor candidates in South Miami's upcoming election.

The Miami Herald did a pretty good piece that in my opinion went unnoticed regarding the mayoral candidates in South Miami's upcoming election.  Here's a few quick quotes from the three candidates...

From incumbent City of South Miami mayor, Phillip Stoddard...

“Professionalism is important, but so is neighborliness,” Stoddard said. “A really big issue for me is corruption. The government doesn’t work if people don’t trust it, so it’s really critical in our small city.”

Fair enough.  It's unfortunate that in a state where our own congressman Alan Grayson claims that we have "more corrupt officials than alligators" that we don't have more like public officials fighting governmental corruption.

Next up we have political newcomer Rodney Williams.  Mr Williams who is currently a barber in South Miami has had a few brushes with the law in the past and want's to use his run ins with the law to help his fellow citizens...

“My arrests and situations happened,” Williams said. “I did some things and got arrested as a person not afraid to speak his mind. Some officers take offense to this. The officers have a job to do. My goal now is to encourage the younger guys to understand the law and if you are ignorant to the law, to just keep your mouth closed.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/28/3898316/seven-candidates-running-for-south.html#storylink=cpy

Ok, that reminds me of this like minded attorney's business card, check the fine print...

Last but not least we have current city commissioner, Valerie Newman, who is also running for the Mayor's seat, unfortunately, the Herald article only gives us this...

"Newman declined to be interviewed by the Miami Herald."

That's strange?  Why wouldn't a candidate in an election only days away refuse to be interviewed by the regions largest newspaper?  In lieu of a remark from candidate Newman, the Herald was kind enough to leave us with this bit about the esteemed commissioner...

In 2011, the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust dismissed a slew of complaints against Newman, but issued a letter telling her that "rude, boorish and tyrannical behavior by elected officials, while perhaps not actionable under an ethics code, is inexcusable nevertheless."

That's nice, "rude, boorish and tyrannical behavior", those make for some especially endearing qualities for a public servant!

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/28/3898316/seven-candidates-running-for-south.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/28/3898316/seven-candidates-running-for-south.html#storylink=cpy

An insightful comment from one of our readers as well as a video that illustrates just how screwy candidate for Mayor of South Miami Valerie Newman really is.

Lately it seems like we've been having a number of comments on our posts that depart from the regular "this guys an asshole" or "you're an idiot" etc bullshit.  Here's a comment one of our readers left us last Friday regarding the upcoming mayoral race in South Miami...

Please keep writing. The city of South Miami is a soap opera, and, the ever-shifting face of the City Commission, and their ability to hire/fire City Managers, is the cause of the overall malaise.

Maybe it is naïve to think that people are drawn to government because of a desire to be involved in public service - to make their community a better place to live? Why does South Miami seem to summon up the odd-balls, the cranks and the grand-standers to run for the city commission? Straw Buyer - your blog is important, and it does provide a valuable public service: you are usually right on the money, in calling out the crooks and rooting out scandals.

It might be difficult for an ordinary citizen to understand the politics at work - and what needs to happen to make this City a better place. What you do helps, a lot.
I can tell you one thing: the absolute worst outcome of the upcoming election would be for Valerie Newman to be elected Mayor. She is a despot, a scheming, conniving personality who would create even more conflict and chaos. At a recent commission meeting, the single most repulsive character involved in city government, Sharon McCain, was forced to identify where she was living. Having to suffer again through her bi-weekly five minute diatribes, her accusations and hysteria, she admitted her residence: the home of Valerie Newman. That's all you need to know folks. One of the craziest people in the known world is living with Commissioner Newman.

If Newman is elected, South Miami can expect more firings and more instability. Was she not the direct cause of Ajibola's ouster, and a subsequent $350K payment to settle his lawsuit? Our tax-dollars at work. Roger Carlton lasted all of six months, why did he leave? With the city's misguided hiring of Hector Mirabile, Newman fought to save him, because his police-state bullying matched up with the way that Newman sees the world - agree with me, or you are wrong. And will be terminated.

I'm not sure what Newman's platform is, and what her vision for the City of South Miami is? The city needs stability, for the new City Manager to settle in, and to have an opportunity to build a better team. I don't know if a new City Manager is on her agenda, or maybe she is plotting the return of Martinez de Castro?

Newman is not the face of reasoned discourse. Or, of a civilized populous. She is not a leader, or a consensus builder. She is divisive and spiteful, and would serve in the manner of a third world dictator. I pray that she is roundly defeated, otherwise the City of South Miami will continue to be the laughing stock of South Florida municipalities.

I couldn't have said it better myself.  One of our readers also sent us this video montage of mayoral candidate Valerie Newman acting bat shit crazy...

If that video isn't a good enough example of what kind of self aggrandizing bi polar moron she is, I don't know what is.  Whoever posted the comment and took the time to make the video, keep it coming!

Does any of our work here really matter?

Honestly, after nearly five years of writing about all kinds of mischief that takes place down here in Dade County, does any of what we've done over the years really matter?  I have to admit, I haven't been writing much lately partly because I've been swamped at work, but part of not keeping up with the blog has to do with the frustration of watching the same old shit going on day in and day out.  No matter how many scams and schemes we uncover, no matter how many times we bust politicians and public figures with their hands in the cookie jar or out them for being involved in some nefarious scheme or another, it just seems like nothing happens.

Sure we've gotten our fair share of people indicted, we've managed to get a fire chief thrown in jail, a police chief fired, as well as saved a few people from going to jail but considering the magnitude of some of the cases that we've written about, we should have seen ten times the amount of arrests and indictments that we've seen.  Same old shit, day in day out, all in all it's a bit disheartening.

With that said though, I was just about to give up on the fair city of South Miami, what with the dirty police chief gone, and the politicians that are running for office swearing to their constituents that if elected they wouldn't bring him back, it seemed like our work was done.  I was willing to walk away until one of our readers called me and told me that none other than disgraced former City of South Miami police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, was actually driving commissioner and candidate for Mayor of South Miami, Valeria Newman, around to different campaign functions.

The fuck you say?  Why the hell would this guy be driving Newman around if not to curry favor with her if she became mayor?  I hardly think the Mr de Castro is angling for a job as Newman's chauffeur?!  Any thoughts?

A comment from one of our readers...

We received this comment from one of our readers last week on this post...

There are days, albeit not many when I miss my crazy little city. Now that I have left the City of Pleasant Living for the West Coast of the State, I have to admit... As much as people criticize South Miami, it is by no means alone or unique in its dysfunctionality or absurdity. Still it is nevertheless a thoroughly crazy (and very entertaining) place. I miss you my little nut farm...

Hector C. Fernandez

Nice.  While I understand the sentiment, I don't necessarily agree with Mr. Fernandez.  The way I see it, South Miami is a microcosm of greater Miami Dade county, the same corrupting forces at work, the same charlatans that have been chased out of one town or another trying to screw the taxpayers in order to subsidize whatever schemes and scams they have running, the same guys lurking behind the shadows funding politicians in order to ensure that their friends get preferential treatment when it comes time to hand out city contracts, etc.  The only difference between South Miami and all the other cities in our fair county is that we get to watch first hand a small group of citizens who vehemently fight back against the typical South Florida corruption even if it means getting their own lives screwed with, whether by the police or opponents on the city commission who openly make slanderous remarks in public against their fellow commissioners.

With that said, it's that time of the year again, there's an election coming up in South Miami where incumbent mayor Phillip Stoddard and two commissioner's seats are up for grabs.  Commissioner Valeria "you're a scumbag" Newman is giving up her seat in pursuit of the Mayor's job, and Commissioner Walter Harris has drawn an opponent in the race for his seat.  From what I've been told there's already been considerable misbehavior in this race, in fact I'm told there have already been several ethics complaints filed.  I'm working on getting copies of those complaints to post up.

Holy smoke!

Jeeze, with the holidays and all as well as a major project that I'm working on for Homeland Security/Customs & Border Patrol as well as the Treasury Department, I had no idea that this much time had passed since I posted!  Regardless, today's post isn't much of a post, I'm just checking in to let all those who've contacted me via email, text or phone, that all is well and yes I am still "walking amongst you".

With that said, it seems like there's lots going on, we'll start tomorrow with the upcoming elections in South Miami and see where that takes us.