THE PARTY'S OVER!

The party's over, or so it seems for embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro.  Yesterday I was forwarded this proposed resolution that is to be heard before the city commission this evening at 7 pm.  

In an nutshell basically what the city is saying is that since Mr. de Castro accepted the job of "acting city manager" for a total of 45 days simultaneously during his tenure as police chief, that in doing so he voided his employment contract for the position of the chief with the city.  Take a look at the proposed resolution for yourselves...

  Orlando Martinez de Castro Resolution to void employment contract

According to the state of Florida's constitution,  Article II, Section 5(a) states: 

“No person shall hold at the same time more than one office under the government of the state and the counties and municipalities therein”

Therefore according to the Florida attorney general's opinion (AGO 2013-08) ...

...that appointment of a police chief to the office of Acting City Manager for any duration, even temporary, violates the dual office-holding prohibition in Section 5(a), Article II of the Florida Constitution...

and...

...the Supreme Court of Florida set forth the general rule: “The acceptance of an incompatible office by one already holding office operates as a resignation of the first”

In other words who ever is proposing this resolution is telling embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro to...

We're waiting with bated breath and will report back as soon as there's anything new.

THE HEAT and some pretty embarrassing stats for embattled City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro

As much as I'd like to sit here and write about the goings on in local politics or the asshat that I helped get indicted yesterday, I'm too happy and way too tired to to so after last nights Heat victory!  So today we're going to have a first, a guest blogger whose given us a rather interesting perspective into the City of South Miami's chief of police, Orlando Martinez de Castro's performance over the last few years as chief.

How good a police chief is Orlando Martinez de Castro? You decide.

South Miami Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro’s contract states:

“The Parties agree that Opa Locka, North Miami, North Miami Beach and Homestead are comparable cities for the purpose of evaluating changes in crime statistics over time.”

The Chief chose these comparison cities himself, so let’s look at FDLE’s crime statistics for these cities and see how his performance has stacked up to his handpicked competition. Chief Martinez de Castro was re-hired as South Miami’s Chief in October 2010, so we’ll use 2010 as a baseline for comparison. Are we being fair so far?

Compared to the average changes for police departments in the Chief’s comparison cities, South Miami’s total crime changes rose 3%, burglaries rose 17%, and percent of crimes resolved by the SMPD (clearance rate) fell 17%. These numbers speak for themselves.

Beyond these dismal numbers, in the two and 2/3 years Mr. Martinez de Castro has been Chief in South Miami his department has failed to achieve state or national accreditation.

For this performance, the former city manager gave the chief $10,000 in merit raises while his rank and file got nothing, and the PBA gave Chief Martinez de Castro “leadership” awards two years in a row. For this same performance, the City Commission fired the manager and voted no confidence in the Chief, both by 3:2 votes.

Yikes!  Those are pretty damming numbers, aren't they?  With that said, thanks to our reader and guest blogger that compiled those stats for us.  Till next time, have a great weekend and GO HEAT!

Meanwhile at embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's deposition...

As we mentioned yesterday, embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro was supposed to be deposed by the defense attorneys representing the three tellers that were arrested as part of the Airways Auto Tag Agency case.  Everything was all set to go at 2:30 pm then at the last minute, Mr. Martinez de Castro through his attorney (I believe Simon Steckel), decided to cancel the deposition.

I don't get it, whether it's ducking depositions from the Ethics Commission or avoiding depositions in this criminal case where the chief and his wife allege that their employees stole tens of thousands of dollars from them, Mr. Martinez de Castro seems to do anything he can to avoid getting deposed.  I wonder why?  Does he have something to hide?  Is he scared of all those big bad lawyers?  Perhaps he's afraid of the questions they might ask him?  Who knows.  The next trial date for the Airways criminal case is just one month away, perhaps by the Martinez de Castro clan continually cancelling their depositions, maybe they think that they'll pressure the defendants into taking a plea?  Whatever.

Another interesting development is that the other Airways Auto Tag Agency employees that were scheduled to be deposed have all lawyered up.  How does that work?  Considering that these people survive on a meager income and theoretically have nothing to hide, how and why did they hire attorneys to represent them in a deposition?  

Whatever the case, things will definitely get interesting over the next few weeks.  Now on another note, here's another example of our constitutional rights getting trampled on again, in the fair state of New York, it's now a FELONY to annoy a police officer!  Check it for yourselves...

"A PERSON IS GUILTY OF AGGRAVATED HARASSMENT OF A POLICE OFFICER OR PEACE OFFICER WHEN, WITH THE INTENT TO HARASS, ANNOY, THREATEN OR ALARM"

Thank god we don't live in New York any more! 

Do you think someone in law enforcement is abusing the state's D.A.V.I.D. system to get information on you?

A few weeks back we discussed the potential for a law enforcement officer to abuse the state's Driver And Vehicle Information Database aka D.A.V.I.D. to glean personal information on someone that they have no open criminal investigation into or otherwise have no reason to inquire about.  Think about it, say you're a cop and see a hot chick driving next to you, you want to get more information on them, IE home address, name, etc so you go ahead and run their license plate number through the D.A.V.I.D. system and just like that, viola, you have everything you need to know about them, home address, name, date of birth, etc.  Or how about if you're in law enforcement and there's someone that you don't care for that's bothering you, you want to know a little more about them?  Simple, plug their name into the D.A.V.I.D. system and you got everything you need to know about them, home address, criminal history if any, etc.

Now, during the course of our coverage of the goings on over at the City of South Miami, we've been told time and time again that the cops over there, specifically the chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, abuse both the D.A.V.I.D. system as well as the federal N.C.I.C. system to obtain information on people they don't like.   We also uncovered evidence of these types of abuses when we discovered that embattled City of South Miami police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro was being sued because of his departments abuse of the D.A.V.I.D system.  So what's the big deal?  It's simple, it's illegal for cops to abuse these databases in this manner, if you bust them doing so, they'll get their asses handed to them on a plate.  But how are you supposed to prove that someone is abusing the system?  After a few months of researching the subject and with the help of one of our readers, we've finally figured out a simple method for a citizen to find out whether or not someone in law enforcement is using these databases to illegally obtain private information.  Here's a simple step by step procedure for finding out if a law enforcement officer has been poking around the state's databases looking you up:

• Send a D.A.V.I.D. audit request to  CherylZenoz@flhsmv.gov  and  TeriCrews@flhsmv.gov.  Include your name, date of birth, drivers license number, and your home address.
• Include the areas of Florida you want searched.  If you think someone in South Miami is looking you up, I'd suggest you have all of Miami Dade county searched, or for shit's and grins, just go ahead and specify the entire state of Florida, searching both local police and the sheriff's requests.
• When you make the D.A.V.I.D. audit request, include the date range you want searched, for example, I started writing about South Miami about a year and half ago, so in my instance it would make sense to search from January 1, 2011 to "present".

If you follow those simple steps, the good folks up at the Florida Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles will give you a report either by email, regular mail or both depending on what you specify at the time of your request.  The costs aren't all that bad either, the state charges $19.08 for the first hour of search, and bill you for anything beyond that. I'm going to assume that they won't go nuts like the MDPD did when they asked me for nearly $500,000 a few years back in response to a simple group of emails I asked for in a public information request!


While you're at it, you might as well go ahead and ask the state for a Florida Department of Law Enforcement Transaction Audit Report (aka FDLE TAR report) so you can see if anyone else has been  asking the state for public records that pertain to you.  You can get a FDLE TAR report by sending an email request with your name, date of birth, drivers license number, and your home address to publicrecords@fdle.state.fl.us , make sure your request is marked "Public Records Request".

So there you have it.  We no longer have to hear rumors and worry about cops abusing the D.A.V.I.D. system, now we can get the proof!  If indeed these databases are being abused, then lookout as the cops doing so are going to be in deep shit!

Embattled City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro issues a mea culpa regarding the Airways Auto Tag agency scandal.

Just when things were getting a little boring regarding the embattled City of South Miami Police Chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, and the mess he created by sending city business over to his wife's tag agency, we get an anonymous email that manages to stir the pot up again.  

Now before we go ahead and post up the email, think about the circumstances, I bust the city sending business over to the chief's wife's tag agency, a tag agency well outside the City of South Miami city limits.  According to my sources and the witnesses that I interviewed, the Chief routinely sent city business to his wife's tag agency, not only did he have people from the city travel ten or so miles to his wife's tag agency to transact business but according to several of the tag agency's ex employees, the chief would bring home tag work from the city and give it to his wife who would bring it back the following evening for the chief to bring back to the city.  All well and good, right?  As we now know, my version of events was good enough for not only the Miami Herald to pick up but it was credible enough that the Miami Dade County Ethics Commission went ahead and conducted an investigation into the matter and ultimately ended up charging the chief with four ethics violations.

Now, let's put the shoe on the other foot for a moment and look at things from the Chief's perspective.  According to the Chief, he had no idea that the city was taking business over to his wife's tag agency and in fact it was Major Ana Baixauli who approved and conducted these transactions without his knowledge.  Ok, for the sake of argument, let's be fair and say that the chief's explanation is plausible.  Now, if you were in the chief's position, how would you feel about this situation?  Think about it for a moment, some jerk with a blog on the last page of the internet outs some embarrassing business transactions between your employer and your wife's business, the Miami Herald picks up the story and further spreads this embarrassing story and all the while according to his explanation, he had nothing to do with the whole deal and even worse, the whole mess was orchestrated by one of his underlings, Major Baixauli, how would you feel if you were the chief?  I know if I was in his shoes, I'd be rip roaring mad, I'd of walked into the police department and ripped Major Baixauli a new asshole and held her responsible for what went down.  

Strangely enough, that's not what happened.  Instead of holding those that were allegedly accountable for this mess that was visited upon the chief, the chief goes ahead and sends out an email apologizing for the mess that he created, take a look at the email for yourselves...

Wait a minute!  WTF!

The chief's apologizing for sending business over to his wife's tag agency!  I thought it was Baixauli's fault?  What would the chief be apologizing if it wasn't his fault?  Why the hell isn't there an email or any kind of record for the chief reprimanding the Major?  LOL!

This is only the beginning of the email, we'll discuss the rest of the email tomorrow.  Till then, thanks again to the reader who sent me the email and as always, if you have something you'd like to send me anonymously, go to www.silentsender.com and fire away!

One can judge a man by the company he keeps.

So Greek playwright Euripides said.  If indeed that is true, then what can we say about the company embattled city of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro keeps?  If indeed the person he copied in the email we discussed earlier this week was Camillo Padreda, then what does this say about the chief?  Before we get all philosophical, let's first look into Mr. Padreda's past, one of our readers was kind enough to forward us this transcript of a deposition that Mr Padreda gave back when he when he was a government witness against then Hialeah mayor Raul Martinez.  It's lengthy but worth the read and will make you wonder why the hell the chief is affiliated with this guy let alone let him hang around city hall.  Take a look and we'll discuss the highlights tomorrow...

  Camillo Padreda Testimony against Hialeah mayor Raul Martinez by   The Straw Buyer

Who is padcam@aol.com? The answer is in our comments section...

We left off last week with this lingering question, who is the person that City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro copying in an email from his city email account while soliciting business for his wife's insurance agency?  The chief carbon copied someone at "padcam@aol.com" in his email and we asked our readers who that email belonged to and we were given the answer in one of the comments on last Friday's post...

padcam = cam-pad = Camilo Padreda:
convicted felon, former president of Latin American Builders Assn., funded political campaigns & legal defense for Valerie Newman ("La Gorda"), tight personal friends with your chief.
Some old history:http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2003-01-30/news/a-friend-indeed/

Yikes!  Another reader goes on to say...

Why read the New Times article when when you can read Camilo's sworn testimony under cross examination of Raul Martinez's defense attorneys. Padreda copped a plea to falsifying a HUD financial statement so the Feds would not charge his daughter and under the plea he agreed to spill the beans on everybody. Padreda admitted to bribing County Commissioner Jorge Valdez, bribing City of Miami Commissioner Demetrio Perez (in Al Cardenas's office) missappropriating funds from Jefferson Savings Bank in Texas, hiding a 100K profit from a HUD property (Porta del Sol) in the form of a real estate commission, stiffing subcontractors out of 1.4M when he declared Bankruptcy, only to have his wife buy a 535K medical office weeks later, and falsifying a cost statement to HUD, His daughter was about to get indicted so Camilo copped a plea and agreed to sing on everybody including Raul Martinez so she wouldn't. This is the same "best friend of the (Miami) police who got Hector Mirabile promoted from Lieutennant to Major. Your hard earned tax dollars went to buy carpet from the Gibson Bethyl community center from his wife Janet Padreda's carpet company. Instead of installing padding for the weight room like what was budgeted, every big wig in the PD was getting their office measured for new carpet.

HUH?  What the hell is a law enforcement officer, let alone a chief of police doing copying this sort of unsavory fellow in emails sent from his city email address?!  Once again, from our comments section...

The answer to the question is the relationship between the OMG, CAMPAD and the acting manager goes back sometime.

I suppose "OMG" is the new moniker for Orlando Martinez de Castro, fair enough...

OMG joined LBA (despite not being a B) back when CamPad was boss and OMG was unemployed.

Nice.  Once again, I'll ask, if indeed padcam@aol.com is this Camillo Padreda character, why is the chief interacting with him while on city time let alone at all while in an official capacity?  And if this commenter is correct and this guys wife's carpet company is doing business with the city, his past certainly doesn't reflect well on anyone doing business with him or any of his affiliated companies.  We'll have to take a look at this carpet contract business and see what we can find.

The email that earned City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro one of his ethics charges...

After literally months of trying, I was finally able to get a copy of the email that earned embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro one of the many charges from the Miami Dade County Ethics Commission.  From the Ethics Commission press release regarding the chief...

Airways is owned by Ileana Martinez de Castro, the police chief’s wife. She also owns Beck & Lo’s Insurance Agency, Inc. Last April, Chief de Castro used his city e-mail account to solicit business for his wife’s agency. The case will proceed to a public hearing.

That bit about the chief's wife owning the insurance agency isn't exactly correct as this document from Sunbiz shows...

  Orlando Martinez de Castro Insurance Agency by  

Based on what we see here, the chief himself is an officer of this insurance agency, regardless, let's take a look at that email...

  OMC Solicits Business by  

Now this email raises a few interesting points, first we clearly determine that the chief was sending these emails that had nothing to do with his job as police chief during business hours while he was being paid by the tax payers of the City of South Miami, specifically Wednesday April 6th at 4:19 pm.  The email is addressed to jrodriguez2813@comcast.net who I presume is someone named Jossie Rodriguez that's got something to do with the insurance business, as well as two others, the chief's wife and someone else that I was unable to identify whose email address is listed as "padcam@aol.com".  Any of our readers have any idea who this padcam email belongs to or why the chief copied this person on this email?  If you do, drop us a line.

So there you have it, granted this is just one email we found where the chief was conducting business that has nothing to do with the city on city time using his city email and city assets which is clearly a violation of his employment contract.  As I said yesterday, if a professional investigator was given the task of going through the last four or so years of the chief's emails and phone records I can only imagine how many other instances like this one they'd find.  The question again is why hasn't this been done yet?

Taking a closer look at embattled City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's employment contract.

With all the noise around embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's pending ethics issues and his problems with the city commission, I think it's worthwhile to take a closer look at his employment contract.  We first posted his employment contract during our last discussion regarding the grievance the chief filed for having the parking and code enforcement departments taken away from him, this time, I'm particularly interested in section 1.2 of the contract which states...

1.2 Employee shall report to the City Manager. Employee hereby accepts such employment. During the Term of Employee's employment by City, Employee shall (a) devote substantially all of his full business time, abilities and attention exclusively to the diligent performance of his duties with City in a professional manner and in accordance with applicable law and (b) not engage in any other business activity, whether or not such activity is pursued for profit or advantage; provided, however, that Employee may engage in personal and/or passive investment and charitable activities and continue to operate Employee's security consulting business (OMC Consultants, Inc., a Florida corporation), so long as such activities do not materially interfere with the performance of his duties under this Agreement and do not result in a conflict of interest in regards to Employee's duties and obligations to the City. All non City related work will be done under the Employee's personal time and will not use any City asset during that time. The City shall not be held responsible or liable for any and all action taken by Employee during his activities for OMC Consultants, Inc. or other personal
engagements out of the scope of his employment.

Let's break that down:

Employee shall report to the City Manager.  

All good.

Employee hereby accepts such employment.  

Once again, all good here as well.

During the Term of Employee's employment by City, Employee shall (a) devote substantially all of his full business time, abilities and attention exclusively to the diligent performance of his duties with City in a professional manner and in accordance with applicable law and (b) not engage in any other business activity...

I don't know about this part as we have evidence that while we know the chief was on the job he was busy soliciting business for his wife's business.  From the ethics complaint...

The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust (COE) today found probable cause that Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro violated South Miami’s “prohibition on transacting business with the city,” as well the County Conflict of Interest and Code of Ethics Ordinance’s “prohibition on exploitation of official position.”

While we know about the chief sending city business to his wife's tag agency, it's the second part regarding the conflict of interest and the "prohibition on exploitation of official business" that speaks directly to the clause in his employment contract.  It get's better, let's go back to the contract again...

...not engage in any other business activity, whether or not such activity is pursued for profit or advantage; provided, however, that Employee may engage in personal and/or passive investment and charitable activities and continue to operate Employee's security consulting business (OMC Consultants, Inc., a Florida corporation), so long as such activities do not materially interfere with the performance of his duties under this Agreement and do not result in a conflict of interest in regards to Employee's duties and obligations to the City.

Considering the evidence in the ethics complaint, this could be a bit of a problem.  The contract goes on to state...

All non City related work will be done under the Employee's personal time and will not use any City asset during that time. 

Again, from the ethics commission's press release...

Last April, Chief de Castro used his city e-mail account to solicit business for his wife’s agency.

WHOOPS!  Now remember, this isn't conjecture, it's fact, the chief used his city email address and the city's  "asset" to solicit business for his wife's insurance agency during business hours when he should have been working on city business.  That clearly puts the chief in violation of his employment contract and it least in my humble opinion gives the city grounds to fire him with cause as his contract requires.
 
Now, before the trolls come out of the woodwork and start leaving nasty comments, keep in mind that I'm one person who's done a cursory review of the chief's antics over the last couple of years.  With that said, look at the kind of crap we've uncovered that's put Martinez de Castro in the spot that he's in today.  I'm sure if a competent investigator and or law enforcement agency was put on the case they'd find much more of the same if not worse.  The question that we're left with now is why hasn't this been done yet and more importantly, why is Orlando Martinez de Castro still employed by the City of South Miami?
 

Embattled City of South Miami Police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, files a grievance against the City of South Miami!

That's right!  Our sources tell us that embattled City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro has filed a grievance against the city for taking the parking department away from him.  Why file a complaint against the city?  What's the big deal about the parking department?  Before we go any further, we have to examine the chief's employment contract, let's take a look...

  City of south Miami police chief orlando martinez de castro employment contract by  

Now, where in the contract does it say anything about the parking department being under the command and control of the city's police chief?  On the contrary, the original employment contract states...

shall not assume other duties and obligations as to other City functions and departments (including, but not limited to managing the general parking enforcement or information technology operations of the City),

So there's a specific exclusion in the original employment excluding the parking and IT department from the Chief's command and control.  The contract goes on to state...

except to the extent the parties mutually agree in writing to make such additional duties part of Employee'sobligations and further agree on additional compensation to be paid to Employee for performing those additional duties.

I have no knowledge of whether or not there was a written agreement to hand over these departments to the chief at a later date, but that point is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.  Why?  Simple, the complaint the chief filed really has nothing to do with the parking department, but it has everything to do with the chief knowing that his days are numbered over at the City of South Miami.  By filing a grievance with the city, at least the way I interpret the contract, the chief will trigger an arbitration clause in his contract which in my opinion is a purely strategic move by the chief in case he gets fired.  Granted, this is pure conjecture on my part, but it seems to make sense.

We'll take a closer look at this contract tomorrow.

An opinion from the Ethics Commission, definitely one for the WTF files...

So it looks like someone from over at the City of South Miami requested an opinion from the Miami Dade County Ethics Commission, considering that the opinion was regarding whether or not the city could continue doing business with one of their vendors after the vendor hired the police chief's son, it only stands to reason that the person asking for the opinion was none other than the chief himself, Orlando Martinez de Castro...

Let's take a look at the opinion issued by the ethics commission yesterday...

In response to a Request for Opinion (RQO 12-14), the Ethics Commission determined that the City of South Miami may continue to purchase police equipment from a company that employs the son of the Chief of Police.  Lou’s Police & Security Equipment has been a vendor with the city for more than two years and the purchasing contract was most recently approved on Oct. 1, 2012.  A month later, Christopher Martinez de Castro, son of Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro, was hired by Lou’s as Vice President of International Sales.  Because the son has no direct or indirect financial ownership in the company and will not be involved in the local contract, or profit from it, there is no prohibition from the police department continuing to do business with the firm.

Huh?  So let's get this straight, the City of South Miami does business with Lou's Police & Security Equipment and has done so for several years.  Most recently on October 1, 2012, the City of South Miami approved a purchasing contract with the vendor and then just a month later, the police chief's son gets hired by the vendor that was just awarded the purchasing contract as the "Vice President of International sales?"  While the chief's son may not be "involved in the local contract or profit from it" doesn't giving the chief's son a job after getting a contract from the city sound like a classic example of quid pro quo?  Honestly, WTF?

I don't know what's more surprising, the fact that the City's vendor hired the Chief's son or that all of a sudden the chief is concerned about getting opinions from the ethics commission!

We're banned AGAIN!

How do you know that you're getting under the skin of the people that you're writing about?  Simple, they do whatever they can to stop your message from getting out!  Much like the way our website was banned from the City of Miami computers a few years back, one of our readers tells us that when you now go to a City of South Miami computer and try to get on to our site, you get this message...

What a shame!!  A few years ago I might have been upset but today with the proliferation of smart phones, I don't thin it really makes that much of a difference.  With that said though, anyone want to guess who's got control of the IT department over at the city?  If you guessed fatman, you guessed right!  I'm told that the IT department is run by a friend/hack of our favorite embattled police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro.  No worries folks, the fact that we're banned from the city computers just goes to show how much of a pain in his ass we've become.

Thanks to the reader that sent me the screenshot from their city computer, as always if any of you folks over at the city, whether at city hall or at the police department, have a tip for me, feel free to drop me an email at thestrawbuyer@gmail.com or if you'd like to remain anonymous, use the services of www.silentsender.com.

Now, moving on, some of you have expressed displeasure with the postponement of the chief's ethics hearing into late spring or early summer.  Don't fret as the postponement doesn't mean that the chief is out of the woods, in fact the upside to the delay is that those working to oust the chief have more time to gather and present more evidence and testimony of wrongdoing to the ethics commission and other authorities and trust me, there's a lot more dirt on the chief coming.

On another note, we had an interesting comment on one of last weeks posts, take a look for yourselves...

AnonymousJanuary 9, 2013 at 8:49 PMSo how did the interview go between the Chief and New Times?

What exactly was that about?  Did the Chief interview the embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro and if so, what exactly happened?  I'll do a little digging and see what we can find out....

So what about that ethics hearing that was supposed to happen this month?

Several months ago the Miami Dade Ethics Commission sent out a press release stating that they were going to move forward with a public hearing into the alleged ethics violations committed by City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro.  In case you missed it, here it is again...

Police Chief faces ethics violations
The police chief of South Miami is facing four charges of violating ethics laws for steering city business to his wife’s companies. The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust (COE) today found probable cause that Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro violated South Miami’s “prohibition on transacting business with the city,” as well the County Conflict of Interest and Code of Ethics Ordinance’s “prohibition on exploitation of official position.” The complaint against Martinez de Castro (C 12-31) cites three times during 2011when the South Miami Police Department contracted with Airways Auto Tag Agency for tags and titles for forfeiture vehicles. Airways is owned by Ileana Martinez de Castro, the police chief’s wife. She also owns Beck & Lo’s Insurance Agency, Inc. Last April, Chief de Castro used his city e-mail account to solicit business for his wife’s agency. The case will proceed to a public hearing.

Shortly after the press release, our sources from within the ethics commission told us that the case was going to proceed to a public hearing at some point during January 2013.  Well, guess what?  Here we are smack dab in the middle of January 2013 and I haven't heard word about an ethics commission hearing regarding the police chief.  WTF is that about?

In fact, to add insult to injury, last Friday I was told that the hearing has been postponed till some time this summer!  HUH?

How the hell could that be?  From our standpoint, this seemed like a slam dunk, open and shut case, what in the hell is Joe Centerino and his cohorts on the ethics commission thinking about?  Isn't it amazing how quickly the ethics commission acts with certain politicians and how they drag their feet with others?  Could the ethics commission's decision to postpone the hearing have anything to do with embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's relationship with Centorino's former boss and state attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle?  Who knows, at the very least, this is a disappointing turn for Centorino's commission and possibly just another example of how when it comes to "let em go Joe" nothing has changed.

We'll drop the Ethics Commission an email and see what they have to say.

City of South Miami commission decides that they have "no confidence" in their embattled police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro!

Just like that at Tuesdays city commission meeting, the commission voted, 3/2, that they do not have confidence in the city's embattled police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro.  In my opinion that moves the chief one step closer to the door.  I guess you guys know how we feel about the subject...

After the "no confidence" vote, the commission went on to discuss taking away the control of the parking department from the chief.  What leaves me baffled is the assertions from Commissioner Newman and some of her cohorts that somehow the chief was responsible for boosting parking revenues and that the chief is on call 24/7 in case there's anything awry with the parking in the City of South Miami.  WTF?  Honestly, it's one thing to have us believe that the chief single handedly stopped all the crime in the city, but how the hell do you expect us to believe that parking revenues are up because of the chief's running of the parking department?  And once again, just like that, poof!  The commission went on to take away control of the parking department from the chief!

So what do you think chief?  Did you ever think a little over a year ago when we started writing about your wife's tag agency and the railroading of the poor tellers that you blamed for stealing tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars from her rinky dink three window tag agency that we'd end up here?  

Karma's a bitch, isn't it Chief?

The start of a new year and a proposition for the Martinez de Castro clan.

Party's over.  After spending the last two or so weeks lounging around and doing nothing, it's back to the grind.  I apologize to our readers for not posting as I had promised during the holiday break, trust me, I really did need the time off.

Now, during the holiday break I had plenty of time to think things over, especially regarding the City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro and his upcoming hearing with the Miami Dade County Ethics Commission.  Since we started to write about the Chief and his wife's tag agency over a year ago, it never once dawned on me to see things from the Chief's perspective, I've always approached the subject of the chief's behavior and the situation with his wife's tag agency from my perspective, that is the perspective I was able develop from my examination of the documents associated with the various cases and incidents.  Perhaps there's an explanation for everything?  After all these years of writing about how unfair the cops and prosecutors are, have I found myself guilty of the same faults that I've accused them of making?  Whatever happened to "the presumption of innocence?"

With that said, I'd like to start the new year off on a new leaf and would like to afford both the Chief and his wife the opportunity to explain themselves.  I know that might sound a little outrageous to some, why would they want to talk to some jerk with a blog on the last page of the internet?  Let's not forget that it was our humble little blog that put the chief in the position he's in today where he risks losing his job if he's found guilty of the ethics violations that were levied against him and as far as his wife's tag agency and the three girls that they accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from, I suspect if not for our actions throughout the course of last year, the three girls would probably already be serving time behind bars.

So how about Chief?  I'd be more than willing to listen if you'd like to talk.  I'm sure by now you know how to reach me, I'll be waiting...

Our readers perspective on City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's taxpayer funded bariatric surgery and the Miami New Times gives us a mention.

The Miami New Times asked us to figure out what our favorite post of the year was, yesterday they included our pick in their "Miami Political Bloggers Pick Their Favorite Posts of 2012" story.  Ours was of course the post where we discovered City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro steering city business to his wife's tag agency, from the New Times story...

Mike Hatami, The Strawbuyer: Some fun with Googlemaps and I need a favor, can someone help me find an auto tag agency near South Miami? March 7
"I'd have to say that the blog post where we exposed the South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's unethical and illegal activities had to be my favorite post of the year because in one fell swoop we managed to turn the tables on the chief. Now the once mighty chief finds himself in a situation where he's fighting for his job and is having to defend himself against the charges filed against him by the ethics commission."
This post began a series unraveling Martinez de Castro's alleged unethical practice of steering work to his wife's auto tag agency, which is now the subject of a Miami-Dade ethics commission complaint. Hatami went after the chief after writing several posts about how his wife allegedly wrongly accused three of her former employees of theft.

I was all ready to put together a great post today about a witness that the Miami Dade Ethics Commission would have loved to talk to in regards to the City of South Miami Police Chief's upcoming ethics hearing but apparently our story yesterday struck a chord with some of our readers, some of which may be City of South Miami residents and taxpayers.

If you recall, yesterday we discussed the police chief's bariatric surgery which as we've come to understand was paid for by a loan by the City of South Miami.  

After we made our post, we received this comment...

I wonder if a resident or tax payer of the City of South Miami can borrow money from the City of South Miami to help pay for medical or personally desired health concerns?
Better yet, can the City of South Miami give a loan to its tax payers or defer the tax bill for those who are WITHOUT health insurance, much less than having a service that is not covered under a health plan?

Lay-off the damn donuts and leave the darn arroz con this or bistec con that alone and you will loose pounds. Now I want to know who approved of this shit without public input.
Does he not make over $140,000. a year in salary, benefits: vacation, medical, dental, vision, auto, gas, long/short and life insurance, All of which is paid by the tax payers? Whats going on here?

What an insightful comment.  Why should a police chief who makes well over $100k per year need to borrow money from the city to get this elective surgery?  As the commenter said, if you really want to lose weight...

Lay-off the damn donuts and leave the darn arroz con this or bistec con that alone and you will loose pounds.

You forgot to mention all this crap as well...

Honestly, wtf?!  

The commenter says it best...

Does he not make over $140,000. a year in salary, benefits: vacation, medical, dental, vision, auto, gas, long/short and life insurance, All of which is paid by the tax payers? Whats going on here?

Our next commenter then puts things in perspective...

the manager hector mirable approved this for his friend orlando martinez de castro. the combination of these two were very unhealthy for the city of south miami and for the residents.

Exactly.  With these two characters at the helm of the city tag teaming the citizens and taxpayers of South Miami, anything was possible, even something as outrageous lending the chief the money for an elective surgery.  

To be honest with you, we really wish the Chief would have asked us about our thoughts on dieting as we have a far cheaper alternative to surgery...

Regardless, I've put in several public information requests regarding the loan for the weight loss surgery as well as a whole host of other issues regarding the embattled chief, so we'll have to wait and see if the city is going to play ball or if we're going to have to sue them to get the records, as of now it's not looking like they want to cooperate with us.  That's all for now folks, I'll post up my story about that witness we discussed earlier on Monday then I'll spend the gap between the holidays summarizing our posts over the last year as they pertained to the Airways Auto Tag story and the City of South Miami's Police Chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro.

The Miami Herald scooped our scoop!

Last week we concluded one of our posts with this question...

For those of you over in South Miami, have you noticed how much weight the Chief has lost? You'll never guess who footed the bill for his bariatric surgery!

I intended to go deeper into this story and reveal just who ended up paying for the chief's surgery but our friend Andrea Torres ended up beating us to the punch in her article yesterday regarding the chief...

On Friday, Hatami wrote in his blog: “Have you noticed how much weight the chief has lost? You’ll never guess who footed the bill for his bariatric surgery.” After the insurance company denied coverage for the procedure, records show Martinez de Castro borrowed about $10,000 earlier this year from the city as part of a health care payment account to cover part of the cost of the surgery, which he has been paying the city back in installments.

LOL!  So the chief borrowed the money from the City to get his bariatric surgery done?!

I'm having a hard time comprehending that.  I'm going to guess that the chief must have demonstrated to the city in some way shape or form that the weight loss surgery was absolutely necessary and that he didn't have the financial resources to pay for the procedure on his own.  That seems fair enough, but why would the chief have to borrow the money from the city in these trying economic times?  Does that seem fair to his fellow city employees or for that matter to the taxpayers of the City of South Miami?  This doesn't sound kosher to me, in fact I have information that police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro was far from needing a loan from the city to perform this procedure, in fact I have evidence that the chief himself is flush and was actively loaning large sums of money on a routine basis to others.

I'll have to put in another useless public information request regarding this loan for the chief's weight loss surgery to see what we can come up with.  Don't hold your breath though as the city of South Miami's clerks office has been somewhat less than helpful to date.  

In the meantime, come on back tomorrow and check out the Christmas gift we're going to give our friends over at the Miami Dade County Ethics Commission to help them along with the chief's ethics investigation...

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/12/18/v-print/3147628/south-miami-mayor-police-expenses.html#storylink=cpy

The emperor has no clothes on! City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro is slowly losing his powers over at the city.

In a startling move last night, the City of South Miami city commission voted to relieve embattled police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro of two of his most important duties other than running the police department.  I'm not exactly sure why but up until last night the city's code enforcement office and the city's parking operations were under the command and control of the police chief.  This makes absolutely no sense to me, shouldn't the chief be busy running his police force rather than taking care of matters that really have nothing to do with his intended role?

As we saw several month ago, the police chief used his code enforcement department to illegally detain local handyman Warren Papove with allegations of "working without a permit" until Immigration agents were able to arrive and arrest him for immigration violations that had nothing to do with the alleged code enforcement issue.  We're going to learn a little later another major reason why the chief was in charge of code enforcement, but suffice it to say that he's no longer in charge.  The commission voted 3 to 2 to remove the code enforcement department from the chief's control.  As I understand it, they voted to remove the parking department from the chief's control as well but it has to go to another vote before it's finalized.  Little by little, it seems that the chief is losing his grip on the city, I suspect the next step is going to be the new City Manager showing him the door...

Now, we had an interesting comment on yesterday's post...

Oh this is an easy one.. I try to have the answer before I ask the question with my city. That way it is easier to prove they are lying.. I actually had to vist Ms. Rundle and her Public corruption staff many a time when I found the city to be lying.. The city was out on notice that next time i will sue their asses off. Re-submit your PRR with as many names as possible. When they search their mainframe it is based on keywords. Do yourself a favor and ask for all text messages and emails from the Chiefs city issued phone. Watch the sparks fly. The city will try and nail you with expenses but they cannot. The carrier has all this information and the client is entitled to it. The city is the client, therefore no work must be done.

That's a great comment, I had never thought to ask for the chief's text messages.  As far as being stonewalled by the city clerk with my public information requests, that's real simple.  I've been told that the IT people over at the city as well as the vendor that the city uses for their IT work are all friends of the chief so it's easy to understand why I'm not getting anywhere with my requests.  After all, doesn't it stand to reason that if there's incriminating emails that will paint the chief in a bad light that his friends would do everything they can to keep them from coming to light?  Regardless, if we don't get anywhere with these requests, we'll take a page from our friend Al Crespo's book and go ahead and sue the city for the documents that we suspect exist and are being kept from us.

On another note, I've been told from several sources that the Miami Dade County Ethics Commission has been sending out subpoenas to various city departments and employees  in preparation for his ethics hearing in January.  If anyone reading has one of these subpoenas, please get me a copy!

The police chief speaks out!

Or so we're to believe.  Someone using the user name "OMC" made a post over at the Leo Affairs website under the thread title "The Chief is in really deep $hit!", it reads as follows:

Re: The chief is really in deep $hit!

by OMC » 11/29/12 23:15:24

No, I am not! I am not going anywhere either, and IF the honorable mayor and commissioners want to force the incoming manager to fire me, go ahead and pay my exit! Until then, I am staying right here, doing what I do best . . . serving and protecting the citizens of South Miami.

No kidding?  If we are to believe that the person who made this post was indeed embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro, this would make it the first public comment by the chief regarding the ongoing scandal that has arisen from the ethics investigation stemming from the alleged steering of city business to his wife's tag agency.

We also also have a hearing to look forward to this morning in the criminal case that is still pending against the chief's wife's three former tellers from her tag agency that were alleged to have stolen tens of thousands of dollars.  From all indications, the case is quickly falling apart as we speak and I'm told that if it does go to trial, it will do so within the next week.

On another note, I think it only fair to our readers for me to mention that I have been out of the loop since last Wednesday, my father passed away unexpectedly and I've been preoccupied dealing with his death and spending time with my family.  I'll do my best to keep up with the most recent developments with our stories but if you see that I don't post for a few days here and there at least you'll know why.

Till next time!

Fired City of Miami police chief Kenneth Harms pens a rather peculiar letter to City of South Miami Mayor Phillip Stoddard.

It looks like someone over at the City of South Miami finally started to pay attention to my public information requests!  A few weeks back I requested a copy of a letter former City of Miami Police Chief Kenneth Harms sent to City of South Miami Mayor Philip Stoddard regarding the alleged lewd behavior that occurred at the mayor's home right after an exchange student staying at his home discovered that the home had been broken into.  For those of you who don't know who Mr. Harms is, this article from back in 1984 sums it up nicely...

Essentially Mr. Harms was at the helm of the City of Miami police department during the race riots of the 1980's where the predominately white City of Miami police force was perceived to have an anti black bias.  Regardless, Mr. Harms was shit canned and sent on his way.  Since then Mr. Harms has been working as some sort of reserve officer in different police department and has been employed as an investigator for different attorneys and most notably as an investigator for the City of South Miami.  What's most troubling about this last part is that during Mr. Harm's tenure as an "investigator", he was never licensed by the state of Florida as a private investigator nor did he have a current law enforcement certification.  In fact, the only license that the Florida Department of Professional Regulation shows for Mr. Harms is a sales associate for a realator from back in 1994...

Whatever.  Since his firing back in 1984, Mr. Harms has made appearances in the media as a so called expert in law enforcement affairs, it's not uncommon to see one of the sorry excuses for evening news to go to Mr. Harms for a soundbite when there's something law enforcement related going on in the news.  

Another past time for Mr. Harms since his firing has been to interject his opinions on local affairs by writing letters to politicians and the media when he perceives that there's been some sort of wrong committed, case in point, the letter he recently wrote to City of South Miami mayor Philip Stoddard regarding the break in at his house that occurred nearly two years ago.  Take a look at the letter for yourselves...

Kenneth Harms Letter to Mayor Phillip Stoddard

What in the fcuk?  Have you ever read anything as slanderous as this piece of dreck?  First off, Mr. Harms claims to have reached the conclusion that the mayor engaged in some sort of lewd conduct in front of his daughter and a visiting exchange student based on the facts that he found in the police reports.  The fact that Mr. Harms chose to memorialize these slanderous allegations in a letter despite the very police reports he cites not supporting his allegations is laughable to say the least.  Last week we dissected the very same police reports that Mr. Harms references and proved that there was nothing of any substance to prove any of the allegations that Mr. Harms and his cohorts were making.  In fact, City of South Miami Detective King even went so far as to state in one of the reports that...

"At the time of my investigation (exchange students name redacted) didn't make any statement that lead me to believe that there was any illegal activity was (sic) taking place between Stoddard and (exchange students name redacted)."

We went on to conclude that if indeed something untoward had happened at the Mayor's home that morning that the everyone from the City of Miami PD that was present should have been fired and possibly charged criminally for their inaction considering the gravity of the allegations that are now, two years later, being levied against the Mayor.

If those allegations weren't serious enough, Mr. Harms then goes full retard and starts attacking the Mayor personally.  Here are some of the highlights of the letter...

• Mr Harms calls the mayor "an elitist academician nerd"
• Mr Harms says the City of South Miami is in "Good Hands" under former city manager Hector Mirabile and soon to be former City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro.
• Mr Harms believes the system of the community democratically electing its politicians is "seriously flawed" and that the process "rarely results in qualified, competent and honest people"
• Mr. Harms opines on the "conduct of public officials" as an expert witness

... and blah, blah, blah, blah.  So the mayor is a nerd, the city is in good hands with former city manager Mirabile and ethically challanged chief Martinez de Castro and elections are nonsense and result in the selection of buffons to run the government.

But the best part comes when Mr. Harms refers to the police report for the burglary at the Mayor's home:

"Given the inconsistencies in the report I have serious misgivings about a burglary being visited upon your residence as your (sic) reported"

Wait, what the fuck?  As a "trained law enforcement officer, investigator and manager" Mr Harms should have seen right through those "inconsistencies" in the reports, but he chose not to as the people that wrote those reports with the most slanderous allegations were part of his camp.  Mr. Harms goes on to spew more bullshit regarding the alleged lewd behavior at the mayor's house and finishes up with this...

"...while you are obviously different and out of the main stream of contemporary thought and behavior you should agree to a polygraph to help people decide whether or not you are a sexual predator.

I would also strongly suggest and encourage you to submit to a psychosexual evaluation to determine if you are a further risk to minor children"

In this instance, Mr. Harms is beginning to sound a lot like this asshole...

Honestly, what's crawled up this guys ass and died?  It's simple, you see, former city manager Hector Mirabile and police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro were cronies of Mr. Harms from back in their City of Miami days.  Harms, Martinez de Castro, Mirabile and their backers had a plan for South Miami, a brilliant plan where they were going to control and rape it like their own little fiefdom.  Unfortunately with the firing of city manager Mirabile and the eminent firing of police chief Martinez de Castro their grandiose plans for this sleepy little suburb are now in the toilet.  I can't reveal the details of this "plan" as of yet as I'm still researching and digging up evidence, trust me though, if I'm right, anyone who hears what these guys were up to will be appalled at their actions. 

On another note, if Mr. Harms is so concerned about what's going on in South Miami, why the hell did he wait till November 12, 2012 to review the case file on a burglary that occurred at the Mayor's house nearly two fucking years ago?  Isn't it strange that Mr. Harms waited till the day before he knew that his friend City Manager Mirabile was going to get fired before he dug up the police file on the burglary at the Mayor's house then wrote this nonsensical letter and distributed it all over god's creation shortly thereafter?  Sounds a bit retaliatory to me and a desperate bid to try to help his buddy get his job back, no?

In the mean time, I'd suggest Mr. Harms take that letter that he wrote and have an attorney friend take a look at it.  If I were a betting man, I'd say this isn't the last we're going to hear about this letter and the slanderous allegations that it contains.  It seems to me that Mr Harms was so upset about the eminent collapse of his carefully crafted ambitions for South Miami that he didn't think about what he was putting in that letter.  

Another suggestion for Mr. Harms?  Don't fuck with academician nerds...