It's like deja-vu all over again...

It seemed like just another headline where prosecutors at the Justice Department were trying to obtain confidential information from Google regarding their users, that was till I read the article for a second time...

Take a look at the article for yourselves (link here), these quotes in particular stand out...

The Justice Department's lawsuit, filed April 22 and not disclosed until this article, was sparked by Google's decision to rebuff the FBI's legal demands for confidential user data. It centers on the bureau's controversial use of so-called National Security Letters (NSL), a secret electronic data-gathering technique that does not need a judge's approval and recently was declared unconstitutional in an unrelated court case.

This part is of particular interest to me...

The use of NSLs is controversial because they gag the recipient: If you receive one, it's illegal to tell anyone. They're only supposed to be used in national security investigations, not routine criminal probes, and there's no upper limit on the amount of data a single NSL can demand.

So once they send out one of these requests, the people that they send them to are prohibited from telling anyone about them!  Let's not forget, as we mentioned last week, asshat assistant state attorney William "Special K" Kostrzewski sent just such a subpoena to the company that hosts our domain name in order to find out our identity when we were blogging anonymously.  Once again, take a look at this email sent to me by the good folks over at GKG.net who host our domain name when I asked them to send me over a copy of the subpoena...

No shit!  The state attorneys office told them not to tell me anything about the subpoena!  WTF?!  Once again, from the justice department story...

The FBI has been abusing its power and the letters have sought information to which the FBI was not entitled. Without the gag orders issued on recipients of the letters, it is doubtful that the FBI would have been able to abuse the NSL power the way that it did. So the combination of free reign for FBI to write its own warrants without judicial review, combined with the never-ending gag orders are the ingredients of a perfect storm of abuse potential.

Much like the federal National Security Letters, the subpoena that Prosecutor Kostrzewski used to obtain my identity was done without judicial review as well.  

Google effectively put the FBI on notice on March 5 that it would only divulge what the law requires. In a statement on its Web site at the time, the company said that "the FBI can't use NSLs to obtain anything else from Google, such as Gmail content, search queries, YouTube videos, or user IP addresses."

Thank god for Google's stance against the government.  Essentially what the prosecutor who was trying to figure out my identity did was obtain my IP address from GKG.net then used that to figure out my identity, in my opinion both the subpoena he issued and the subsequent use of my IP address was all done illegally.  Once again from the article...

Another possibility, said EFF's Cohn, is that Google is "fighting to give notice" to their subscribers. That would mean arguing that the NSL gag orders are unconstitutional, which the Second Circuit Court of Appeals said was the case in a mixed ruling (PDF).

So there you have it, not only was the subpoena that the state attorneys office in our opinion, illegal, but the demand they made on the domain name host could have possibly been unconstitutional?!

It's disgusting but it's just another example of how those in law enforcement, whether it's a jerkoff cop (or police chief) abusing state and federal databases or an assclown prosecutor abusing his subpoena powers to uncover the identity of an anonymous blogger whose criticizing him online are violating our constitutional rights day in day out with relative impunity.

Now, if that shit wasn't enough, we've gotten back the results of a public information request over at the City of South Miami relating to the federal NCIC database.  You're never going to believe who our favorite chief has been busy looking up in his spare time!

Freedom of speech? Just watch what you say!

Our regions preeminent legal blogs are up in arms because the Florida bar has gone after one of their fellow bloggers in Broward county.  The Justice Building Blog, South Florida Lawyers Blog and the Southern District of Florida Blog put together a joint post yesterday addressing their displeasure withe the Florida Bar's actions against attorney Bill Gelin who runs the Broward JAA blog.  From their joint post...

You lose your rights, not with a bang, but with a whimper. One small encroachment after another. A bureaucrat pushes the edges here, a prosecutor challenges the boundaries in a few cases there. No one says or does anything and then you look up and suddenly a cherished right is gone.
Nothing is more insidious and dangerous to our constitutional rights than a bureaucrat who, under the cover of a government agency, seeks to intimidate someone.

I couldn't have said it better myself especially in light of the recent scandals with the AP News phone records and the IRS mess.  While the bar is a big deal to the lawyers who run those blogs, it doesn't mean shit to me, even though they have come after me in the past.  What makes this mess hit home for me is that I was targeted in a similar fashion a few years back.  For those of you who have followed our blog from its inception, you may remember we conducted our blog anonymously for the first couple of years of it's existence.  Back then we took great joy in ripping apart cases that the State Attorneys office and the local police departments were royally fucking up, specifically cases that were investigated by former detective Jorge Baluja of the Miami Dade PD and that asshat of all asshat's assistant state attorney Bill Kostrzewski.

Back then I made such a fool of ASA Kostrzewski that revealing my identity became an obsession for this inept career prosecutor who should have lost his job years ago.  Things reached a boiling point when I watched him make a fool of himself and subsequently get berated by Judge Mary Barzee at which point I couldn't contain myself and started laughing at him  in open court.  After the hearing, prosecutor Kostrzewski (AKA Special K) chased me down the hallways of the courthouse and confronted me while going down the escalator.  While I resisted engaging in his hysterical high fagotry especially since the ruckus he created attracted the attention of the cops and security guards that populated the lobby of the courthouse , I simply responded with "Nice job Bill, see you next time!".

That was all well and good, that is until a few hours later when I received an alarming email from the company that hosts the domain name for this blog (www.thestrawbuyer.com), now keep in mind up until the receipt of this email, no one knew who was behind this blog, believe it or not, not even my family and friends.  As always, click on the image to enlarge...

You can imagine my reaction...

The instant I read the email, specifically the part that stated "We have not complied because the subpoena had some invalid information listed on it" I knew it was my favorite prosecutor who was behind it.  Forget about my first amendment rights to write whatever the fuck I want about whoever the fuck I want, this asshole was further violating my constitutional rights by sending a bullshit subpoena with no legal basis to GKG.net to find out my real identity!  Remember, I was doing nothing wrong and was not involved in any of the cases that I was writing about, so where does this asshole get off trying to fuck me like this?  What legitimate use did uncovering my identity have?  FUCK!

We'll continue the discussion tomorrow, with that said, a simple bar complaint doesn't seem that bad now does it?  Also, for those anonymous bloggers out there, keep in mind, your identity is only one illegal subpoena away...

Just how bad are things over at the City of Miami?

Could they possibly be this bad?

I've seen this City of Miami Fire Department Suburban several times this week with a busted out rear window covered with a plastic sheet.  Could things really be this bad that they can't afford to replace the rear window?  Overall I've noticed that the city's fire trucks and equipment were worn out and ragged out looking, either really dirty or with the paint faded out so bad that they no longer look red but more like a dark pink.  Could the city be so tight on money that they can't afford to keep up their equipment any longer?  I know the rest of their vehicles already look like shit, especially the police cars, but generally the fire trucks and assorted fire department vehicles are generally in good shape.

On another note, I'm sure you've all heard that former North Miami Mayor Beach Myron Rosner has been arrested on corruption and grand theft charges.  What's most interesting about this case is that it arose because of a blogger named  Stephanie Kienzle who's been after Mr. Rosner for years through her blog named Voters Voice.  Congrats to Stephanie, good work.

We'll leave off with another scandal that's rocked the Miami Dade Criminal Court system over the last few weeks, the story of the leopard print underwear.  In this case a public defender named Anya Cintron Stern decided to take photos of her clients underwear and post it on her facebook page.  From the Miami New Times story...

The family of defendant Fermin Recalde, who stands accused of a 2010 Hialeah murder, dropped off a bag of clothes to wear during trial. Public defender Anya Cintron Stern apparently thought the leopard-print man-briefs included in the bag were hilarious, and posted a photo of similar briefs on Facebook with a caption insisting they weren't "proper attire for trial." One of Cintron Stern's friend tipped off the legal system. She was fired and the case ended in mistrial.

What a horrific situation for the defendant, rather than concentrate on defending him the attorney somehow finds time not only to take photos of his underwear but then has the audacity to publicly post photos of said underwear on facebook. I'm glad she got fired.

Nearly four years later, case #F-08-036522-D comes to an end.

In an anticlimactic hearing yesterday morning at 9 am, the state announced that it's dropping the charges against the final remaining defendant in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case.  Just like that, in less than 15 seconds, the state attorneys office told Judge Thomas Rebull that they weren't going to proceed with the case against the "D" defendant that prosecutor William Kostrzewski railroaded nearly a year after the original arrests were made bringing to an end what could be described as one of the most botched mortgage fraud investigations on record.  What's really disgraceful about this last defendant even being charged was that by prosecutor Kostrzewski's own admission, he knew he was innocent but was only charged so he could then testify against the other defendants.  In other words, hey, fuck you, I've gone ahead and thrown your ass in jail even though I knew you had nothing to do with the crimes I'm charging you with so that you could come on in and spill the beans against the other defendants.  Some moral code prosecutor  Kostrzewski abides by, right?

Bernardo Barrera

Basically what did the states case in against this defendant was the insurmountable mountain of evidence against the man that Prosecutor Kostrzewski identified as the victim of this fraud, Bernardo Barrera.  Early on in our blog we identified several problems with Mr. Barrera's assertion of not being involved with the fraud that was at the center of the case but the icing on the cake came when we decided to go ahead and submit all the documents pertaining to the fraud to a handwriting expert.  I gathered up samples of Mr. Barrera's signatures from his divorce paperwork and the documents relating to the purchase of his primary residence, these samples along with signature samples from the purchase and loan documents from the mortgage that he alleged he was not involved with were all bundled together and sent off to a handwriting expert, check out the results of the handwriting experts analysis for yourselves...

Notice that this handwriting analysis was done on December 10, 2010, almost a year and half before the charges were dropped.  So there you have it, according to the handwriting expert, Mr. Barrera signed all the documents pertaining to the purchase and subsequent mortgage of the house that was at the center of the states case, the same house and mortgage that he vehemently denied, under oath I may add, that he had absolutely nothing to do with.  I spent roughly $1,300 on expert that the state should have used before they charged anyone in this case.  

Ultimately it was this handwriting analysis that ended up getting the case dropped against this last remaining defendant.  What's really a shame about this case, that is aside from innocent people's lives being unnecessarily destroyed is the fact that the biggest fraud perpetrated throughout this story was the fraud that Bernardo Barrera committed against the court by lying about his involvement in this fraudulent home purchase and subsequent fraudulent mortgage used in the commission of this fraud.  What's worse?  The fact that prosecutor Kostrzewski's bungling of this case ended up embarrassing the state attorney's office and the then newly formed Mortgage Fraud Task Force.  Luckily the state attorneys office removed this inept jackass and replaced him with prosecutors that were able to rectify the mistakes he made.

Eric Padron

I have to wonder, now that the state is well aware of Bernardo Barrera's involvement in this fraud are they going to hold him responsible and charge him not only for mortgage fraud but for perjuring himself throughout this case?  Think about what this case has cost the state as well as the defendants who were eventually exonerated, shouldn't he be made to pay?  Only time will tell.  In the mean time, congratulations are in order for Attorney Eric Padron who worked diligently and earned this hard fought victory for his client as well as the head of the state attorneys mortgage fraud unit, David Sherman, who rectified the errors that were made by prosecutor Kostrzewski.

So what now to the two assclowns that put this case together?  What say you Mr. Kostrzewski?  How about you Detective, sorry Officer Baluja?  How do you feel about your victim now or this steaming pile of shit you called a case?  And what about you Mr. Barrera?  I know you read this blog from your hideout in Panama, remember what I told you a few years back, I'm not gonna stop till your ass is behind bars.  Take that shit to the bank.

Major development expected in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case today...

Amazingly enough, over four years later, the state is still dealing with the first mortgage fraud case that we wrote about, the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case.  For those of you who aren't familiar with this case, go back and type in "Bernardo Barrera" in the search box on the upper left corner of the page and enjoy.  In a nutshell this case was hastily thrown together in the middle of the night by a morally, ethically and mentally deficient prosecutor named Bill Kostrzewski who used an even dumber cop named Jorge Baluja to do his bidding.  Of the three people originally charged back in October 3, 2008, one immediately cut a deal and got several years probation (essentially his attorney sold him out and didn't defend him), the other eventually after several plea negotiations ended up doing several years in prison while the third defendant, despite the prosecutors best efforts, ended up getting all the charges dropped against her.


What I neglected to tell you guys was that there was a fourth defendant, one that wasn't charged until nearly a year after the original arrests.  Once the prosecutor on the case realized that he had royally fucked up and saw the case falling apart around him, he decided to bring in a fourth defendant almost exactly a year to the day of the first arrests.  I never mentioned anything about this fourth defendant because I didn't wan't to jeopardize his defense, needless to say, there was no case against this fourth defendant yet somehow it's taken the state almost three years to come to that conclusion.  From what I've been told, it looks like the state will drop the charges against this poor guy today.  I'm headed to court this morning to see what happens.  We'll report tomorrow...

We get a mention in the Miami Herald and celebrate an anniversary of sorts...

As the title says, we've finally gotten some credit for our work in the Miami Herald story regarding convicted mortgage fraudster Veldora Arthur.  Unlike the Herald's Chuck Rabin, who flagrantly ripped off our story and neglected to credit us,  Herald staff writer  Elinor J. Brecher did a fantastic job summing up the conclusion of the nearly two week long mortgage fraud trial.

The question that remains to be asked now that Veldora's behind bars is what's the story with her city of Miami FD pension?  I'm being told by several sources that because of her conviction, her pension could be gone?  I'm doing a little more digging on this matter and will update as soon as possible.


Now, on to this anniversary business, today marks the three year anniversary of the mortgage fraud case that lit the fire under my ass to start this blog, specifically the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case.  For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it's a case that was hobbled together in a rush by a rookie MDPD detective, Jorge Baluja, and a washed up assistant state attorney, Bill Kostrzewski, where they took the word of a unemployed serial fraudster named Bernardo Barrera, who claimed that his identity was stolen and used in the commission of a massive mortgage fraud scheme.  Unfortunately, the state put together the case without properly investigating and overlooked the fact that alleged "victim" was himself an integral part of the mortgage fraud scheme.  Once we uncovered Mr. Barrera's complicity in this scheme, he quickly uprooted and hauled ass to Panama.  What's troublesome though is even though we presented overwhelming evidence of Mr Barrera's complicity to the state attorneys office, to this day they refuse to go after him.  

So where are the other players responsible for this mess today?  Assistant state attorney Kostrzewski's been thrown off the mortgage fraud unit at the state attorneys office and Detective Baluja has been thrown down to the "Homestead exemption fraud" unit in the MDPD where he's charged with going after people who cheat on their homestead tax exemptions.  So much for climbing up the ladder, right guys?  Oh well!

We're awaiting the arrival of more documents on the Veldora Arthur case, tomorrow we should have a copy of Veldora's pre indictment statement to the FBI of just how things went down in her very own words.

Who's ultimately accountable for the failed prosecution of City of Miami Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones?

Yesterday afternoon Florida governor Rick Scott officially gave Michelle Spence-Jones her job as a City of Miami Commissioner back after the state dropped the remaining grand theft charges against her.  Today we're hearing from our colleagues over at Investigation Miami that the prosecutor from the Spence-Jones case, Richard Scruggs, knew about the exculpatory evidence that exonerated Spence-Jones for over ONE YEAR!  Yet somehow it still took a year for the state to drop the charges against her?  From the states closeout memo that we posted yesterday, Prosecutor Scruggs says...

“Without Dr. Carey-Shuler's cooperative testimony, and without her explanation of why she appears to have drafted the letter which was provided to MMAP, the State does not believe that it can meet its burden of proving the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Ok, but there's a problem with all this.  Prosecutor Scruggs and his supervisors at the state attorneys office were morally and ethically bound to drop the charges against the defendant once their case fell apart, as one of our favorite bloggers so eloquently put it...

"Trying a defendant that a prosecutor knows is innocent, or even bringing to trial a person that the prosecutor knows there is not sufficient evidence to justify a conviction is an offense so odious to the American system of justice that prosecutors who engage in such abuse should be referred to the bar for disbarment. The supervisors who approve of such conduct should be disbarred as well."

As you know, there's been plenty of allegations of prosecutorial misconduct swirling around the Spence-Jones case, illegal wiretaps, witness coercion, hiding of exculpatory evidence, etc.  In my opinion though, the reluctance of the prosecutor to drop the charges is the most egregious offense.  Think of the millions of dollars that this whole debacle has now cost the people involved, everything from the costs of the investigation, prosecution, defense and ultimately the cost for running the numerous elections that had to be conducted as a result of Spence-Jones' departure from the commission.  Not to mention the costs involved with the city reimbursing Spence-Jones legal bills, back pay and now possibly some sort of severance package for the whack job, Reverend Dunn, that replaced her.  

All of this could have been avoided if there had been a proper review of Prosecutor Scruggs's actions.  Was the case properly vetted by his supervisors before the charges were filed?  Did anyone consider the consequences of arresting a public figure from an embattled district of the city of Miami with evidence as shaky as what had been presented?  Not to mention, who the hell was responsible for letting Scruggs run amok and cross upstanding pillars of the community like Armando Codina?  

Let's not forget that this is the same prosecutor who was prosecuting former commissioner Art Teele who before the trial leaked unfounded allegations drug abuse and relations with a transsexual prostitute by jail house snitch to the local media which in my opinion ultimately caused Mr. Teele to commit suicide.  What was the point of leaking the interviews of the jailhouse snitch to the media before trial?  How could an ethical attorney let alone a prosecutor be allowed to irreversibly smear the reputation of a public figure like that with unfounded allegations of a convicted drug abusing prostitute?  Plus, why the hell is the state attorneys office so eager to give the media copies of witness interviews while they fight tooth and nail to deny people they charge with crimes the same information?  I know defense attorneys that have been asking for copies of witness interviews and statements regarding the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case for nearly three years, after numerous motions before the court and at least four court orders to this day the state still wont turn over the information requested yet they gave away the damaging interview transcripts from the Teele case to the media so gratuitously?  WTF?

Ultimately these actions disgraced our state attorney Kathy Rundle.  Long after people like Scruggs are gone and forgotten, it's going to be Rundle's legacy that's harmed by these idiotic prosecutions and despite what the negative public perception of Rundle might be right now, I don't think it's fair.  At this point considering everything that's happened not only with the allegations of prosecutorial misconduct during the case but with the way prosecutor Scruggs has behaved after the case was dismissed with attacks against defense attorney Peter Raben which ultimately further humiliated the state attorneys office, I can only hope their will be a full investigation into his actions both by the State Attorneys Office and the Florida Bar.  Can the Bar and the SAO stand by and do nothing after hearing something like this...

"they both said they were lied to and defrauded and tricked by the prosecutor"

I should hope not.  Let's not forget though, the overwhelming majority of prosecutors in the SAO are hard working, fair and underpaid people that are actually there working to see that justice is done, but there are a few who are blinded by their need to "win at any cost" who have resorted to breaking the law themselves, these people need to be dealt with.  The actions of Prosecutor Scruggs are not unique, in fact they closely mimic the M.O. of another prosecutor that we've written about at length, Bill Kostrzewski, illegal wiretaps at attorneys offices, coercing witnesses, fabricating evidence, hiding exculpatory evidence, cutting immunity deals with cooperating witnesses without disclosure, etc.  Way too much misconduct and illegal activity to quietly shove under the rug.  The question is, once all these allegations come to light and are proven, will their be any consequences?

Motivation and finally the beginnings of a recall campaign against city of Miami mayor Tomas Regalado.

You have to wonder, what's behind the mortgage fraud prosecutions that we've talked about over the last couple of years?  On the surface we're expected to believe that it's simply the governments desire to put away bad guys who misused the banking system to steal money but there's much more than that.  We already know that the low level prosecutions that we've discussed are nothing more than a dog and pony show to distract attention from the real bad guys, the banks and Wall street firms that created this economic calamity that we're still in nearly four years after the real estate meltdown.  What about at the law enforcement level?  What's the motivation behind these cases for the cops and prosecutors that make them?  Is it simply the need for the cops to do the right thing and get the bad guys?  Or the desire of prosecutors to lock up criminals?  BULLSHIT.  Everyone we've written about during the course of our blog has had some sort of ulterior motive in building these mortgage fraud cases.  Mortgage fraud just happened to be the hot topic of the day, each and everyone one of these guys planned to use these cases to elevate their status within their respective agencies.  Let's look at some of the players we've discussed in the past...

Detective Jorge Baluja.  How can anyone forget the assclown dimwit rookie detective that put together the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, a detective that doesn't have the slightest clue about mortgage fraud or real estate, the same detective that couldn't even execute his own mortgage correctly.  So what could have been his motivation for putting together a headline mortgage fraud case?  It turns out that the good detective couldn't stand being on the mortgage fraud task force, from what several people have reported to us, Detective Baluja was very vocal about wanting to get out of the Mortgage Fraud Task force as soon as humanly possible.  He told several witnesses in the Barrera mortgage fraud case that he needed to put this case together as fast as he could so he could get off the task force and get transferred to another unit, so he hastily slams together this bullshit case and before anyone realizes what a steaming pile of shit he created, his Major goes ahead and gives him a commendation after which he gets transferred out of the mortgage fraud unit.  Nice job Detective, ruin peoples lives with a bullshit case, let the real bad guys get away, expose your department to all sorts of liability all so you can get yourself out of a unit that you couldn't stand working in.

Assistant State Attorney William "Bill" Kostrzewski, AKA "Special K", AKA "Crazy Bill".  This would be the inept prosecutor that put together the Barrera mortgage fraud case, a prosecutor so blinded by the possibility of putting together a big case that he ignored the obvious truth behind his case, the fact that the man who claimed his identity was stolen for the commission of the crime was actually in on the crime.   So what could have been "Special K's" motivation?  It turns out the career prosecutor Kostrzewski was looking to get promoted out of the Miami State Attorneys office, from what we're told Mr. Kostrzewski was doing his best to become part of the then proposed Statewide Mortgage Fraud Task force that was to be led by then mortgage fraud avenger Glenn Theobald.  Mr Kostrzewski openly bragged about this possible job and his connection to higher ups in Tallahassee, yet somehow despite all the Mortgage Fraud Task Force meetings he attended, despite all the ass sucking, Mr. Kostrzewski never made it to any task force, let alone a statewide task force.  In fact, when the Miami State Attorneys Office put together it's own Mortgage Fraud Unit within it's economic crimes division, they never even offered "Special K" a job with the unit.  We'd like to think we may have had something to do with that....

Last but not least we have Special Agent Dennis Roadruck from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.  Agent Roadruck is the man who put together the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud case, so what could have been his motivation for putting together this case?  From what we're told this case saved Mr. Roadruck's career, our sources tell us that Mr. Roadruck's job was in jeopardy in part because of his serious domestic violence issues.  What better way to put these nasty problems behind you than to put together a major mortgage fraud case where the targets were cops?  Perhaps this explains why the agent ignored the hundreds if not thousands of other frauds the mortgage brokers who cooperated with him had committed?  Regardless, this case sounds like a career saver to me, perhaps that will change once the case is concluded.


I wouldn't say that every single one of these cases were driven by the ulterior motives of the people who put them together, I'll concede that the overwhelming majority of these types of cases are put together by people who are simply doing their jobs and are doing so to get the "bad guys" and protect the citizens from these criminals and their nefarious activities.  There is no doubt in my mind though that the people we've discussed in our post today had no regard for the truth or justice but were simply looking out for themselves in order to either save their asses or to get themselves promoted at the cost of destroying other peoples lives and reputations, which in my humble opinion is pathetic.  Take my word, when the dust finally settles, when the proper complaints are filed and the civil suits against the offending agencies are initiated, the truth will come out.


On another note, it looks like we have the beginnings of a recall campaign against City of Miami Mayer Tomas Regalado!  Our friend Al Crespo goes into detail on his site.  I find it ironic though the people initiating the recall, the police and the fire unions which were the target of massive pay cuts, are doing so to protect their massive pay and benefit packages that are in part bringing the City to the verge of bankruptcy.  Regardless, it's a step in the right direction, we'll have to see how things play out.

Meanwhile back at the Florida bar, anyone up there ever hear of an attorney named Howard Kusnick?

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Disgraced former attorney and convicted ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein has been back in the news lately, last week one of his partners in crime and fellow attorney Howard Kusnick was charged for helping Rothstein perpetuate his billion dollar ponzi scheme.  The South Florida Business Journal covered the story here, from the article...

Kusnick is alleged to have written a letter purporting to settle pending litigation in favor of a client, but it is alleged no litigation ever took place and no settlement ever existed. Instead, the letter was “to lull the clients into believing that RRA was pursuing litigation on their behalf when, in fact, the clients’ funds had been used to pay off earlier investors and to further the investment fraud scheme,” according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami.

Now, this isn't some nickle and dime case but instead a scam that was engineered to cheat auto dealer magnate Ed Morse out of $57,000,000!  Take a look at the information filed by the feds for the details...

Howard Kusnick Information


To add insult to injury, it looks like Mr Kusnick even went so far as to forge a judges signature on some the documents pertaining to this case...

Howard Kusnick Order


Nice right?  Not only did this attorney take part in a $57,000,000 scam but in doing so he also forged a federal judges signature on several documents pertaining to the bogus settlement!  Even worse, when the Rothstein ponzi scheme imploded, Kusnick almost immediately hired a criminal defense attorney and openly acknowledged his role in the scheme and volunteered to the media that he expected to get federally indicted at any moment.  So what's the big deal?  Considering that this case has been going on for nearly two years and the admissions made by Mr. Kusnick and his attorney, not to mention the fact that he's been charged federally for some of the most heinous crimes an attorney could possibly commit, what do you think the Florida Bar which touts itself as being the "...guardian for the integrity of the legal profession" has done about Mr Kusnick?  Let's take a look at his profile from the Florida Bar's website as it appears today, I've pointed to the most troublesome parts...

SWEET!  The guy has admitted to his role in Rothstein's various multi million dollar frauds, admitted to forging a federal judges signature, has been federally charged for his crimes and the Bar hasn't taken any kind of action against this guy?  Not even an emergency suspension?  What the hell is going on over at the Bar?  Aren't they supposed to protect us from criminals attorneys like this?  WTF?  For fucks sake, this has been going on for nearly two years and he's still allowed to practice?!  If the bar doesn't go after attorneys like Kusnick, crooked attorneys like David Rodriguez or morally and ethically prosecutors who can't seem to tell the truth to save their lives, then what exactly are they doing?!

So why would a prosecutor need to lie to a judge about the facts of his case?

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Good question right? Over the last few days we've proven that prosecutor Bill Kostrzewski did indeed lie to Judge Mary Barzee about the facts of the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case. The question that begs to be asked though is WHY? Was what really happened not enough to support the states case? Was it simply a matter of the prosecutor not knowing what happened? Maybe he was nervous and got a simple case of stage fright before the judge and screwed up the facts? Perhaps he knew that his case was total bullshit and he needed to make the facts seem as injurious as possible before the judge that day to try to win the motion before the court? Or is this prosecutor simply an incompetent boob?


I'll give "veteran economic crimes prosecutor" Bill Kostrzewski the benefit of the doubt and exclude the possibility that he's an incompetent boob. I'll go one step further and exclude the possibility that he got flustered before the judge and mixed up facts as he was referring to and reading from some papers he had before him when he gave this shameful performance before the judge. The hearing at which the prosecutors testimony took place was for a fourth motion to compel the prosecutor to turn over evidence to the defense, a hearing which the prosecutor had no defense for as the Judge had ordered the state on several other instances to turn over the evidence that they had in their possession, evidence by the way that to this day nearly two and a half years later still hasn't been turned over. Here's my theory, at this stage of the game, the good prosecutor knew that his "headline" case was falling apart and as I mentioned, he had no excuse as to why he hadn't turned over the evidence that was requested. I'm going to suggest that he prepared this testimony in order to make the defendant at this hearing seem as guilty as possible to divert attention away from the fact that he still hadn't complied with the courts orders to turn over the evidence to the defense. Who cares about the truth right? It's just another example of the prosecutor's win at all costs pattern of behavior, truth be damned.


Even more disturbing than the prosecutor intentionally lying about the facts that made up the foundation of the Barrera mortgage fraud prosecution is the fact that he intentionally omitted the key player in the fraud from his testimony before the judge, John Romney, the guy that masterminded and ultimately walked away with the proceeds of the fraud. How can the prosecutor tell the judge what happened and conveniently forget to mention the guy that walked away with nearly $400,000 from this fraud? I'm mean really, here's the prosecutor crucifying the closing agent who was a victim of Mr. Romney's fraudulent scheme before the judge and he forgets to mention the guy who put the whole deal together? Interesting to say the least.


Now, for those of you following our blog, did anyone notice that I didn't mention the name of the wife beating mortgage fraudster that we discussed last week? That wife beating mortgage fraudster was none other than John Arthur Romney, the man behind the Barrera mortgage fraud scheme who ultimately ended up going to prison after the case was taken away from prosecutor Kostrzewski and reassigned to a new prosecutor.


Is it all beginning to make sense now? Guy beats his wife while he's out on bond and doesn't get his bail revoked, charges mysteriously go away less than a month later, prosecutor goes before the judge explaining what the mortgage fraud case was about yet somehow forgets to make any mention of the man who orchestrated the whole scheme, etc...


Somethings really fishy here folks and believe me, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Breaking down just one minute and twenty nine seconds of a prosecutor bullshitting a judge.

Did you guys pick up on the huge discrepancies and omissions from prosecutor Bill Kostrzewski's explanation of the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case to Judge Mary Barzee that we discussed yesterday?  Today we'll break down that shameful performance by the prosecutor so we can see just how fucked his testimony to the court was, his words will be in italics while what really happened will appear just below it.  Here we go...

Your honor, on February the nineteenth a closing closed at Ms. Estefano's office.

No dispute there, the paperwork tells the story.

The funds were dispersed that day or the next day.

Uh, really Mr. Kostrzewski?  Take a look at the arrest affidavit that you Detective Baluja wrote and get back to us.  The arrest affidavit clearly states that the funds for this closing were not dispursed until February 22, 2008, three days after the closing occured.

However, the cash to close, the one hundred twenty three thousand and change...the cash to closing, the money that the buyer had to put up, you know, not the down payment but the cash to close that he had to put through the bank was approximately one hundred and twenty three thousand dollars, that was never given.

No kidding?  The cash to close which according to the "veteran economic crimes prosecutor" is not the down payment was never given.  Then what's this check all about?

You remember that check don't you or don't you recognize it?  This would be the copy that you decided not to include as part of your arrest affidavit, remember?  This is the one with your star witnesses handwriting on it, the same witness that later acknowledged that she had processed this check negating the coerced testimony she gave when she was under the threat of being arrested.  Glad we cleared that up.

Funds were dispersed without a down payment. 

Really?  Your cooperating witness Michael Martinez stated that he delivered this check to the closing agents office the same day he obtained it from the bank.  Here's an excerpt from his deposition in case you need to refresh your recollection.

If we are to believe the states cooperating witnesses testimony then the check was delivered on February 21, 2008 which is the same day the check was issued.  In case that date is a problem, let's get a close up of the check to clear up an confusion...

Not exactly the clearest image, without a doubt though the date is clear, February 21, 2008.  According to the arrest affidavit the funds for the closing were not disbursed until February 22, 2008 which is one full day after the "cash to close" was delivered to the closing agent.  Are we crystal clear now?  Good.  Let's move on to the next bit...

Seven days later Mr. Martinez was approached by Mr. Romney, no, Mr. Fonte, the guy that we just arrested your honor, said “hey look, you wanna make ten grand? We need this money, ”  He goes to the, he goes to the bank with his mother and Mr. Fonte, they get this check,

Uh, what?  Forget about the stuttering and the mumbling for a moment and let's think about what the prosecutor is telling the judge.  According to what the prosecutor is saying, funds were disbursed on the 19th or 20th of February 2008 and then seven days later the codefedants that were charged obtained a cashiers check that represented the "cash to close" for the transaction, the same cash to close which the prosecutor just told the judge had "had never been given".  Confused yet?  Let's make it worse, if you follow what the prosecutor is telling the judge, that the cashier check that represented the "cash to close" was obtained seven days after the proceeds of this nefarious scheme were disbursed, logic would dictate that the check would have either been issued on February 27 or February 28, 2008.  Let's take another look at the date the check was issued on...

Huh?  How does any of that make sense?  The only way the codefendants could have obtained this check seven days after the money from the sale of the home was disbursed was if they walked into the Bank of America time machine window and went back almost a full week in time in order to obtain a fucking check dated FEBRUARY 21, 2008!  WTF?  Let's keep moving, again from the prosecutor's testimony before the judge...

they go and they go to Ms. Estefano, Ms. Estefano’s office and Mr. Fonte introduces him to Ms. Estefano, ah according to the statement, “is it a problem, I’m the remitter on this check, I’m not the buyer.”

Now does that sound right to you?  Does that sound like something Mr. Martinez would say or does it sound like a "manufactured statement" created by the prosecutor himself to suit the allegations he's made against the defendants?

She says “that’s not a problem”, takes it and that’s basically it.

Really?  Once again, that sounds like a crock of shit, especially coming from a witness who couldn't identify the person who he claimed to have this conversation with, in his own words...

No kidding?

It was Mr. Martinez's inability to identify the attorney who he supposedly had this conversation with that led up to the infamous "one picture photo line up"...

So what are we left with after listening to a minute and a half of Mr. Kostrzewski mumbling in front of Judge Barzee?  We've proven today that were left with nothing but a minute and a half of a prosecutor intentionally misrepresenting the facts of a case to a judge, after a cursory review of the facts (facts provided by the state no less) we've proven that everything he's told the judge is bullshit.  Why would a prosecutor do such a thing?  We'll try to find some sort of explanation for this mess tomorrow.

BTW, did anyone notice that the prosecutor made no mention (except by mistake) of the man who masterminded this scheme, convicted mortgage fraudster John Romney?

Let's listen to a prosecutor intentionally misrepresent the facts of a case to a judge.

We left off on Monday discussing how Miami Dade County Judge Lando was about to reprimand lawyers from foreclosure mill Ben-Ezra & Katz for lying to the court.  Essentially the fine lawyers from Ben-Ezra & Katz had made misleading statements to the court regarding documents from a home they were foreclosing on, at first they said the original documents were lost, but then months after the attorneys stated that they were lost they magically reappeared, the only problem was that the documents they filed actually belonged to another home and had nothing to do with the home that was the subject of their foreclosure action.  We've yet to see how the Judge Lando is going to deal with the attorneys responsible for perpetrating this fraud on the court, but considering the Judge's tone in the article, it's not going to be good.


Regardless though, those guys are foreclosure hacks that are just pushing paperwork through the system, it's understandable at the rate they're going through those foreclosures and the pressure the banks are putting on them to get final judgments, a screw up of this magnitude was inevitable.  But what if the attorney that's perpetrating a fraud on the court isn't a foreclosure hack or a green criminal defense attorney?  What if the attorney that's bullshitting the court is a veteran economic crimes prosecutor with a keen interest in mortgage fraud?  I wonder what the punishment would be for a prosecutor who intentionally misrepresented the facts of a case to the court?  

Before we can speculate on how the court would deal with such a prosecutor, we first need examine the evidence of such behavior.  Let's revisit arrest affidavit for the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case...

Let's break that down...

• 2/13/08 Purchase of the subject home by Mr. Romney's company.
• 2/19/08 Sale of property by Mr. Romney to the man who posed as Bernardo Barrera. The state alleges that a HUD-1 closing statement was faxed to the lender indicating that the earnest money was already paid.
• 2/20/08 Citi mortgage wire transferred loan proceeds to attorneys trust account.
• 2/21/08 Michael Martinez purchases a cashiers check for $123,530.56 made payable to attorneys trust account.
• 2/22/08 Proceeds from the closing were disbursed to seller (Romney).
• 2/27/08 Cashiers check purchased by Martinez is deposited into the attorneys escrow account.

Easy to understand right?  Now, just to be perfectly clear here, through the testimony given to the state attorneys office and the detective who put this case together, we know that the cashiers check that was purchased on 2/21/08 was delivered to the closing agents office the very same day that it was purchased, from Mr. Martinez's depo...

Ok, so just to recap let's go through it again:

• 2/13/08 Convicted mortgage fraudster John Romney purchases home that at the center of the Barrera mortgage fraud case.
• 2/19/08 Closing for sale of home by John Romney to Bernardo Barrera.
• 2/20/08 Citi mortgage wires proceeds of the loan to attorneys trust account.
• 2/21/08 Micheal Martinez purchases a cashier check made payable to the attorneys trust account and delivers said check to the attorney the same day.
• 2/22/08 Proceeds of closing disbursed to seller, John Romney.
• 2/23/08 Cashiers check purchased by Michael Martinez is deposited into attorneys escrow account.

Simple right?  Buyer and seller come to the closing, execute all the documents, no money is disbursed then two days later a cashiers check for the down payment comes in and the proceeds of the transaction are disbursed the next day.  Remember, these are facts that we gleaned from the states own arrest affidavit, an affidavit that we strongly suspect was authored by none other that Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski.


Now, let's see how Mr. "veteran economic crimes prosecutor" Bill Kostrzewski decided to represent the facts of this very transaction to Judge Mary Barzee when he was  asked to explain the foundation of his case...



Go through it a couple of times, can you pick up the problems with the prosecutors testimony?  Here's a transcript of what went down that day in court in case you couldn't hear the audio...

Judge: what’s Martinez’s role according to the state?

Prosecutor:        Your honor, on February the nineteenth a closing closed at Ms. Estefanos office.  The funds were dispersed that day or the next day.  However, the cash to close, the one hundred twenty three thousand and change,

Judge: Say that again?

Prosecutor:        the cash to closing, the money that the buyer had to put up, you know, not the down payment but the cash to close that he had to put through the bank was approximately one hundred and twenty three thousand dollars, that was never given.  Funds were dispersed without a down payment.  Seven days later Mr. Martinez was approached by Mr. Romney, no, Mr. Fonte, the guy that we just arrested your honor, said “hey look, you wanna make ten grand? We need this money, ”  He goes to the, he goes to the bank with his mother and Mr. Fonte, they get this check, they go and they go to Ms. Estefano, Ms. Estefano’s office and Mr. Fonte introduces him to Ms. Estefano, ah according to the statement, “is it a problem, I’m the remitter on this check, I’m not the buyer.”  She says “that’s not a problem”, takes it and that’s basically it.

Judge: So what would you um, characterize Martinez’s role as somebody who was fronting a portion of the cash?

Prosecutor:        Yes your honor.

Judge: And Fonte was…

Prosecutor:        He was the arranger or the recruiter so to speak.

Notice that the prosecutor makes no mention of a key player in the fraud?  We'll go through it in detail tomorrow.

Slain MDPD officers Amanda Haworth and Roger Castillo laid to rest today and the Straw Buyer is reminded of another funeral...

The two Miami Dade county police officers, Roger Castillo and Amanda Haworth, that were senselessly murdered last week while trying to serve an arrest warrant will be laid to rest this afternoon.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to their family and friends.

This reminds me of another funeral that occurred about a year ago, the funeral of an old time Miami criminal attorney.  Obviously among the friends and family members that attended the funeral there were several of the deceased's fellow colleagues from the criminal defense bar.  At some point during the viewing, two of these old school attorneys who just happened to be working on the same case bump into each other and start chatting about their clients.  The first attorney is emphatic about taking the case to trial since he insists that his client is innocent.  The other attorney says dismissively that he got his client full immunity two days after he was arrested and had gotten him a sweetheart deal in exchange for his cooperation with the state.  Stunned, the first attorney steps back and asks his friend to reiterate what he just said.  Stunned because a year and change into the case, this was the first time anyone had heard anything about anyone in the case cooperating against the other defendants, let alone getting immunity.

Did I lose you?  Imagine you're the poor guy whose been charged with a crime that's trying to prepare a defense for over a year, all the while being kept in the dark about one of your co defendants cutting a deal and to add insult to injury getting immunity in exchange for ratting out everybody and their brother that they've ever done business with.  Does that seem fair?  In fact it's not only unfair, but it's illegal, a clear violation of due process rights afforded to an individual under the constitution.  Fact of the matter is that when there is such a deal in place it's the prosecutor's duty obligation to inform the defense counsel.

So what's this got to do with anything we've been talking about?  Another hypothetical situation or did this occur in one of the cases that we've discussed?  

More tomorrow...