Like it never happened...

Stephen Orchard

You all remember attorney Stephen Orchard, don't you?  Mr. Orchard was one of the two attorneys that were federally indicted as part of the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud case who on the eve of trial was given a sweetheart deal by the prosecutors and sent on his way.  Let's not forget that Mr. Orchard was accused of committing among other things conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, and obstruction of justice for his part in the over sixteen million dollar mortgage fraud scheme that the feds labeled "Operation Copout".  I'm not sure how, but somehow this evening I stumbled upon Mr. Orchard's law firm's website and couldn't help but wonder what's happened since the government cut him loose from the criminal case.  From the looks of the website, Mr. Orchard seems to be doing just fine, but I wonder, what happened to the investigation into Mr. Orchard's involvement with the alleged frauds involved with the Plantation cops case?  A quick glance at Mr. Orchard's bar page reveals no disciplinary actions...

 That's all well and good for Mr. Orchard but what about his former boss and fellow defendant attorney Steven Stoll who was also federally indicted for his role in "Operation Copout", we know the government chose not to retry him after his first trial ended with a mistrial, but what about the Florida bar?  From Mr. Stoll's bar page...

David Rodriguez

You guessed it, NADA.  What's the big deal you ask?  No big deal I guess, I just wonder, why is there such great disparity in how the organization that regulates and disciplines attorneys handles different cases?  Those of you who've been following our blog for a while surely remember attorney David Rodriguez who was the target in one the Miami Dade County Mortgage Fraud Task force's first cases.  The cops had Mr. Rodriguez dead to rights, after all he was negotiating the crooked deals with an undercover cop who just happened to be one of the members of the Task Force!  Surely by now nearly four years after his arrest and subsequent plea, Mr. Rodriguez must have been disciplined by the Florida bar, right?  Once again, from his Florida Bar page...

Anyone surprised?  Four years after his arrest, four years after a plea and the subsequent sealing of his criminal record, not a single action from the bar.  


Once again, what's the big deal about any of this?  No big deal I guess unless you've picked up on the fact that whether it's the Florida Bar or the state attorneys office, their choice of prosecutions seems to be highly selective.  While some people are put through the ringer, others aren't even investigated.  Maybe I'm nuts, but I'm of the belief that if an attorney pleads out to a crime, they should receive some sort of discipline from the appropriate professional governing bodies.  Let's see if they still sit back and do nothing after we get done filing our complaints.

 

Back to that real estate purchase contract addendum that we began discussing the other day.

Let's take another look...

From the beginning...

Seller: ___________ Esq. as Personal representative of the estate of ________________

Ok, here we're establishing that an attorney is representing the estate that owns the home that's in question, no problem.

Buyer and seller agree to increase sales price to $220,000.

Wait a minute, why are we increasing the price of the home?  Isn't this a clear cut case of "an attorney inflating the price of the property"?  Interesting.

Seller hereby agrees to contribute $10,500 toward buyer's closing costs.

Oh really?  The seller is going to contribute 4.7% of the purchase price to the buyer.

Seller will pay documentary stamps based on $175,000.  Buyer agrees to pay the balance of the documentary stamps for the seller.

Oh Ok!  Alarm bells going off yet?  Buyer is going to pay the doc stamps on the $45,000 difference?

Seller hereby agrees to payoff (sic) a private loan to _________ in the amount of $45,105.00.  

HUH?!  WTF is that about?

Realtors commission in based on 3% each of $175,000.00

Fantastic!  Is it just me or is this a clear example of an attorney artificially inflating the price of a home by $45,000?  Does anyone see any parallels between this transaction and the fraudulent transaction that Attorney David Rodriguez put together back in the Miami Dade Mortgage Fraud Task Forces case #1?  In both instances the attorneys were putting together deals with inflated sales prices, the only difference was that Mr. Rodriguez was concocting the deal with an undercover cop, in this instance the attorney not only engineered the deal but also put it on paper and signed off on it!  

The other difference between the two cases?  This attorney didn't get arrested.  More coming...

So that mortgage fraud gig didn't pan out for you, huh counselor?

So what happens if you're a real estate attorney who couldn't make a go of that whole mortgage fraud thing?  Say you just happen to be lucky enough to be the attorney who was arrested in the Miami Dade County Mortgage Fraud Task Force's inaugural case back in 2007,  whatcha up to 3 years later?  You all remember attorney David Rodriguez from the Mortgage Fraud task forces first case that we discussed several months ago, ever wonder what he's been doing since his arrest?  As luck would have it, we were cruising down the street the other day and we stumble upon this sign...

Just for the hell of it I decided to call and see who the attorney responsible for this sign was and lo an behold it's David Rodriguez!  From mortgage fraud to ambulance chaser!  NICE! 

Strange thing though is that there's no record of Mr. Rodriguez's arrest, we were only able to find out about the case because of his poorly redacted name that was all over the criminal case file for the co defendants on the same case, obviously Mr. Rodriguez cut a deal early on and had his criminal record sealed so that his foray into the world of mortgage fraud would remain a secret.  Unfortunately for Mr. Rodriguez, whoever did the redacting from the state attorneys office did a piss poor job, all they did was simply go over his name with a black magic marker wherever it appeared in the file, in many instances his name was clearly visible underneath the marker making the whole redaction pointless...

I was so shocked at what a poor job the state attorneys office had done at redacting his name, that I completely missed what was at the bottom of the page...

There you have it, we no longer have to speculate whether or not Mr. Rodriguez was involved in that first mortgage fraud task force case, his name is clearly printed on the bottom of a few of the pages in the criminal case file along with his co defendants and the case number.  So much for "redaction"!

Attorneys Steve Stoll and Stephen Orchard from the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case being investigated by the Florida Bar...

Due to the tropical storm last Friday that never came , we here in South Florida had an unexpected long weekend.  The Straw Buyer and family attended a couple of barbecues and kicked back, wifey had a bit too much to drink though...

Looks like the Florida Bar is investigating both the attorneys that were arrested in the $16mm Plantation Cops mortgage fraud ring.  From the AP article...

Steve Stoll, a politically connected Republican attorney in Fort Lauderdale arrested last month in a mortgage fraud case, is now under investigation by the Florida Bar.
Florida Bar spokeswoman Karen Kirksey declined to provide specifics except to confirm that Stoll and fellow lawyer Stephen Orchard, also indicted in the fraud case, are under investigation.
In June, a federal indictment detailed how a group of attorneys, police officers and mortgage brokers falsified documents to obtain $16.5 million in loans they used to buy and flip properties.
Stoll's attorney, Robert Nicholson, who has said his client is innocent, was unaware the Bar was investigating but wasn't surprised. ``The Bar as a matter of course opens an investigation anytime a licensed attorney is charged with a criminal offense.''
Stoll and his wife, Rebecca Stoll, a former North Broward Hospital District commissioner, are familiar names in Broward political circles. They have supported candidates in recent years, including Gov. Charlie Crist in 2006 and in 2009 and Bill McCollum in 2009, and raise money for the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Discovery and Science.
-- AMY SHERMAN

Uh oh, that certainly doesn't sound good for the lawyers involved now does it?  Throughout the course of our blog we've noticed that the Bar has moved at glacial speeds against the attorneys that have been charged with crimes, yet in this case they seemed to be moving quickly against these two.  What struck me as strange about this article was the following quote from Mr. Stoll's attorney...

`The Bar as a matter of course opens an investigation anytime a licensed attorney is charged with a criminal offense.''

Is that right?  If indeed that is the case, what happened with the attorney from the Miami Dade County Mortgage Fraud Task Forces inaugural case, Attorney David Rodriguez?  You all remember him don't you?  This was the attorney that was charged with setting up an illegal home purchase where the buyer was getting tens of thousands of dollars from the closing without the lenders knowledge as well as paying off the sellers mortgage weeks before the closing actually occurred according to the state.  He was also accused putting the deal together with an undercover cop acting as the sellers accountant.  With those kinds of allegations, surely Mr. Rodriguez had some sort of investigation initiated by the Bar regarding his alleged involvement in this fraud, but as we mentioned before, there's no record of any discipline arising from this incident...

We're gonna take a closer look and see what we can find...

The Straw Buyer's dirty attorney roundup!

Don't get carried away, there isn't enough room on this blog to round up all the dirty attorneys out there, what we're going to do today is just summarize all the dirty attorneys that we've talked about since the inception of our blog.  Here we go...

• Roger Besu- charged with stealing over two million dollars of his clients funds from his trust account.
• Sally Sawh- oddly enough she's also been charged with stealing over two million dollars of her clients funds from her trust account.
• David Rodriguez- charged several counts for setting up an illegal home purchase where the buyer was getting tens of thousands of dollars from the closing without the lenders knowledge as well as paying off the sellers mortgage weeks before the closing actually occurred according to the state.  He was the attorney that put the deal together with an undercover cop acting as the sellers accountant.
• Alfredo Xiques- he's the guy who notarized forged signatures on a mortgage for his cousin allowing the cousin to make off with tens of thousands of dollars, oddly enough he was never charged.
• Scott Rothstein- the high profile attorney that ran a $1.2 billion dollar ponzi scheme through his law firm.
• Maria Teresa Lopez- where do we start?  This was the suspended attorney who according to the states charging documents kept doing closings through another attorney who didn't pay off mortgages and ultimately made off with hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars of lenders monies.
• Guillermo Napoleon Lopez- this would be Maria Teresa Lopez' brother who according to the state helped her launder the proceeds of the crooked mortgages.  Again, oddly enough he was never charged.
• Darlene Fernandez Carus- this is the attorney that Maria Teresa Lopez used to do her fraudulent deals through, the proceeds of these closings according to the state came through this attorneys trust account and again according to the state it was this attorneys office that was responsible for paying off the mortgages on the transactions that the Lopez group profited from.  Once again, despite the apparent involvement in these frauds, this attorney wasn't charged.

Last but not least, we have attorney Delaila Estefano who according the arrest affidavit prepared by Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski was charged with the following:

1. Grand Theft
2. Identity Theft
3. Organized Scheme to Defraud

Good enough.  We talked about the Grand Theft charge at length a while back and we get this gem of a quote from one of the motions filed with the court (top of page four)...

Furthermore, the State conceded that both Co-Defendant Romney and Martinez did not directly implicate Ms. Estefano has having knowledge about the underlying fraud in the case.

WTF?  Nearly two years into the Bernardo Barrera Mortgage Fraud case and the codefendants haven't been able to implicate the attorney?!  You have to wonder then, what did Attorney Estefano do that prompted Detective Baluja to arrest her?  Let's here it in his own words...

So there you have it folks, the state alleges that not following closing instructions is what got the attorney arrested.  Not stealing millions of dollars from trust accounts, not for failing to pay off peoples mortgages, not for fraudulently notarizing peoples signatures or for doing fraudulent deals with undercover cops but for allegedely failing to follow closing instructions.  Brilliant Jorge.

Revisiting the case of attorney David Rodriguez.

Does everyone remember that attorney we talked about that was arrested in one of the Mortgage Fraud Task force's first case?  The attorney that was arrested was non other than attorney David Rodriguez of Miami.  In this case according to the arrest affidavit and the information filed by the state, Mr. Rodriguez was caught red handed officiating a crooked real estate transaction and went so far as to deal directly with an undercover cop then try to negotiate some sort of kick back for the seller of the property to cover any capital gains issues he may of had as a result of the inflated sales price for the home.  This seemed like a slam dunk case for the state, after all based on the what we see in the states case file, the Mortgage Fraud Task Force gave the case to the assistant state attorney on a silver platter.  I can only imagine the disappointment on the part of the task force members and the detectives who put this case together when the state attorneys office not only let everyone walk with a slap on the wrist and some probation, but then allowed the attorney that was arrested to plead out and from what it looks like get his record sealed.  Complete, total and utter FAIL!  I sincerely doubt this is was the intended outcome of one of the task forces inaugural cases.

There's another element to the David Rodriguez story though, unlike the other co defendants in his case, he has to answer to someone else, a higher power, The Florida Bar.  There were some pretty hefty allegations made by the police and the state attorneys office against the attorney, one has to ask, did the Bar know what was going on?  Remember the state alleged that the attorney paid off the sellers mortgage before the closing occurred among other things, isnt that in and of itself a serious trust account issue for the attorney?  I wonder if anything ever came of the mess this attorney was involved in, the allegations were serious enough, let's take a look and see if there's any disciplinary history for Mr. Rodriguez:

Look at that, no disciplinary history and still eligible to practice law.  GOOD FOR HIM!  I wonder what happened though, I've been told that it's not uncommon for the state attorneys office to work hand in hand with the Florida Bar when prosecuting an attorney suspected of committing a crime, was that the case here?  Was the Assistant State Attorney in this case as hard on attorney David Rodriguez as he was with the other attorneys that we've discussed?  Did the Bar know about the allegations that were made against Mr. Rodriguez?  Did the Bar conduct their own independent investigation into the allegations made against Mr. Rodriguez?  I wonder.  I also wonder why the prosecutor was so easy on the defendants in this case.  Very interesting.

The week in review.

Here we go:

1. What happens when a dirty attorney gets busted committing mortgage fraud?
2. Should we just forget everything we've learned so far?
3. Holy smokes! Who are all these people reading our blog!?
4. Fifteen more mortgage fraud cases.

Until next time!

What's done can't be undone.

Like the title of today's post says, "what's done, can't be undone" or in our case, what's seen can't be unseen...


What are we supposed to do now after we've learned everything we have over the last few months? We've seen everything from poor police work, shoddy investigations, misreporting of the facts, an independent legal opinion from another lawyer involved in the foreclosure case that arose from this mess and now to top it off a confession from one of the defendants. After we've seen how the system has been twisted and misused in this case, how are we expected to sit back and stomach all this? Much like the clown in the video above who finds himself in a compromising position with his daughter, nothing can ever be the same again.

The witching hour is near friends. Has anyone else figured out the last remaining riddle? We'll discuss tomorrow, for now we're off to the courthouse to find more background on another 15 names that were forwarded to us.

The outcome of the David Rodriguez, Nestor Camacho, Jose Delgado, Monica Zuluaga case.

Sorry about not posting yesterday boys and girls, I was observing Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the years for people of my background. Alrighty then, I've tried my best to find out what happened with all four defendants in the Mortgage Fraud Task Force's case against Camacho, Delgado, Rodriguez and Zuluaga that we discussed earlier. For those of you who don't remember, this is where Mr. Camacho was going to buy a condo from a retired cop with a fraudulent mortgage brokered by Mr. Delgado and a closing and cash back scheme officiated by attorney David Rodriguez and his closer Mrs. Zuluaga. Here's what we've been able to find on how that case ended:

Nestor Camacho- charged with Organized Scheme to defraud and Grand Theft, the organized scheme to defraud charge got a nolle pros and the Grand Theft charge where he tried to steal $100,000, Mr. Camacho was given an adjudication withheld and probation. FANTASTIC!

Jose Delgado- I haven't been able to find the outcome of his case.

Monica Zuluaga- charged with Organized Scheme to defraud and Grand Theft,the organized scheme to defraud charge got a nolle pros and the Grand Theft charge where she put together fake hud-1 statements, fake affidavits stating that there was going to be $100,000 worth of work done to the condo that Mr. Camacho was buying, on that charge she was rewarded with an adjudication withheld with 3 years of probation! EXCELLENT!

Last but not least, the remaining defendant, Attorney David Rodriguez, you all remember him right? This would be the attorney that told the retired cop that was selling the condo that he couldn't reflect that actual sales price on the HUD-1 because the bank wouldn't approve the loan and then went on to negotiate a discount with an undercover cop posing as the sellers accountant! Can it get worse than that? YES IT CAN! Remember even before the police got involved, the two checks that were made out to Mr. Rodriguez's trust account by Mr. Camacho as deposits for the condo purchase were returned as NSF! Mr. Rodriguez and his firm neglected to mention that to the seller and the bank that was financing the fraudulent purchase. Once again we must ask ourselves, CAN IT GET WORSE THAN THIS?! YES IT CAN! Even worse than officiating the fraudulent transaction, worse than negotiating a discount for the seller with an undercover cop for the income tax implications for the seller that may arise because of the $100,000 kickback, Mr. Rodriguez (according to the arrest affidavit and records from his trust account statements from Transatlantic Bank) PAID OFF THE SELLERS MORTGAGE 3 WEEKS BEFORE THE CLOSING EVER HAPPENED USING FUNDS THAT THE BANK GIVING THE MORTGAGE TO MR. CAMACHO HAD SENT TO THE CLOSING ATTORNEY'S TRUST ACCOUNT! ZOINKS! So what happened to Mr. David Rodriguez after he got arrested and charged with organized scheme to defraud and grand theft? As far as I can see NOTHING! Based on what's available in the public record, there isn't even a hint of Mr. Rodriguez getting in trouble, except for that pesky press release with his name and photo as well as his name all over the arrest affidavits for the co defendants in this case.


Can someone explain this to me? It's obvious that Mr. Rodriguez had a master of a defense attorney who cut a deal and then got the records expunged. Fantastic for him, but why did was Sgt. Davis's slam dunk case end up like this? We know from reading the arrest affidavit that Mr. Camacho and Mr. Delgado pretty much admitted to everything and told the state exactly what had happened. Mrs. Zuluaga with her prior arrests for multiple grand theft charges, petit larceny, uttering a forged instrument, etc, why the hell was she afforded such a sweat heart deal? After all, from what we're told in the arrest affidavit, she's the one that did all the legwork under the direction of the attorney, why did she get let off so easily? Considering that at least two of the defendants admitted to committing mortgage fraud in obtaining the fraudulent mortgage, why weren't more charges brought against them? According to the arrest affidavit, at least two of the defendants spilled the beans, why the hell would you cut a deal with the other two? WTF?

Besides the wrong doing by the attorney in this case, why wasn't the attorney disciplined by the Florida Bar? As per the Florida Bar website, Mr. Rodiriguez is eligible to practice in Florida with no history of disciplinary action by the bar. What gives? This case was in the media, why doesn't the bar know about the hijinks that went on here? Ultimately the outcome of this case runs contrary to the mission statement of the Mortgage Fraud Task Force. The defendants were slapped on the wrist then sent on their way, the attorney in the middle of this scheme went on with his life and law practice totally unharmed. Who knows what really happened, one thing that did happen for sure is that Sgt. Davis's slam dunk case got flushed down the toilet.

Tomorrow, a confession to the Straw Buyer from one of the defendants.

I can't figure it out, if someone can, fill me in.

The more we look for answers, the more unanswered questions we find. What I'm learning about the inner workings of these cases and the subsequent prosecution of the people who get arrested make about as much sense to me as these fantastic looking breast implants on this old man at Walmart:


Going back to yesterdays post where the Miami Dade County Mortgage Fraud Task forces Sgt. Davis posed undercover to bring in an incredible case where not only did they get the fraudsters but he actually busted the attorney officiating over the fraudulent deal! That's right, in case you missed it, Sgt. Davis was posing as the sellers accountant in the transaction and had the attorney and his closing girl dealing directly with him in all aspects of the transaction from dealing with the extra $100,000 that was to be kicked back to the buyer at closing as well as dealing with the income tax consequences that the overage at the closing was going to create for the seller!

Unfortunately though, finding the details on the outcome of the case for all four defendants has been very difficult, I'll have to go to the courthouse again and see what I can come up with. I haven't been able to find anything on Jose Delgado or attorney David Rodriguez, at the very least though, I know that Mr. Rodriguez is still practicing law and has no history of disciplinary action with the Florida bar. Considering the facts as they are portrayed in the arrest affidavit, I'd love to know which criminal defense attorney represented Mr. Rodriguez!

With that said, I'll try to get over to the courthouse and dig up whatever else I can find, if I manage to do it today, I'll go ahead and post my findings mid day. I've been flooded with tips regarding what we've been writing about over the last few months, I'll have to pour over everything this weekend and see what if any of it we can write about.

Let's take a look at Mortgage Fraud Task Force case # F07-34446 A-D, the story of MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER and David Rodriguez Esq.

Today's post is going to be a bit long in the tooth, so please bear with me, its worth it! For those readers among us that are in the MDPD or in the legal profession, pay particular attention to this post, its full of interesting tidbits that are rather alarming. As I mentioned yesterday, I've contacted attorney David Rodriguez on three separate occasions via email to see if he wanted to tell us anything about this story before we posted our findings. I still haven't heard from him, so we'll go ahead and see what we can deduce from the arrest affidavit for case # F07-34446 A-D. Early on during our research in this case I came across a problem when I was digging through the county clerks website, I was able to find F07-34446-A, and F07-34446-C but was unable to find F07-34446-B or F07-34446-D. Now, I knew the B and D cases existed, I just couldn't find them. I went back and watched the Mortgage Fraud Task Force's press release and counted four defendants, they are as follows:

1. Nestor Camacho
2. Jose Delgado
3. David Rodriguez
4. Monica Zuluaga

With four defendants, why was I only able to find two with F07-34446 case number? I then searched again and was able to find the following:

1. Nestor Camacho F07-34446-A
2. Jose Delgado F07-34447
3. Monica Zuluaga F07-34446-C

Mr. Delgado's case disposition says "transferred to another case", yet for reasons I can't understand, I can't find the other case. Please be patient with me, as I've explained several times in the past, I have a very limited knowledge of how the criminal court system works therefore I could have erred in some way, shape or form in researching Mr. Delgado's history. Please don't draw any conclusions based on my unsuccessful attempt at figuring out what happened to Mr. Delgado.

That left me with one name that I couldn't figure out, David Rodriguez. His name was in the press release, yet for some reason or another I couldn't find anything on him on the clerks website. Bizarre and all the more reason for me to go down to the court house and look at the file myself. Here's a hint of what I found...


WTF is that black magic marker doing over that name damn it! That really pissed me off! I pour over the arrest affidavit and guys, WHAT A CASE! Sargeant Richard Davis of the Miami Dade County Mortgage Fraud Task Force did a hell of a job on this one! Sgt. Davis posed undercover as the sellers accountant and dealt directly with all the players in the fraud including the attorney! Lets take a look at the affidavit as it appeared in the case file. I'm going to post the affidavit page by page (with a little commentary at the end of each page), if you want to get a better look at the page, just click and the page will enlarge.

Page 1

Here we find that Mr. Camacho was purchasing a condo from a retired police officer, the sales price was going to be $250,000 but they were inflating the sales price by $100,000. When the sellers attorney objected to the extra $100,000 MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER told the sellers attorney that if the HUD-1 reflected the $100,000 going back to the buyer, the lender wouldn't approve the loan. Sgt Davis in his under cover role as the sellers accountant was told that MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's office was going to prepare phony documents that showed that the extra $100,000 was being given back to the buyer for renovations. Very nice.

Page 2

In page 2 Sgt. Davis tells us how WMC Mortgage wired the proceeds of the loan into MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's trust account before the closing took place and then MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER paid off the sellers mortgage before the closing ever took place, without the seller signing a single document. We're then told that David Rodriguez's Office never advised the lender of the addendum that was prepared for the seller to return the $100,000 to the buyer at the closing. WAIT A MINUTE! WHAT THE FCUK? David Rodriguez? Was he MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER? Did a clerk forget to cross his name out? WHY WAS HIS NAME CROSSED OUT IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Page 3

Page three discusses different aspect of the fraudulent loan application and indicates that the sellers attorney contacted MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER and asked him why the $100,000 his clients were to give the buyer at closing wasn't on the HUD-1 at which point MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER tells him that if the $100,000 was on the HUD-1, the lender would not approve the transaction. Monica Zuluaga goes on to tell the sellers attorney the same on behalf of MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's office.

Page 4

Here the sellers attorney calls MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER and asks again about the excess $100,000 that his client was to pay the buyer at the closing, when asked why this wasn't reflected on the HUD-1 MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER tells him once again that if the refund was reflected on the HUD-1, THE LENDER WOULD NOT CLOSE THE LOAN. Sgt. Davis being the bad ass that he his posing as the sellers accountant then goes on to negotiate a $20,900 credit for the sellers so they could cover any potential income tax problems from what would look like a $100,000 profit from the sale of their home! Sgt. Davis is then assured that MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's office will take care of all the documentation to cover the excess proceeds from the transaction. Once again their is a mention of David Rodriguez's office, is this Mr. Rodriguez and MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER one and the same? We'll see.

Page 5

Here Sgt. Davis uncovers the fact that MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER had paid off the sellers mortgage with the proceeds of the loan the buyer had obtained without the closing ever happening! Sgt. Davis then goes on January 10, 2007 nearly three weeks after the sellers loan was paid off posing as the sellers accountant to ask about the potential tax consequences of the $100,000 in excess proceeds. Once again there is mention of the Law Office of David Rodriguez, this time with an address. Again, we ask ourselves, is David Rodriguez and MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER one and the same?

Page 6

MY GOD! Sgt. Davis now lets MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER and Monica Zuluaga in Mr. Rodriguez's office know that he is a COP and that he's going to be seizing the file with all the fraud in it! HOLY $HIT! NICE WORK SGT. DAVIS! Can you imagine the look on MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER and Zuluaga's faces! I wonder if Mr. Rodriguez was in office at the time when this went down?! WOW!

Page 7

WOW! On page seven we find out that in the closing file there were two deposit checks from the buyer, one for $5,000 and one for $10,000 made out to MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's trust account, both of which were returned as NSF! Even though both down payment checks made out to MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's trust account were returned, MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER nor anyone else ever alerted the sellers to this issue. Sgt. Davis then debriefs Mr. Delgado the mortgage broker who goes on to admit that he prepared all the fraudulent loan paperwork.

Page 8

On Page 8, Mr. Delgado goes on to state the MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER and Monica Zuluaga were aware of the fraud and had helped conceal it from the lender! In addition to spelling out how he helped perpetrate this fraud, he goes on to say that he told the buyer not to worry about the NSF checks written to MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's trust account and that not to worry, that MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER's office "would cover the issue". WOW!

Page 9

Page 9 details more aspects of how the fraudsters put together the crime then Sgt. Davis goes on to speak to Ms. Sharon Mason the legal representative of the lender, once again there's mention of David Rodriguez's office. Interesting. She goes on to mention that the lender had no idea about the $100,000 overage and had been unaware that the loan application and the documents that had been created by the broker and David Rodriguez's office were fraudulent and fabricated. Once again we have to ask ourselves, is David Rodriguez and MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER one and the same?

Page 10

Sgt Davis goes on to explain the fraud to Ms. Mason who then became enraged at the conduct of the mortgage broker and MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER. Not to mention the fact that MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER PAID OFF THE SELLERS LOAN WITHOUT THE CLOSING HAVING HAPPENED USING THE LENDERS MONEY!

I must say, FCUKING BRILLIANT WORK SARGEANT DAVIS! WOW! This man does the citizens of Miami Dade County proud! Sgt. Davis busted not only the fraudulent buyer, the fraudulent mortgage broker, but he gets the closing processor Monica Zuluaga and MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER! But what about the attorney David Rodriguez? Our fearless Mayor told us in the Mortgage Fraud Task Force press release that Mr. Rodriguez was arrested, so why can't I find anything in the clerk's website regarding the arrest? Not to mention WHO THE FCUK IS MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER?! Is David Rodriguez Esq. and MR. BLACK MAGIC MARKER one and the same? Baffling huh? It would be a mystery if not for the funny little camera that I used to take photos of the arrest affidavit. Take a look at how the camera captured this instance of the black magic marker being used to obscure a name...

Draw your own conclusions. Regardless of the fact that someone forgot to cover Mr. Rodriguez's name several times throughout the affidavit, even where they did cover his name, it was clearly visible beneath the black magic marker. There is no misreading this case, after all a great deal of the interaction with the fraudsters was with Sgt. Davis directly while he was posing as the sellers accountant! This is what in my book is called a SLAM FCUKING DUNK CASE! My hats off to the fantastic investigation and under cover work done by Sargeant Davis of the Miami Dade Mortgage Fraud Task Force. Its this kind of brave police work that is woefully under reported in the media, my hats off to you sir. JOB WELL DONE.

How does this explain Mr. Rodriguez's name being deleted (albeit poorly) throughout the case file and from the public record? Its a mystery to me. Now that we've seen how Sgt. Davis flawlessly put this case together, the case now goes to the State Attorney's Office. Once the baton is passed to the State Attorney's Office, its up to the Assistant State Attorney assigned to the case to prosecute the bad guys that the PD brought to justice. Tomorrow we'll see how the SAO handled the task forces fantastic case and we'll see if we can get some clarification as to why David Rodriguez's name was deleted from the record.

HOLY CRAP!!!!! Jorge, you're in for a boat load of fun!!!!!!

I got a bug up my ass today to go down to the halls of justice and see what I could find on those names I mentioned a few days back. I went up to the ninth floor, gave the clerk the case numbers that I was able to find and in short order they pulled the files I had requested. Rather than give me the files though, they locked me in a 6 x 12 room then passed the files through a window. I guess they wanted to make sure I didn't leave the room with any papers, let me tell you WHAT A $HITTY SMELLING ROOM! God, the funk was so bad in that room, I had a hard time concentrating! After getting acclimated to the horrific funk, I settled down and started going through what turns out to be Miami Dade County's Mortgage Fraud Task Force Case #1!! My lord what a case! This one involves some SERIOUS misconduct on behalf of attorney David Rodriguez, who closed the transaction in question, this one wasn't investigated by the likes of Jorge Baluja, no sir! This case was done from the ground up by none other than the #2 man in the Mortgage Fraud Task Force!!! Sergeant Richard Davis! The same Sgt Davis that teaches the task forces detectives all about mortgage fraud during their task force training. Let me tell you boys and girls, this guy did a hell of a job, he even went so far as to pose under cover as the seller's accountant! This case is full of juicy tidbits but before I write about what I read in the arrest affidavit, I'm going to let the attorney that was arrested have a chance at telling his story. I've emailed him several times to no avail, if I don't hear from him, I'll go ahead and post the arrest affidavits and let them speak for themselves. I must say the Sgt. Davis, NICE WORK!

After I spent a few hours going through a couple of other cases that the Mortgage Fraud Task Force had prosecuted, I somehow got the idea to go ahead and see if they'd give me the file on the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, I mean why not? I'm already here! I fill out the papers, then am greeted with two huge folders full of paper work! GOOD LORD! I then start going through the piles of papers in the files then realize I HAD HIT THE DAMN JACKPOT! Included among these files were three transcripts of the witnesses that had been deposed to date by the defense attorneys! HOLY CRAP! The first one I pick up reads:

"DEPOSITION OF DETECTIVE JORGE BALUJA"

OH MY GOD!!! I spent another two hours pouring over this transcript, I was left SPEECHLESS! If our loyal readers think that what we've uncovered about the good detective on the Straw Buyer was bad, you guys have no idea what's in those transcripts! Lets just say that what we've shown isn't even the tip of the iceberg. I don't know if it's kosher to reproduce the contents of the transcript here, I don't want to potentially hurt the defense so I'll hold off on posting whats there until a later date. If curiosity has the best of you though, go over to the 9th floor in the criminal courthouse, go to the records department and ask for case # F08-36522B. I promise its going to be worth your while. I can't begin to describe what kind of fail is in that transcript, its simply beyond comprehension, I'll give you guys a little teaser. Can you imagine during the deposition, Detective Baluja couldn't figure out where Doral is located? Here's Jorge being asked a question about the Doral Police station:

Jorge, let me help you out here. The Doral substation has never been part of the City of Miami Police department, as far as I know, Doral has never been within the city limits of the City of Miami. I'll go a little further, you work for the MIAMI DADE POLICE DEPARTMENT, take a look outside your office, you'll see white, green and gold cars that look like this:


If Doral was in the City of Miami, when you looked out the window, you'd see a bunch of blue and white cars that looked like this:


Jorge, the mayor of the county that you work for looks like this:


Now, if Doral was located in the City of Miami, the mayor would look like this:

Is that clear Jorge? I though Detective Baluja not being able to figure out how to execute his own mortgage was bad, that's nothing compared to not knowing where the FCUK your office is! I wish I could say that this depo was all fun and games but its not. What I read in that depo is an insult to all the good, hard working cops out there. Based on what I found in the file it looks like Detective Baluja took some liberties with the facts, not unlike what he did in the Blanton Harris accident investigation, even better, when asked about said accident investigation, HE LIED ABOUT IT! From what I see Jorge, I would suggest planning a new career, your days as a cop are numbered buddy! You can take that $hit right to the bank!

I promise our readers an in depth study of Mortgage Fraud Task Force Arrest #1 over the next few days, both in how the police handled the case and how the State Attorney prosecuted the case. Interestingly enough my little field trip to the court house left me running behind schedule the rest of the day, by the time I caught up with everything I had to do, I found myself traveling home towards the Grove on US-1 just before seven PM. When I was stopped at the traffic light at US-1 and 27th avenue, you'll never believe who pulled up next to me and looked right at me!

HA! We'll see you tomorrow!