Our friend Francisco Alvarado leaves the Miami New Times...

Francisco Alvarado

That's right, our friend and one of our favorite local journalists, Francisco "Frank" Alvarado has left the Miami New Times and has landed over at CNN Latino!  Frank was a tremendous asset to the New Times and brought an edgy street view to the subjects that he wrote about, he was also one of our main inspirations for writing this blog.

With that said, I can't wait to see what he's got in store for the folks over at CNN, best of luck to you Frank!!

The Miami New Times and the Justice Building Blog pick up our City of South Miami NCIC Story.

It's nice to know that the word is getting out about embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's nefarious and possibly illegal misdeeds.  Both the Miami New Times and the Justice Building Blog picked up on our story about the chief's misuse of the NCIC system from last week.

From the New Times article...

Adds Klock: "I think the police chief believes he is above the law and he can do anything he wants. The people who continue to employ him can solve the problem by firing him."

LOL! And from the Justice Building Blog...

WHAT'S YOUR NCIC LIKE?
Did you ever wonder what your NCIC printout looks like?
Now, courtesy of the Chief Of the City of South Miami Police Department, you can find out. 

The Miami New Times reported here that the good natured and ever helpful chief Orlando De Castro has been (illegally? es possible) running attorneys in NCIC. And not just any attorneys, but attorneys who apparently bug him.

NICE!  I'm in a bit of a rush today, we'll discuss at length next time.

The New Times gives us a mention!

Happy Thanksgiving! Our friend, Francisco Alvarado, gave us a mention over at the New Times today, take a look for yourselves. We were honored to name soon to be former City of South Miami Police chief our ham! From the article...

Mike Hatami, the Strawbuyer: Orlando Martinez de Castro, South Miami Police Chief
"I don't have a turkey, but I do have a big ham. Martinez de Castro acts like a general running an army in a third-world dictatorship. He has abused his official position to pressure the state attorney's office into prosecuting three innocent women who worked at his wife's auto tag agency.

The Miami-Dade ethics commission recently found probable cause that Martinez de Castro also violated South Miami's prohibition on transacting business with relatives and the county's conflict of interest and ethics ordinance because he had the police department use his wife's tag agency to get tags and titles for forfeiture vehicles.

When several South Miami elected officials got wise to his shenanigans, Martinez de Castro used his officers to attack his political enemies. For instance, he had Warren Popove, a Canadian national who did odd jobs for Commissioner Bob Welsh, picked up by ICE. Now poor Papove is sitting in a jail cell at Krome Detention Center.
In June, Castro arrested Mayor Phillip Stoddard's friend Michael Davidson-Schmich for resisting arrest without violence. Castro was upset that Davidson-Schmich had the gumption to make a hand gesture to the chief for making an illegal turn.

These are tactics employed by secret police officers in Cuba. It's no coincidence Orlando shares the same last name as Fidel."

LULZ! Have a happy holiday folks, we'll see you on Friday!

The Miami New Times ranks us among Miami's best blogs!

.

Check the story here.  Can you believe it?  Our humble little blog has been ranked among the best and most prestigious blogs in Miami!  Thanks to all our loyal readers that helped us along the way as well as those of you that are constantly sending us tips.  I'll do my best to keep up and try my best to keep turning out stories that no one else sees fit to print!  I'll do a little explaining over the next few days regarding who I am and why I went about things the way I did.  Until then, thanks to Frank Alvarado and the New Times for recognizing us and congrats to our fellow bloggers who made it on the list, it's an honor to be counted among you.

The Miami Herald delivers, FAIL that is...

Well, maybe not this bad...

But almost!  I found myself roaming around the house unable to sleep this morning, so I decided to pick up the iPhone and read our local paper, the Miami Herald.  I scanned the national headlines then came accross this local headline...

WTF?  Anyone familiar with South Florida should be perplexed by this headline, from the headline you're left to wonder, why the hell would there be a "Census Scuffle" at the historic landmark Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables in one of the most affluent areas of the south east United States no less?

Does that make any sense at all?  Why would there be a "census scuffle" in a hotel, let alone the Biltmore?  This puzzling headline now has my undivided attention at 4am while sitting on the can...

The headline leads you to believe that the "scuffle" was at the Biltmore yet the altercation actually took place at the Biltmore II condominium?  Anyone whose ever been to Miami knows that when you say "Biltmore" you're referring to the Biltmore Hotel and not a damn condo that's got nothing to do with the hotel!  WTF?!

We've had our issues with the Herald in the past, from the poorly written and inaccurate article regarding the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud arrests to their somewhat lame understanding of the term "Breaking News".  We're not the only ones that have noticed how screwed up the Herald is lately, take a look at this piece by Francisco Alvarado of the Miami New Times.  In the case of this "Biltmore" story, I suppose it was nothing more than a cheap shot to get peoples attention, hardly a big deal but definately an example of how sorry the state of affairs are over at the Herald...

Look what's in the news again, SURRENDER!

Here we go again folks, looks like the subject of "surrender" is in the news again. I'm sure you all remember when we talked about several high profile surrenders back in early November and then the surrender of disgraced attorney Scott Rothstein to the authorities just last week. We've already established that in instances of white collar crime where the accused is represented by an attorney, it's common practice for the accused to surrender himself to the police, court or jail, yet somehow the people charged in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case weren't afforded the same courtesy. We know what the public sentiment is on this subject, we've also learned how criminal defense attorneys think about how this is to go down, but now we have another valuable insight, the opinion of a judge.

Francisco Alvarado has been writing about the Pastor Gaston Smith case over at The New Times, most recently he's been covering the allegations of prosecutorial misconduct by ASA Richard Scruggs. Among other things Pastor Smiths attorney, Michael Tein is accusing ASA Richard Scruggs of arresting the Pastor and not allowing him to surrender himself even though there were ongoing negotiations between the ASA and the Pastors attorney. Sound familiar? Late Friday evening, Judge Beatrice Butchko who is presiding over the case handed down a pretty damning opinion on the subject of SURRENDER, let's take a look at an excerpt from the hearing...


OK! As you can see the Judge established that the Pastor showed no evidence of flight risk, no danger to the community and that "it's common knowledge in white collar cases that these clients surrender". She even goes on to call the way the arrests went down "not professional"! Regardless of how the arrests went down, the prosecutors behavior sets a tone of "bad faith" against the defense, or as the Judge says:

"...leave them with this taste in their mouths and this feeling of impropriety..."

So we have to ask ourselves in the context of our case, why did Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski ORDER DETECTIVE JORGE BALUJA TO ARREST THE DEFENDANTS IN THE BERNARDO BARRERA MORTGAGE FRAUD CASE? According to the Judge Butchko it's common practice in white collar cases for the defendants to surrender, so what happened here Bill?

The other allegations of misconduct in the Pastor Smith criminal case are serious (recording witness statements without consent, etc), but they're nothing compared to what I've been finding lately on the way ASA Kostrzewski has been handling the Bernardo Barrera fraud case. I've been hearing some pretty disturbing rumors regarding Mr. Kostrzewski's behavior, allegations that if proved make the allegations against ASA Scruggs look like a walk in the park.

I've reached out to the attorneys involved in the Bernardo Barrrera case several times to see if they could comment on the way the arrests went down, I'll do so again today and see if they can provide an opinion on how things were handled.

I also forgot to mention that Mr. Alvarado and the New Times gave us a mention a few weeks back, according to the article, it looks like our blog has "irked Prosecutor Kostrzewski", sorry about that! Funny how the State Attorneys Office spokesman says

" "We are aware of the blog," Griffith says. "However, it would be inappropriate to discuss it since it involves pending cases.""

Isn't that funny? Inappropriate to discuss the case? The ASA has made more than his fair share of extrajudicial comments on this case, yet now it's an issue? Tisk, tisk. The trial date is right around the corner, I for one can't wait.

The week in review.

Here we are again at the beginning of what will PROVE to be an action packed week (I promise!), lets take a look at what we learned this week...

• Common themes in the Detectives work product.
• Detective Baluja can't figure out how to execute his own mortgage.
• The Straw Buyer having some affect on the good detective!
• We're famous! Francisco Alvarado of the New Times picks up our story!!
• Comments on the New Times Article and a note from Attorney Jason Wandner.

This week were going to add some new characters to our story, so stay tuned. I feel sick, I'm going to go get some soup...

Oh crap, now look what happened!

Jorge, look whose here...


That's right, it looks like our little story got the interest of Francisco Alvarado and the New Times, YIKES! This story is spreading like wildfire, it seems to be making its way all over the internet! I want to be absolutely clear regarding Mr. Alvarado's comment:

"What did Jorge Baluja do to elicit so much hatred?"

There's no hate here people, none whatsoever. You can't label revealing Detective Baluja's misdeeds and documenting how he has screwed up investigations that have destroyed peoples lives as hatred. No sir, all we're doing here is telling a story that mainstream media wouldn't tell, we're exposing how bad cops work and the consequences of their actions. I understand this is a terribly embarrassing situation for the Detective, his family and friends, but how could you compare what the Detective is going through to the humiliation that he caused Blanton Harris and his stepson Jakeem Attwell at the scene of his botched traffic accident investigation? How can you have sympathy for Mr. Baluja's feelings when he operated his mortgage fraud investigation and subsequent arrest of the attorney with no regard for her reputation and career? Who knows who else is out there whose lives you have interrupted with your half ass police work, who knows whats buried in the MDPD files. Guess what though, I'm going to find it.

Back to the article, Mr. Alvarado goes on to say:

"An anonymous blogger named the Straw Buyer has been dedicating a serious amount of bandwidth to bash and ridicule the Miami-Dade Police detective."

Serious amount of time and bandwidth YO! Best of all, my man Obama's stimulus check just came in, now I'm even better funded to investigate this story!


I know I must have struck a chord with someone in the Baluja clan based on what we see in the comments section:

"Supporter of Det. Baluja says: Not only is this blogger going on a petty rampage on some poor guy doing his job, he doesn't even have his facts straight."

Well, supporter of the good detective, I've taken GREAT CARE NOT TO STATE ANYTHING IN THIS BLOG THAT I CAN'T BACK UP WITH FACTS! (If I were a betting man, I'd say this is the detective himself making the post!) See, unlike the detective whose investigations are given to flights of fancy and wild liberties with the facts, I support everything I say with TRUTH. As easy as it would have been to make up things about the detective, it would be disingenuous of me to do so, instead I do my due diligence, find documents to support my assertions and then go forward. You would think that's the same level of care Detective Baluja would have taken when his actions could potentially DESTROY PEOPLES LIVES. I wont dignify the rest of Mr. Baluja's supporters comments here, it looks to me like the other people who commented on the New Times blog did a pretty good job, I'm not here to humiliate the poster any further.

You want to know who I am Jorge? I figure I owe you at least that, here's a recent photo I had taken of myself. You want to know where I am? I'm right behind you.


Where do we go now Detective Baluja? Should I go ahead and answer all the emails that I've been getting from the mainstream media for interviews regarding the case and the blog? I know you've denied several of those very same requests, I think for the sake of the site and the readers I should let them interview me, I owe you that much.

Enough for now, I'm going out to eat. I'm thinking Chinese...