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I just about fell out of my seat when I heard who's going to help pick the next City of Miami Police Chief, from the Herald article...
Ten candidates have made the list of finalists to become Miami’s next police chief, following the spectacular firing two months ago of disgraced former Chief Miguel Exposito.
Among the contenders: a retired high-level state police special agent, several prominent former Miami police command staffers and the man who replaced Exposito in an interim role.
A selection committee headed by Miami-Dade Police Director Jim Loftus will begin interviewing finalists Wednesday, and will continue next week.
So far so good, I have the utmost respect for the Miami Dade County Police Director, James Loftus, he's alright by me.
The finalists are: Adam L. Burden, Thomas W. Cannon, Frank G. Fernandez, Michael J. Gugliotti, Rafael P. Hernandez Jr., Roberto Hylton, Manuel Orosa, Amos Rojas Jr., Gerald Speziale Jr., and Louis A. Vega.
Earlier this month, the selection committee picked the finalists from 71 applicants. Nearly 50 had already submitted their applications before Exposito was fired; his contract had been set to expire at the end of the year.
A sharply divided city commission voted to fire Exposito on Sept. 12. City Manager Johnny Martinez had suspended the ex-chief six days earlier for insubordination, saying Exposito overstepped his authority by moving forward with administrative demotions the manager had explicitly placed on hold.
We all remember that circus don't we?
The list of finalists features several candidates that are well known in South Florida law enforcement circles.
Orosa, considered a candidate before Exposito was named chief, has headed the department in an interim position. Burden and Cannon, former Miami assistant police chiefs, retired after Exposito demoted them and a slew of others in December 2009.
Fernandez is the former deputy chief under Chief John Timoney. Vega, a former assistant chief under Timoney, also served as the police director in Camden, N.J.
Rojas recently retired as FDLE’s regional special agent in charge after eight years in the post. Hernandez, a former Miami-Dade police officer, served as chiefs of police in Sweetwater and most recently, North Miami Beach.
Gugliotti is the longtime chief of police in Waterbury, Conn. Hylton, the former police chief in Prince George’s County, Md., is listed as law enforcement advisor to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Speziale is the former sheriff of Passaic County, N.J., who later became the deputy superintendent of the New York-New Jersey Port Authority.
Blah, blah, blah...
The selection committee is made of Loftus and Addy Villanueva, now the special agent in charge of FDLE’s South Florida office; Hugo Barrera, the special agent of Miami’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives...
Sounds good up until here...
...and Maurice Kemp, Miami’s fire chief.
WTF!?
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| Chief Mo Kemp |
Maurice Kemp, the City of Miami Fire Chief is going to help pick out the next Police Chief? This would be the same Maurice Kemp who sent his former assistant Fire Chief Veldora Arthur home collecting over $100k while under federal indictment! The same Veldora Arthur who was rumored to receive preferential treatment throughout her career because of her alleged personal relationship with Chief Kemp? This guy should be looking for a job himself rather than sitting on a committee that's going to pick out the next police chief!
Committee members will conduct the interviews with five people appointed by city commissioners to ask questions an provide input. But only the four committee members will pick the top five finalists.
From those choices, Manager Martinez will select the next chief.
Another bullshit dog and pony show. There is no doubt in my mind that Mayor Regalado and his cronies have already picked interim police chief Orosa to be the next police chief, what we're seeing here with this selection committee is a sham proceeding to make it look like Orosa was chosen through a fair and equitable selection process. Hopefully I'm wrong but somehow I doubt it.
You all remember Mr. Vecin of the Miami Dade County Police Department don't you? We discussed Mr. Vecin and the MDPD Green fund a few months back, now it seems like Mr. Vecin has found himself in quite a mess! Jim Defede does a great job covering the story here, from the CBS4 story...
A Miami Dade police commander, with close ties to Mayor Carlos Alvarez, has allegedly been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by developers to expedite their request for permits and provide access to top county administrators, according to a CBS4 News investigation.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of $625,000 from one developer alone since 2007 to be exact! Close ties to Mayor Carlos Alvarez no less!
We digress...
Miami Dade Police Chief Frank Vecin is now under criminal investigation by both the Miami Dade State Attorney and the Inspector General's Office.
That explains all the blog traffic we've been getting from different state and federal law enforcement agencies googling his name.
Richard Sharpstein, an attorney for The Terra Group, one of the developers that hired Vecin, acknowledged that the developer had recently been served a subpoena for contracts and financial records relating to Terra's involvement with Vecin.
No es bueno...
...he was also in charge of the police department's Intergovernmental Bureau, which is responsible for investigating illegal contractors and criminal violations of the county's building code.
Can you say conflict of interest?!
In one instance, according to e-mails obtained by CBS4 News, the Terra Group used Vecin's clout and status inside the police department to initiate an investigation into a condo board member who was giving the developer trouble.
WHOOPSIE!
...Vecin's fees would range anywhere from $2,500 a month to $50,000 a month depending on what he was asked to do.
SHAZAM! When the hell was all this work being done? Wasn't the PD job a day job? WTF?
This is not the first time Vecin's conduct has been questioned. Earlier this year, CBS4 News exposed questionable spending by the police department's environmental task force. Vecin was in charge of the fund and monies that were supposed to be used to investigate environmental crimes – such as illegal dumping – were instead used to purchase new computers and hybrid SUVs for police commanders. Vecin even provided one of the SUVs to the mayor. After the news reports surfaced, control of the environmental funds was taken away from Vecin.
Uh, yeah?! You all remember former chief legal counsel for the MDPD Glenn Theobald and that "Green Fund" mess don't you?
The county ethics commission even goes so far as to tell Mr. Vecin...
"As a county employee you are not allowed to interact with county officials or county employees representing third party clients,"
In case he didn't get the message the first time, the ethics commission made sure to tell him again the next day...
"I just want to reiterate that you are not permitted to have conversations with county employees or officials at any point in time as a representative of the owners,"
What the hell is going on over at the PD? How are all these high ranking cops finding the time to fight crime and run other businesses? Considering that according to this report Mr. Vecin was getting paid as much as $50k per month, is it conceivable that he was doing the work to earn that money during breaks or days off from his job at the PD? WTF people?! We're in the throws of one of the worst economic downturns in the history of our country and we have people working part time at the PD while making up to $50k per month at their day job full time at the PD that are pulling down $50k per month on the side? Come on folks, enough is enough!
We discussed a mortgage fraud story yesterday that didn't make any sense to either us or the poor guy that got arrested. The story came to us in the form of an email and got our curiosity going so we went down to the Miami Dade County Criminal courthouse to see what was in the case file in order to get a better understanding of what the case was about. Unfortunately after reading the arrest affidavit, we got more confused. See for yourselves, as always, click on the image for a larger view...
Let's break it down...
On the above date, the victims advised that they attended a closing for the sale of their home located at 610 NW 184 Terr at HRH title service. The victims stated that they contacted the Co-Def in regards to helping them sell their home. At some point during the sales process, the Co-Def approached the Def and asked if the company he works at was interested in this mortgage transaction. The def (stated during previous interview) that he could not get the loan approved by his lender so he referred the Co-Def to another Co-Def (mortgage broker) at Syracuse Capital Management.
Ok, the report identifies a Defendant (the man who's email we discussed yesterday) and then identifies two co defendants, one that could possibly be a realtor (who else would help the victims sell their home?) while the other co defendant is identified as being a "mortgage broker".
The def stated at the previous interview that he was paid $1500.00 by the Co-Def (Syracuse Capital Management) for sending him this fraudulent mortgage transaction. The interview was stopped and the Def was advised of his Miranda Rights at which time he decided he wanted an attorney.
There's nothing wrong with a broker getting a commission for referring a loan, it happens all the time. Why the hell would this trigger the Detective to Mirandize the poor guy? Why the hell shouldn't he ask for an attorney at this point?! Oh, I forgot how our favorite mortgage fraud detective responds to people "lawyering up"!
When the victims arrived at the closing on November 15, 2007, also present at the closing was the Def and the Co-Def's, they were presented with paperwork stating that the house was selling for $280,000. Once the victim questioned the Co-Def in regards to the fraudulently inflated sales price of the home the Co-def stated not to worry because you are getting what you wanted for your house ($160,000).
This is starting to sound a little hokey right around here.
After the paperwork was signed, the Co-Def instructed the Def and Co-Def to accompany the victim to his bank and to obtain two checks from the fraudulently obtained proceeds. The Co-Def stated to the Def and Co-Def to make sure that one of the two checks that would be obtained from the victim could not be traced back to "PETER" The Co-Def then asked who would be taking the second victim to the bank at which time another Co-Def stated that he would be.
Have you all started to cry yet? Can you understand what the hell is going on here? If we're reading right, we now have the Defendant, Co-Def who was helping the victims sell their home (perhaps a realtor?), a second co-def (who may have been previously referenced as the "mortgage broker"?), a third Co-Def who is simply referred to as "another Co-Def" and a fourth person simply referred to as "Peter". Moving along...
The victims advised that the Def & Co-Def's followed them to their respective banks in order to have them withdraw $50,265.84 that was obtained, via a wire transfer of $109,307.41, from HRH Title Service. When the Def & Co-Def's arrived at the banks with the victims the funds were available and the victims withdrew the money. One victim had it split into two different checks. Both checks were made payable to the Co-Def on in the amount of $28,000 and other for $22,265.84. Upon receiving the checks from the victim the Def & Co-Def left the bank.
Ok, so defendant so far has followed one of the two "victims" to a bank while a Co-Def picked up two checks totaling $50,265.84.
The second victim stated that she provided another Co-Def with one check from her bank for $50,265.84. That Co-Def then left the bank. The Co-Def deposited both checks he received into an account at another bank bearing his name.
The victim provides a check for $50,265.84 to ANOTHER Co-Def?! HUH?! Now I'm really confused, let's take a quick inventory of the people involved in this report. Here we go:
1- Victim #1 who was selling their half of their marital home.
2- Victim #2 who was selling their half of their marital home.
3- Defendant, this is the man that was the subject of this arrest affidavit and who emailed us his story.
4- Co-Defendant #1 who was "helping the victims sell their home", perhaps a realtor.
5- Co-Defendant #2 who was identified as being a "mortgage broker"
6- Co-Defendant #3 he's not identified, we have no idea what his role was.
7- A man simply identified as "Peter".
8- Co-Defendant #4 the man who was given a check by the victims for $50,265.84.
One of these Co Defendants (not #8) received two checks totaling $50,265.84. Ok, is that clear? Does that make sense?
What in the fcuk is that ?! Can anyone make any sense of that affidavit?! We've identified at least six "defendants" in this report, we know one was the man who was the subject of the report, so accoring to that narrative there should be at least five other people labled as Co Defendants on the report right? Let's take a look...
WHAT?! Just one other Co Defendant?! WTF is this $hit?! Can any of our esteemed readers figure out what the hell is going on in this case? Does it sound plausable that the "victims" just handed over $100,531.68 just for $hits and grins? Even worse, from what we've been able to find, the only person arrested in this case was the poor guy who denied the loan and referred it to another mortgage company!
Say it ain't so!!! That's right, Glenn Theobald, chief legal counsel for the MDPD and the creator and head of the MDPD Mortgage Fraud Task force is in hot water over the misspending of monies set aside by the federal government in a trust fund for the MDPD to go after people committing environmental crimes. We learned a few weeks ago that Mr. Theobald had authorized the purchase of some rather strange items that I suppose the MDPD intended to use for the purpose of fighting environmental crime, when he was called to task for authorizing the trust fund money to be spent on these items, he made a quick about face in the form of a memo rescinding a previous memo where he OK'd the purchases:
"This memorandum rescinds the previous opinion regarding your memo to this writer...trust fund monies in the account can only be used to further environmental investigations...A direct nexus with the expenditure and the furtherance of environmental investigations is required...Any other interpretation was mistaken due to the information provided at the time the memorandum was presented."
I suppose that wasn't good enough, since both Mr. Theobald and the man that was the head of the MDPD environmental crimes investigation unit, Frank Vecin were both reassigned from their posts by MDPD Director James Loftus last week (according to Jim DeFede of WFOR). What difference does it make to us? In the case of Mr. Vecin, it makes none, but what about Mr. Theobald, the head of the Mortgage Fraud Task Force and the MDPD chief legal counsel? Where does he go? Let's see what an online source tells us regarding this matter...
"Theobald will be gone in 30 days. He was allowed to retire in lieu of a demotion as the Major of Crime Scene."
OH SNAP! While that statement should be considered nothing more than rumor at this point, it certainly does sound plausible. If indeed it is true, we're sure the MDPD will quickly find another attorney to fill his spot as chief legal counsel, but who's going to take over his position as the head of the Mayors Mortgage Fraud Task Force?! After all, the task force was Mr. Theobald's pet project, the vehicle with which he gained national press coverage. So what now? Who's going to be the new leader of the "Fraud Squad"?
