Ho, ho, NO!

Our friend and fellow blogger Al Crespo did a bang up job as usual covering our state attorney, Katherine Fernandez Rundle's yearly SAO christmas party.  Al even went through the trouble of getting a copy of the invite list.  At first glance it doesn't seem like much, a proverbial who's who of the politicians, judges, cops, prominant lawyers, etc of Miami Dade county.  Take a look at the list here:

  State Attorney Party List by al_crespo

One of our readers pointed out that upon closer examination, you'll realize that Ms. Rundle has invited certain Mayor's from Miami Dade's various cities, but not others.  Most notably, among the mayors of Coral Gables, Doral, etc, Ms Rundle had invited federally indicted former mayor of the City of Sweetwater, Manny Marono as outlined in red...

On the other hand, Ms. Rundle had invited various members of the law enforcement community, both current and past, for example, she's invited the former chief of police of the City of Sweetwater, Roberto Fulgueira...

No problem there, but it's interesting to note that she's invited former Sweetwater police chief Fulgueira yet somehow she's forgotten to invite former City of South Miami police chief and alleged family friend Orlando Martinez de Castro?  Whatever.

Interesting, perhaps it's nothing more than a simple mistake by a lowly assistant who simply cut and paste last years party invite list, or maybe not!  With that said folks, have a happy holiday, till next time, be safe.

Like a criminal enterprise...

That's how City of Sweetwater resident Deborah Centeno described how former Sweetwater Manny Maroño and his crew ran the city in this Miami Herald article.  While the attention Sweetwater and it's former mayor and friends has been getting lately is all well and good, somehow no one has made the link between the shenanigans in Sweetwater and our favorite little town, South Miami, and it's former Chief of Police, Orlando Martinez de Castro.

Let's not forget that when the City of South Miami would set up DUI checkpoints there was usually Sweetwater cops at those checkpoints or when there were drug raids in the black areas of South Miami, once again, there were Sweetwater cops on the scene.  Now, it's not like Sweetwater is the next town over from South Miami, Sweetwater is actually located nearly ten miles away from South Miami, so the question that begs to be asked is why the hell were Sweetwater cops spending so much time over in South Miami?

It's also worth mentioning that both former chief Orlando Martinez de Castro and South Miami Detective Lopez both had jobs over at Sweetwater before coming over to South Miami, the later of which fled Sweetwater while he was under investigation for beating up a citizen.

There's much more brewing just below the surface regarding the relationship between Sweetwater, it's former mayor and the City of South Miami's former police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro.  While the Herald article recently touched upon the common denominator, Southland Towing, I'm told that that's just the tip of the iceberg.  Let's see what we can turn up, I get the feeling that the tenticles of Sweetwater's "Criminal Enterprise" have deep roots over in South Miami's former chief's administration.

Still no information from my last public information request and an interesting court case...

As the title of the post says, we still haven't heard back from the City of South Miami regarding our last public information request where we requested information about the former police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, putting tracking devices on peoples cars.  As soon as we get any info, lol, we'll update.

On another note, I was cruising the Dade County court website looking for any new developments on the various stories we've been following and I stumbled upon this lawsuit that I knew nothing about...

It looks like former City of South Miami police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, filed suit against the city back in February, months before he was fired.  As always, click on the image to enlarge, the docket looks rather busy!  It also looks like there's going to be a special hearing tomorrow over at courthouse, anyone going that can fill us in?

You'll never believe where shitty cops from Sweetwater end up...

We left off last time discussing a video showing a Sweetwater cop beating the shit out of a man with his hands cuffed behind his back who was being beaten because he wouldn't put his hands on the counter in front of him.  While this incident occurred back in 2010, it's not the first case of a horrendous beating at the hands of the Sweetwater PD.  Take a look at this story from back in 2003, here are some of the salient points from the article...

A 19- year-old man has accused three police officers of severely beating him, and says the mayor later saw them punch him in the head before driving them all to the station.

I guess the beating had the mayoral seal of approval!

Four Sweetwater police officers have been suspended with pay while the Miami-Dade County state attorney's office and the police department investigate what happened to Peter Daniel on June 18.

Suspended with pay? What kind of punishment is that? Someone please suspend me with pay!

Sweetwater Mayor Manuel Marono said that his city- owned Ford Excursion was used to take Daniel to the station, but he refused further comment.

Sweet! I suppose ex Mayor Morono was a hands on kind of guy!

A police report filed by another of the suspended officers, Allen St. Germain, said Daniel threw himself several times against the floor of the police station and the wall of his holding cell.

Of course he did!

Boros said that at the police station, police kicked and beat Daniel. At one point an officer lifted Daniel off the floor as another officer punched him in the stomach, he said.

Daniel said at one point, Boros said, the mayor sat next to him and saw one of the officers punch him in the head.

Is this how mayoral meetings go over at the City of Sweetwater?

Then, Boros said, the mayor returned to the driver's seat and drove Daniel and his friend, Danny Izquierdo, back to the station, where Izquierdo was questioned for a while, then released.

Like I said, former mayor Morono was a hands on kind of guy!  Here's the best part though...

The other officers suspended were Jose F. Lopez and Sgt. George I. Alvarez.

While I don't recognize any of the other officers, I certainly do recognize Mr. Jose F. Lopez. From the Herald Tribune's Florida police officer database...

Jose F. Lopez

SWEET!  So he's involved in beating the shit out of this poor guy, get's a complaint filed against him, miraculously the Sweetwater PD find no cause and don't discipline him yet quits while under investigation and ends up becoming a detective over at the South Miami PD under former police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro!  

I know very little about this Lopez character, perhaps our readers can fill us in?

Karma, reflecting on last week's events...

As we all know, last Thursday the City of South Miami commission adopted a resolution that stated that former police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's employment contract was voided when he took on the position of acting city manager.  A couple of hours later city manager, Steven Alexander, issued a memorandum appointing Major Rene Landa acting police chief since he concluded that he "had no police chief in place".

Shortly after the commission meeting, de Castro's son, Christopher Martinez de Castro, confronted me and accused me of "writing bullshit about his family, wrecking his family, putting his family through hell, etc" and ultimately concluded his tirade by calling me a "bitch ass nigger" then tried to physically attack me.  That's all well and good, its understandable that the friends and family of the de Castro clan would be upset, after all their patriarch just lost a formidable position within the community as well as six figure salary, in part because of my actions.  

This must be a traumatizing experience for the former chief and his family, I can only imagine.  Somehow though, I know what it feels like to be publicly humiliated and accused of all sorts of wrong doing, I know the shame that is visited upon a family after being written about in the local media for your alleged nefarious deed.  I suspect that the three tellers that were framed for stealing tens of thousands of dollars from de Castro's wife's tag agency have some idea of what this feels like as well, accused of wrongdoing, humiliated in public, thrown out on the street with no job, etc.  How about Warren Papove?  I suspect he knows how it feels?  Taken away from his home and thrown into detention for months on end then deported, for what?  Some bullshit immigration charge trumped up by some bogus code enforcement violation that the former chief de Castro dreamed up?

I could go on and on with stories of people getting screwed by former chief de Castro, the one distinction that Mr de Castro enjoys when compared to these other folks is that he wasn't falsely arrested, striped of his rights then had to fight the criminal court system for months if not years to clear his name.  Next time the members of the de Castro clan are sitting around thinking about how unjust everything that has happened to them is and what an asshole I am for writing about their misdeeds, think about the people that you've fucked over and just how bad you've altered the course of their lives.  

Consider that the girls from the Airways Auto Tag case were/are facing 190 years in prison for the crimes that you've accused them of committing, consider how you racially profiled and victimized prominent attorney Joe Klock's law clerk countless times for no other reason than his skin color, consider the different city employees, constituents and former elected officials whose lives were shattered because of your political machinations.  Take a moment while you're stewing over what happened to you over the last year or so culminating with the loss of your beloved job as chief and think about the people I've mentioned and the countless numbers of people I haven't mentioned and contemplate what you've done to them before you lash out at me or any of your other critics.  Only then can you come to peace with yourself and your actions.

It's official, Orlando Martinez de Castro is no longer the Chief of Police of the City of South Miami.

I heard the news last night just as I was getting out of the the shower after work...

While mainstream media was all over the place in their reporting of the circumstances which brought about the demise of embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro, I thought it best to get something official from the city regarding de Castro's termination.  I reached out to my sources in the police department and got this memorandum that was distributed throughout the city by City Manager Steven Alexander...

  City of South Miami City Manager Steven Alexander Relieves Orlando Martinez de Castro From Duty

WTF!?  This bit is priceless...

These facts made it clear, that in my capacity as City Manager, I had no alternative but to find that I had no Chief of Police in place.

What about that guy down the hall sitting in the chief's office?

With that said, City Manager Alexander appoints Major Rene Landa the interim police chief.  As I'm told, yesterday the chief's photo was taken down from the walls of City Hall and one of our commenters stated that there were a couple of other members of his command staff that were packing their belongings.  I haven't confirmed any of that yet, we'll report back when we do.

That's enough for today.  I know we haven't heard the end of Orlando Martinez de Castro, I'm sure he's gonna be giving us tons of new material to write about over the next several months.  Now we'll turn our energies towards finally blowing what's left of the Airways Auto Tag agency case out of the water.  Till then...

Ex Police chief's son calls me a nigger and the outcome of last night's City of South Miami commission meeting.

No surprises there.  As we mentioned yesterday, the City of South Miami commission convened a special meeting last night to vote on adopting a resolution to terminate his 5-year employment agreement with the city.  There were several impassioned pleas from the chief's supporters including but not limited to threats to the commissioners who voted against the chief, despite the obviously stacked audience in favor of the chief and the tense atmosphere during the meeting as well as the hysterical high faggotry exhibited by some members of the commission, things went off without a hitch.  While the outcome of the vote wasn't guaranteed, by meeting's end the commission did vote three to two to adopt the resolution and in essence to void City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's employment contract.

Anticipating an entertaining commission meeting, I decided to go to trek down to City Hall after work and watch the proceedings first hand.  When I got there it was obvious that there were several plain clothes police officers in attendance as well as a few uniformed officers that were all milling around the back of the commission chambers.  I decided that I wanted to avoid any potential confrontation, so I went down and sat up front in the third row, third seat from the aisle on the right side where there was no one around me.  All well and good till about four minutes into the meeting when some guy comes and sits down right next to me.  I could tell by his overall demeanor and the fact that he chose to sit right next to me despite the empty chairs all around us, his intent was to clearly intimidate me or provoke me into some sort of a confrontation.  Here's a photo of my new friend...

Christopher Martinez de Castro

Obviously this was someone from the Martinez de Castro clan so I chose not to engage him.  During the meeting my new found friend to my left kept taking photos of me all the while huffing and puffing throughout the meeting, all good, whatever.  After the conclusion of the meeting I guess Mr. Piss and Vinegar's intent was to provoke me and create a scene when I was going to leave to walk up the isle to the exit, regardless, I wasn't going to exit the way he had thought as I had a couple of friends waiting for me in the back corner of the commission chambers.  So upon the meetings conclusion, I exited to my right which thwarted this man's plans and met with my friends that were waiting for me.  We talked for a few minutes then headed towards the exit only to have Mr. Piss and Vinegar block the exit from the chambers.  I found this rather amusing as there were several people milling about the door, including but not limited to city police officers both in uniform and in plain clothes, several city residents as well as some folks from the Miami Dade County Commission on Ethics if I'm not mistaken.  With that said, this guy began a verbal tirade against me, calling me a lying motherfucker among other things then alleged that I was a coward that wrote bullshit about his family.  After rambling insults for a little while, rage face then amped it up a couple of notches and started lunging at me telling me that he's gonna take care of me, to watch my back and I'm gonna get mine for what I've done to his family, etc.  

Whatever the fuck ever.  I was rather amused by this interaction and decided that it was my turn to speak at which point I told him "I'm the one who's destroying your family?  What about the three innocent girls that your family framed and sent to jail?  What about them?"  At this point this man who was mere inches from my chest, lunged at me in an effort to attack me at which time he was pulled off me by a plain clothes cop while a uniformed cop simultaneously jumped in between us and pushed him away.  Someone behind me then told me that this was one of Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's sons.  While he was being pulled away from me, in front of a crowded commission chamber with ostensibly a member of just about every race and color that populates our region in attendance, Mr. de Castro's son then started hurling racial insults towards me culminating in "you'll see, you're gonna get your's YOU BITCH ASS NIGGER"!  

WTF!?   

In case you didn't get that, here's a visual aide to help you contemplate what Chief Martinez de Castro's son called me in front of a room full of City employees and constituents...

Honestly, are you fucking serious?  In this day and age, how could the chief's son, Christopher Martinez de Castro, hurl this kind of racial slur against me or anyone else for that matter?  For fucks sake you asshat, your fucking father is a public servant in a town with a sizable black population, even worse, you decided to call me a "BITCH ASS NIGGER" in front of several black people!

Shame on you, Mr. de Castro, while your intent was to clearly insult and demean me all you managed to accomplish is making yourself look like a lowlife idiot while embarrassing both yourself and your family.  Nice work, I couldn't have done a better job myself.

Regardless of Christopher Martinez de Castro's outburst and racial slurs, I was told that shortly after the commission meeting, City Manager Steven Alexander relieved Orlando Martinez de Castro from his duties as police chief and appointed City of South Miami PD Major Rene Landa acting chief.  I'll update as soon as I have confirmation.

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.

Major Rene Landa, ass kisser extraordinaire or ultimate smart ass?

Last week when we left off discussing the email that embattled City of South Miami police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, sent out basically apologizing for the mess that he created by steering city business to his wife's tag agency, we mentioned that were going to discuss City of South Miami's Major Rene Landa's response to the chief's email.  Before we get to Landa's email, let's take another look at the heart of the chief's email...

He goes on to spout some bullshit about me being a scumbag and how the Miami Herald reporter has an agenda and is "not their friend", whatever the hell that means.  From the email...

Less than two hours after the chief sends out this mea culpa email, Major Rene Landa responds with this gem...

Now on the first read this response makes the Major seem like the ultimate ass kisser but upon reading it a second time, there seems to be another dimension to this email, specifically this part...

Chief: I know your ethics and there is nothing for you to apologize for.

The way I read that is very simple, to me it says I know what you're all about and who you are and that you knowingly steered the city business to your wife's tag agency.  And that bit about the reporter, it's as clear as day, the chief gave him an order and he's going to follow it.  At least that's the way I see it, so rather than label Major Landa as an ass kisser  I think I'd say he's far smarter than the chief and that he's simply being sarcastic in his answer to the chief's apology email.

Major Rene Landa

Regardless of which way you see it, with the chief's days numbered, my sources tell me that at the very least Major Landa is going to be appointed acting chief during the search for a replacement and may even be selected as the current chief's permanent replacement.  I guess we'll have to wait and see what the next few weeks hold in store for the chief...

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!

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?
 

A rumor heard around the City of South Miami PD and a correction from yesterday's post.

There's a nasty rumor going on over at the City of South Miami PD the last couple of days.  Our sources at the PD are suggesting that embattled police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, is going to be suspended by the new city manager.  Like I said, at this point it's nothing but an unsubstantiated rumor and until which time I can provide some sort of proof we should treat it as such.  My sources also tell me that there are several members of the South Miami PD brass that are angling for the chief's job, I have to wonder though, considering that the chief has stacked his management team chock full of cronies, would the commission allow his replacement to be chosen from within the ranks?

On another note, the Miami Herald reporter that I quote yesterday as saying "Commissioner Harris was involved in a hit and run" contacted me and asked me to make a correction.  According the the Herald reporter the PD source told them that...

 "A South Miami commissioner was involved in a hit and run near Dadeland Mall".  

While it's not exactly what I had quoted, the source's intent was the same, to create a scandal when there wasn't one.

Stay tuned...