So what happens to websites and online documents that are highly critical of local government? What the hell happened to the Miami Dade County Independent Review Panel records online?

The answer should be obvious.  Case in point, the local blog that was turning the City of Miami politicians inside out, Miami for Change.  

Go to the site now and it looks like this...

From what we've heard through the grapevine, Commissioner Marc Sarnoff pulled the right levers and got the blog that had uncovered his nefarious activities shut down.  From the Investigation Miami Blog we get this:

We also got some really creepy information yesterday about a meeting on Monday at the Miami Police Department's Internal Affairs Office.  That meeting was ostensibly held with Marc Sarnoff, Chief Exposito, an assistant chief and head of IA, Al Alvarez.  Alvarez and Sarnoff are very close - Alvarez was Marc and Teresa Sarnoff's police chauffeur for several years. Alvarez reportedly continues to spend hours and hours every week in Sarnoff's office despite having become a member of the brass with his appointment to head of IA.
The information we were given is there was going to be an attempt to shut the blogs down because Sarnoff is really, really, really pissed off about our posts.  But really, I can't imagine that could be done by a two-bit cabal of those "Einsteins."

So much for first amendment rights and freedom of speech huh?

Regardless, for those of you familiar with our blog and one of the many mortgage fraud cases we've written about, the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, you'll remember we initially learned about the cop that was involved with that case, Jorge Baluja, through records that were available online from the Miami Dade County website.  The records in question were the findings of the Miami Dade County Independent Review Panel that investigated the Blanton Harris traffic accident that Detective Baluja screwed up royally.  Matt Meltzer wrote about the incident on the Miami Beach 411 website.  We also learned last year that due to budget cuts, Miami Dade County was going to cut the funding for the Independent Review Panel.  Doesn't that make sense?  Why not cut out a panel comprised of citizens that investigates complaints against cops and other county officials?  Who the hell needs these trouble makers anyway?  In fact, if we go back to the minutes of one of the meetings of the Independent Review Panel you can see the disdain against the IRP from the Miami Dade County Police Departments top brass...

That's too bad ain't it?  The police Chief is worried about his reputation being tarnished because the Independent Review Panel exposed him and his cronies sweeping an internal affairs case under the rug?  The IRP answers with this...

Right on!  Are you guys nuts?!  The IRP busts you guys and you want there findings taken offline?  Nice work IRP!

All good right?  For once the good guys prevail!  WRONG!  Let's go the the link that lead us to the IRP's report and findings regarding the Blanton Harris traffic incident, what do you get?

OH SNAP!  That can't be right!  What about the minutes of the hearing where the Chief of Police was bitching about his reputation being tarnished?!  

Everythings GONE!  Just like that, someone in the command staff of the MDPD complains and POOF!  Any evidence of their malfeasance disappears!  WTF!  Don't fret though folks, we still have copies of both reports.  Here's the IRP's report and findings regarding the Blanton Harris traffic accident...

IRP Minutes of Blanton Harris traffic accident investigation where MDPD top brass want the report erased fr...

And let's not forget the minutes of the IRP meeting where the Police Chief was bitching about his "tarnished reputation"...

IRP Minutes of Blanton Harris traffic accident investigation where MDPD top brass want the report erased fr...

Although the Miami Dade.gov page says these pages might be "temporarily unavailable", they've been this way for months.  Considering what we've seen recently regarding the Miami for Change blog being taken down, does any of this surprise anyone?

Tyrants?

My apologies to our readers for not posting yesterday, I was on my way back to Miami from a horrific trip to Montreal, even though its not exactly Miami like weather today, its sure nice to be back.  So you ask yourself, what does the word "tyrant" have to do with our story?  Let's first start with the definition of the word:

tyrant

n.

1. An absolute ruler who governs without restrictions.

2. A ruler who exercises power in a harsh, cruel manner.

3. An oppressive, harsh, arbitrary person.

Simple enough, someone in a position of power that doesn't have to answer to anyone.  History is full of such figures, Stalin...

 Mao...

 

and closer to home, Fidel...

So what am I getting at?  What do these infamous men in history have to do with our Mortgage Fraud story?  It comes down to power and accountability, in our story there are a few players that wield extraordinary powers over the citizens of Miami Dade county, both in the MDPD and in the State Attorneys Office.  We've seen the former lead detective in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud investigation, Jorge Baluja bumble his way through a simple traffic accident investigation and then went on to learn that there's a system of checks and balances (both through the internal affairs investigation and the subsequent Independent Review Panel hearings) that held him accountable for his misdeeds and went on to reprimand him for his lousy (at least in our opinion) police work.  Perhaps if the consequences of his improper investigation of the Blanton Harris traffic accident were more serious, Mr. Harris would have gone ahead and sued Mr. Baluja and the MDPD, in this instance both the police officer and the PD would have liability in such a suit as they only enjoy Qualified Immunity, let's take a look at what that term means:

Qualified Immunity-The qualified immunity doctrine protects government officials from liability for civil damages "insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982).

Too much lawyerspeak for my dumb ass, basically as I read it, if a cop or government official knowingly screws you, they're liable.  Fair enough?  On the other hand though, Prosecutors enjoy a different kind of immunity, something called Absolute Immunity, which in a nutshell means that when a prosecutor acts within the scope of his prosecutorial duties he is nearly immune from a civil lawsuit no matter how egregious his behavior.  The Supreme Court in 1976 ruled that "prosecutors, like judges, must be free to do their jobs without fear of being sued later", fair enough right?  This means that the prosecutor knows beforehand that almost no action that he takes in a case will result in civil or criminal punishment. This is an open invitation and temptation to act in the manner of a tyrant.  As we know, history is full of examples of what happens when a powerful man is not held accountable for his actions.  Don't fret though, as we saw last week, this shield of absolute immunity around the prosecutor is slowly being chipped away.  Before we go running for the hills, also remember that a prosecutor is only afforded Absolute Immunity when he is acting as a prosecutor, the minute he steps outside his role as an advocate and into the role of an administrator or investigator, he loses that shield of Absolute Immunity and enjoys the same Qualified Immunity as the police do.  


Where is this going?  Be patient, you'll see.

I don't recall. A common thread with Detective Jorge Baluja...

Everyone remember the Blanton Harris traffic accident investigation that introduced us to Detective Baluja's keen investigative skills? I know we've beat that story to death, but for $hits and giggles, let's take a look at one aspect of that story that we didn't investigate before, the Internal Affairs investigation, specifically a summary of the IA investigators interview of Jorge Baluja. Here's a page from the IA interview summary:


Now, it seems from this report that Detective Baluja DOESN'T REMEMBER ANYTHING! In fact not only does he draw a complete blank regarding the entire incident, he can't even remember if he was working that day. From the report...

OK!, he's shown pictures of the drivers involved then shown pictures of one of the witnesses, to which he still indicates that he doesn't recall anything about this accident! Let's take a closer look at how the investigator tried to "refresh" his memory...

Does it get any better than that? Detective Baluja is shown FIFTY THREE PHOTOS OF THE ACCIDENT SCENE, photos of the drivers involved and photos of the witnesses involved AND HE STILL DOESN'T RECALL ANYTHING REGARDING THIS ACCIDENT?

This is where I have to give comedic points to the Internal Affairs investigator, feeling stifled by Detective Baluja's answers and his lack of recollection of the incident, the investigator goes on to suggest that there maybe a Baluja look alike or perhaps another Jorge Baluja on the MDPD!

That's precious isn't it? Can you imagine the horror of another Jorge Baluja in the PD? YIKES! Despite Jorges assertions of not even knowing if he was there, his partner provides proof in the form of another accident report that indeed he was working that day and that he had responded to another accident as a back up the same day. As we'll see later, it's Jorge's M.O. to try to weasel out of responsibility, in fact the investigator in this case sums up the interview by saying:

"that he did not have any independent recollection of the incident after evading all the materials provided"

I like that word, "evading". The good detective can't remember a mess he created just 18 months prior that ended up with him getting investigated by internal affairs, even after there's a mountain of evidence put in front of him to "refresh" his memory. Not remembering is one thing, but "evading" answering question pertaining to a case is something else all together different.

Jorge, how can you put together a case and be expected to testify with such a bad memory? Do you have trouble finding your way to work in the morning? How the hell do you remember where to go? Does someone have to remind you to breath? How do you remember how to find this blog? (more on that tomorrow, you'll laugh your ass off when you find out how Jorge gets to this blog every day.)

Once again, another arrow in the quill of a defense attorney working against Detective Baluja.

A fantastic resource for a defense attorney...

So where do the facts that we've uncovered over the past few months leave Detective Jorge Baluja? To get some insight, let's take a look at this excerpt from Bob Normans article on "Hollywood's Mickey Mouse Cops":

"Prosecutors promptly dropped DUI and other trumped-up charges against Torrensvilas....But the fallout from Pressley's misconduct has likely just begun. Broward County Public Defender Howard Finkelstein is gathering all the cases involving Pressley and other officers involved in the coverup with hopes of getting those dropped as well."

Now, what would make Attorney Finkelstein think he can get all the other cases involving the dirty cops who are predisposed to lie in their police reports dropped? The fact of the matter is that like I said before, where there's smoke there's fire, if these cops lied about how a simple car accident went down (sound familiar?), it's safe to assume they've lied about far more serious matters in other cases as well. After all, the very cop who talked about "Walt Disneying the facts" on video was involved with a car chase where he falsely stated that there were "shot's fired" which escalated the car chase into a brutal beating of the driver by police. Essentially the credibility of the cops involved is permanently shot.

Now, ask yourself, who else do we know that has a nasty habit of lying on police reports? Who else do we know that has a history of perjuring himself and suborning perjury? Who's that man? Detective Jorge Baluja! Whether it's lying to the Independent Review Panel about the Blanton Harris traffic accident and the Internal Affairs investigation that arose from it, suborning perjury at the accident scene, suborning perjury in a witness statement, coercing witnesses or simply not having ANY IDEA about the subject he was investigating, our favorite Detective has created a bizarre situation for himself. Remember that old saying, "where there's smoke, there's fire?"


Everyone get it? Isn't it improbable that the two cases that we've outlined are the only ones that Detective Baluja has exhibited those characteristics in? I'd be willing to argue that most if not all of the cases that Mr. Baluja is involved in have evidence of some sort of misconduct, be it perjury, subornation of perjury, coercion of witnesses or obstruction of justice (HAH!). Just like there's doubt in all of the cases the Hollywood cops are involved in, I propose that all of the cases Mr. Baluja is involved in have the same cloud of doubt lingering over them. As a matter of fact, I will go so far as to suggest that Detective Jorge Baluja reputation is so tainted that he cannot be used as a states witness in court. In this instance Jorge, taint does not refer to the space between your balls and your ass, let's take a look at the definition so you clearly understand what I'm saying:

1 : to contaminate morally : corrupt (scholarship tainted by envy)
2 : to affect with putrefaction : spoil
3 : to touch or affect slightly with something bad (persons tainted with prejudice)

Get it Jorge? You have no credibility, words out of your mouth or on paper are worthless. As in the case with Mr. Finkelstein going back and getting cases involving the Hollywood cops thrown out, a defense attorney in a case involving you can now do the same. Perhaps this blogs lingering legacy will be a permanent online resource for defense attorneys that have cases involving Detective Jorge Baluja, put it this way, if you've been busted by Mr. Baluja, YOU'RE IN LUCK!

Have a great weekend!

A pattern of behavior...

A pattern of behaviour, bad character and lack of mistake. Could you imagine if I could characterize the behavior of police officer this way? Even worse if I could prove that the lead detective in an important investigation has a habit of lying, bending the truth and suborning perjury? Let's take a moment to examine that phrase...

Suborning Perjury- The criminal offense of procuring another to commit perjury, which is the crime of lying, in a material matter, while under oath.

That's some serious $hit there isn't it? I spent the weekend reading and rereading paperwork that I've collected regarding this cop and this case, I can't believe what I've found.
Why the hell would someone in law enforcement do something like this? Come on now, we're talking about Jorge Baluja here! Remember his treatment of the Blanton Harris traffic accident investigation? Do you recall the way he ordered a witness to change her testimony and lie about how the accident had happened? In case you forgot, let's take another look at an excerpt from the Independent Review Panel findings...

That's nice isn't it? You don't hear what you want so you make the witness change her statement to say what you want it to say! Isn't that convenient? Now, what if I tell you I've found PROOF of the same behavior in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case? Even better, who do we have ordering a witness to lie under oath? Under penalty of law for perjury? YOU GUESSED IT!

JORGE BALUJA!

Considering the magnitude of what I've discovered, I have to carefully consider what I'm going to do with my findings. Stay tuned!

The weekend is here and Jorge Baluja is UPSET!

Lets all give a warm welcome to the newest reader of the Straw Buyer, DETECTIVE JORGE BALUJA! Looks like Mr. Baluja found the Miami Beach 411 article and was then redirected here. Glad you're on board Jorge! Too bad you're upset buddy! I mean really, did you think the voices of Blanton Harris, Jakeem Atwell, Frantz Raymond and Chris Marshall were going to remain silent forever? Come on, you know better than that!


Unlike you Jorge, I went and met with the people involved in your botched traffic accident investigation and LISTENED to what they had to say. If not for their description of how you handled the incident and your deplorable treatment of innocent citizens I would have never gone any further. Your behavior was TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE, not to mention an embarrassment to all the good, honest and hard working law enforcement officers out there. It didn't surprise me the least bit to learn that you went on to bigger and better things, after all it seems in Miami when law enforcement officers fail, they fail UP rather than down! I was sure when I read about your mortgage fraud case that there was no way you could have done it without making as much of a mess out of it as you did in the traffic accident.

Honestly Jorge, did you think you could play with fire and NOT GET BURNT?


Yes Jorge, it's time to "SET SAIL FOR FAIL!" On our cruise we'll have several ports of call including the lovely Isle of INTERNAL AFFAIRS, then we'll sail on down to the quaint port of FDLE and we'll conclude our cruise in the warm strangely comfortable waters of PUBLIC HUMILIATION.

Before we go on, I'd like to let those in law enforcement out there that are following this story that I have the utmost respect for the good, hardworking, honest police that are out there protecting the citizenry. If not for these public servants putting their lives on the line day in and day out, we would be living in a lawless society. Its cops like Jorge Baluja that give you guys a bad name.

I'm out for the weekend, check back Monday morning for more, next week we'll be meeting the BUSIEST MAN IN THE MDPD!

Its been a long day, BIG NEWS in the world of Mortgage Fraud & a shipload of fail for Detective Jorge Baluja!

What a day. From the $40 million dollar Federal Mortgage Fraud bust to some serious and JUICY new information on the lead detective in our tale of mortgage fraud, Jorge Baluja. I must apologize to our readers here, I got caught up looking into the people who were charged and the states victim, I didn't take a close enough look at the Detective who was at the head of this investigation. Big news, I need a drink.

Oh well! So I'm running around today doing my normal daily routine and my phone rings with an email directing me to this story. HOLY CRAP! ARE YOU FCUKING KIDDING ME!? I had to pull my dumb ass over and reread this thing a couple of times. I was so shocked that I ran over to a computer and did a little looking myself. Lo and behold, a quick Google search leads me to this report from the Miami Dade County Independent Review Board and the minutes from the last hearing regarding the incident. That's some heavy crap for Detective Jorge Baluja. But again, after reading this report for some reason or another, my SPIDEY SENSES started tingling again.


Disbelief. The story about this, the simplest of ALL POSSIBLE TRAFFIC STOPS gone wrong is just too much to comprehend. How could this cop turn a traffic accident investigation and report into something so screwed up that it ended up being a shitstain on the personnel files of the top brass of the MDPD INCLUDING THE CHIEF OF POLICE! How the hell did Chief Leonard Burgess feel having to take the day off to attend this public slap in the face? My goodness. Can you imagine what it must have been like for Detective Jorge Baluja to be at the center of this mess and then on top of it have to attend this hearing where his superiors got BITCH SLAPPED? You would think that this incident would be burned into Baluja's mind, something that he must have run through his mind a million times both before and after the Internal Affairs investigation and the subsequent Independent Review Panel hearing. So what was Detective Baluja's recollection of the incident when asked during the investigation? Ready for it? He said:

"...he did not recall if he was working on that date."

EXCUSE ME? He was then shown a picture of Mr. John Oscar, one of the drivers involved in the traffic crash and also the red sports utility vehicle that Mr. Oscar was driving. Officer Baluja looked at the photographs and replied that:

"...he did not recall the incident."

EXCUSE ME? WTF DID HE JUST SAY?
Let me get this straight, this cop creates a mess so big that it turns into an internal affairs investigation which leads to a reprimand for himself, partner and the top brass of the MDPD? He can't remember a life changing event like this? Wow.

Moving along, regardless of the fact that the detective excluded important facts, eyewitness testimony and completely neglected undeniable physical evidence from a simple accident investigation, he then goes on to lie about whether or not he remembered the incident. Ok. Pardon my language here, IF YOU CAN FCUK UP THE SIMPLEST OF ACCIDENT INVESTIGATIONS AND CANT REMEMBER THE MESS YOU CREATED LATER ON, THEN HOW IN THE FCUK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO INVESTIGATE A COMPLEX CRIME LIKE MORTGAGE FRAUD!?

What the hell is actually required to become a detective in the MDPD?! I mean after hearing how he bungled up this accident investigation, ITS NO WONDER THAT HE MISSED ALL THE BASIC FACTS AND ALL THE WARNING SIGNS IN THE MORTGAGE FRAUD INVESTIGATION! This simple fact scares the living crap out of me. This cop who doesn't have a modicum of common sense is out there destroying peoples lives? First Blanton Harris (the owner of the truck that got rear ended) and now the defendants in this case. At the very least we know that two of the co defendants in the mortgage fraud case were guilty of something, BUT WHAT THE HELL DID THIS MENTAL GIANT THAT IS JORGE BALUJA HAVE ON THE ATTORNEY?

Moving right along! I made a little post at the end of the story on Miami Beach 411 to get a little traffic over here and BOOM! My email starts going nuts throughout the course of the afternoon and evening. I got the following:

• Detective Jorge Baluja's education was limited to a High School Diploma.
• Before he came to work at the MDPD, he had a job helping passengers with baggage at Royal Caribbean Cruise lines.
• Detective Jorge Baluja spends a great deal of time online while at the office.

OK! No education past high school and he worked at a cruise line. But what about this spending time online at the job? Whats that all about? Turns out our good ole detective spends a great deal of his time playing around on social networking sites, cruising ebay and craigslist! Seems like he's got some colleagues that don't hold him in such high regard either. See the problem here? To date I've only spent less than half an hour total online researching this case and look at the MAJOR facts that we've found that turn this detectives case on its ear. Maybe if Baluja spent less time playing around online while on COUNTY TIME, he could have properly investigated this case the way it should have been done.

My conclusion after all these new developments today is that Jorge Baluja HAS NO PLACE INVESTIGATING ANYTHING. He's shown us that his investigatory skills are laughable and his powers of deductive reasoning are NON EXISTENT. I was thinking that perhaps Baluja is more suited to reading parking meters, but it seems like when it comes to Jorge, even the parking meters know what time it is...


I want to thank those who've sent me information on the Detective and PLEASE KEEP IT COMING (thestrawbuyer@gmail.com)! Rest assured your anonymity is guaranteed. Something tells me that this story is going to get A LOT MORE INTERESTING REAL QUICK!