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Our sources tell us that there is a meeting taking place today within the City of Miami whose sole objective is to figure out how to save convicted fraudster and former City of Miami Assistant Fire Chief Veldora Arthur's pension. Ms Arthur was convicted and sentenced for her role in a massive multi million dollar mortgage fraud scheme last year, since then there's been strong opposition within the ranks of both the fire department and the City of Miami to Ms Arthur being able to collect her pension.
What makes today's meeting all the more interesting is that I'm told that former City of Miami Police Chief and City Manager Donald Warshaw is keeping a close eye on the proceedings, for those of you who don't remember Mr. Warshaw, this story from the Miami Herald sums up his situation...
Former Miami Police Chief Donald Warshaw is not entitled to his six-figure annual police pension, forfeited when he was convicted of diverting $70,000 from a charity for his personal use, a state appellate court ruled Wednesday.
In a 2-1 decision, a Third District Court of Appeal panel of judges backed last year's decision by Miami's Firefighters & Police Officers Retirement Trust to stop paying Warshaw's pension of about $128,800 a year.
Warshaw, who retired as police chief to become city manager in 1998, avoided a conviction for using public office to steal public money as part of his plea deal with the U.S. attorney's office. Such a conviction would automatically have forfeited his pension, according to Florida statues.
Interesting, if Ms. Arthur somehow manages to keep her pension despite her federal fraud convictions, it's going to set a dangerous precedent. If she gets to keep her pension then by default, wouldn't Mr. Warshaw be entitled to keep his pension as well? For that matter, wouldn't any city or county employee who lost their pensions due to a criminal conviction be entitled to get their pension benefits back?
We'll keep an eye on this situation and report back as soon as we learn anything. More tomorrow on the Airways Tag Agency boondoggle.
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I'm working on a very important story regarding some unethical activity between City of Miami commissioner Marc Sarnoff and the City of Miami city attorneys office. We'll have the story ready to go for tomorrow, in the mean time, let's look at some of the comments left over the last few days on our blog posts regarding former City of Miami assistant fire chief and convicted fraudster Veldora Arthur.
Let's start with this comment...
I believe she will lose all or part of her pension simply because she conducted most of these schemes while on City time while using city fax machines and in some instances even city letter head.
There will be restitution, there's going to be a separete hearing in February just for that purpose.
Correct. According to the prosecutor, the frauds in this case were just a minor smattering of the many frauds that Ms. Arthur was involved in, we're going to look at least one other fraud that she was involved with but wasn't charged for soon, perhaps after the holidays so that we can highlight how indiscriminate the government is when it comes to charging people based on their ability to garner headlines. As to the second part of the comment, the judge mentioned the same, even going so far as to say that people like Ms. Arthur were the root cause of the real estate meltdown and because of their bogus inflated property values and subsequent busting out of the properties that we are where we are today with most homes underwater.
That comments speaks for itself and I couldn't agree more.
I'm sorry for the position you and your family find yourself in today as a result of the crimes that your sister was convicted of. I take no joy in seeing the family suffer because of a series of poor decisions that Ms. Arthur made, but at the end of the day she is where she is and nothing can change that. I take issue with your statement though when you say...
If she lose (sic) her pension or not it won't benefit you!
In fact, you are wrong when you say that by losing her pension "it won't benefit you". See, a significant portion of her pension is paid by the taxpayers, the same taxpayers that paid Ms. Arthur an exorbitant six figure plus salary when she was on city time and simultaneously conducting these fraudulent transactions that had nothing to do with her job at the fire department. For the taxpayer to have to continue paying her pension after she committed these crimes is a further insult to the citizens of the City of Miami. I'll make you a deal, how about we go and randomly pick out a handful of citizens of the City of Miami and let's ask them what they think. Are you up for that?
Agreed.
That's a bit ridiculous isn't it? I'm the least of her worries! If you were in the courtroom during the sentence, did you take a look around and see who else was there? There were a few members of the upper management of the City of Miami FD that had no love lost for Ms. Arthur who were all to vocal about how the rank and file felt about her tenure at the FD and how they felt about her pension. Once again, let's not forget the citizens of the city who are appalled at the amount of money she was making on the job while they're working their asses off to make a fraction of what she was making at the FD. While Ms. Arthur may have taken for granted the incredible pay and gold plated benefits she was getting at the taxpayers expense, most of us would kill to have the same kind of compensation so it's that much more appalling to see someone who had the world at her feet to get involved in this kind of mess. Don't blame me if she loses her pension, she's got no one to blame but herself for that.
Now, till tomorrow, go back and read this blog post regarding our esteemed City of Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff and local gadfly and Coconut Grove resident Reid Welch. This is going to get interesting.
As the title states, former City of Miami assistant fire chief and convicted fraudster Veldora Arthur was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison this morning after a five hour hearing before Judge Patricia Seitz (check out her bio, WOW!) that started at 8:30 this morning. In addition to the 57 months, once released she'll have to serve an additional 36 months of probation.
I was in utter disbelief as I sat through this hearing, even after being found guilty and having been incarcerated for several months, Ms. Arthur both through her own statements and through her attorney, Bruce Lehr, who gave a somewhat less than stellar performance, were still making excuses and were both pleading ignorance regarding her role in the fraud. At one point U.S. Attorney, Armando Rosquete brought up another instance of mortgage fraud that she had committed in a separate straw buyer scheme that she was involved with but not criminally charged for. In this instance Ms. Arthur orchestrated the scheme and put up the money (approximately seventy four thousand dollars) for the down payment, a couple of days after the closing (we'll discuss this case next week in detail) Ms. Arthur received the money back with an additional ten thousand dollar profit. To his credit, the prosecutor eloquently described the transaction and provided the court with all the relevant documents regarding the down payment that she put up for the straw buyer, wire transfer authorizations, bank statements, etc all detailing the approximately $74,000 being wired out of her account and then the subsequent $84,000 being wired back into her account days later (the original $74k + $10k profit). When the judge asked Ms. Arthur's attorney to explain this suspicious banking transaction, he explained that his client knew nothing about the real estate transaction nor the wire transfers both in and out of her account. As ridiculous as that may sound, the judge actually went so far as to say that if Ms. Arthur didn't authorize the wire leaving her account and since she had no idea who had authorized the wire that it must have been a phantom or a ghost that did so!
Are you fucking kidding me? $74,000 leaves your account without your knowledge or your consent then a few days later $84,000 comes back in and you don't even think to question it? WTF?
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| Judge Patricia Seitz |
The worst part of this hearing was bringing her family and friends into the courtroom and having them dragged through this mess. Somehow Ms. Arthur and/or her attorney thought it was a good idea to have her emotionally fragile 15 year old daughter before the court to make a statement. I can't begin to tell you how horrible I felt watching this poor girl stand before the court and have to be subjected to seeing her mother wearing khaki prison clothes and with shackles around her legs. This was truly and utterly unnecessary.
I have to really question what Ms. Arthur and her attorneys were thinking when they decided to take this case to trial rather than take a plea, the government had a mountain of incontrovertible evidence against her, most in the form of damning mortgage documents that she couldn't deny. I suspect if she would have plead out that she could have ended up with something in the neighborhood of 24 months rather than the 57 months she ended getting.
Regardless of what Ms. Arthur did to get herself into this position she finds herself in today, I have to tell you, seeing her family suffer through this hearing made for one of the saddest days of my life. I pray that Ms. Arthur and her family get through this horrible ordeal and get on with their lives.
We'll discuss this hearing and its outcome at length next week.
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