Liar, liar, pants on fire! The consequences of lying to the court...

I'm sure that by now you've all heard that George Zimmerman's wife has been arrested for perjury stemming from the misrepresentation of her and her husbands financial status to the court during her husbands bond hearing in the Trayvon Martin murder case.  There's a comprehensive article here from the AP.

I don't necessarily disagree with this arrest as I believe that lying to the court or in any other instance when under oath should be punished severely. Here are some notable quotes from the article...

“Prosecutors sent a strong message that you have to tell the truth in court, because it is the whole basis of the judicial system,” said attorney Benjamin Crump, who spent weeks pushing for Zimmerman’s arrest in the Feb. 26 killing of teenager Trayvon Martin. “The credibility of each witness is always at the crux of every legal case,” added Crump, who represents Trayvon’s parents.

Agreed.

When Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester learned of the scheme earlier this month, he revoked Zimmerman’s bond. Another bond hearing is scheduled for June 29. George Zimmerman “does not properly respect the law or the integrity of the judicial process,” Lester wrote.

That last bit really resonates with me, that part about respecting the law or the integrity of the judicial process and "the credibility of each witness is always at the crux of every legal case", yet why does it seem that it's always the defendant that's getting punished for perjury?  When attorney Crump says "Prosecutors sent a strong message that you have to tell the truth in court...", he doesn't discriminate between who has to tell the truth in court.  How many instances have we seen over the last several years where prosecutors, cops or state's witnesses have been perjuring themselves under oath?  How about the fiasco before Judge Bloom in the Airways Auto Tag case when the state attorneys office brought forth a witness who gave a sworn statement saying that the three defendants were harassing her in violation of their pretrial release in an effort to get their bond revoked and have them thrown in jail?  In that case the witness recanted her statement and admitted to lying to the court.  Think of the consequences for the defendants if the defense attorneys didn't expose the witness, all three defendants would have had their bond revoked and would have had to sit in jail till trial, yet somehow there were no consequences to this witnesses actions.

Even worse, how many times have we seen prosecutors and cops lying to the court?  Here we have our very own favorite crooked prosecutor, Bill Kostrzewski, lying to the court under oath during on of the many hearings in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case,  yet here we are several years later without a single perjury charge leveled against him.

Woodward Brooks

What about when there's a dishonest cop that lies under oath?  If and when they do get caught, the punishment seems minimal, a few years back we discussed the case of Surfside cop Woodward Brooks who had a nasty habit of writing fake police reports to help his friends defraud insurance companies.  That's a pretty serious charge, you'd think that considering the magnitude of the allegations against him, this guy was going to do a pretty serious stretch in the big house.  I had all but forgotten about Mr. Brooks since I figured his conviction was a forgone conclusion, that is till I checked his docket and found that despite the seriousness of his crimes, he'd gotten probation!

So what's the takeaway from all this perjury business?  Make sure you don't lie to the court, that is unless you're prosecutor or a cop!

Another lying cop BUSTED!

Well looky here!  On the evening news tonight we find a former Surfside cop arrested for creating bogus police reports in order to help people defraud their insurance company!  NICE!  Let's take a look at the charges the state leveled against Mr. Brooks:

Oh crap!  Looks like Woodward ended up going a bit wayward!  What a sleazy thing to do.  Woodward isn't the only bad cop that got busted today, let's not forget the winner of the law enforcement $hitbag of the day, Florida State Trooper Paul C. Lawrence gets arrested today for writing fake speeding tickets!  NICE!  Forget about bending the facts to suit your needs, Trooper Lawrence would just make $hit up and ticket people that he didn't even stop!  I don't think our boy Baluja ever did anything this stupid now did he?!  I don't know Jorge, making up facts, lying about the way things occurred, any of this sound familiar?

So what does these cops have to do with our story?  The trooper is just an example of run of the mill police misconduct, but Officer Brooks has a link to our story and how assistant state attorney Bill Kostrzewski defines a "good" cop.  Does everyone remember the article from a few years back involving ASA Kostrzewski?  If not, here's a link to it.  What I find most interesting about this article is how ASA Kostrzewski characterizes the cop that's at the center of the story Sgt John Davis, from the article:

"John is an intense guy. Whether it's a small or big case, he will see it to the end."

Intense huh?  What a great way to characterize Sgt. Davis.  Seems to me though according to the article that Sgt. Davis had some sort of vendetta against the couple he was going after and yes, once he got you in his sights, he won't stop till he gets you, BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.  By now you must be asking, what the hell does this have to do with our story?  Guess who Sgt. Davis's partner in crime is?  None other than Officer Woodward Brooks!  So what happened when a community activist Jay Senter outed Sgt. Davis' misdeeds in the quaint little town of Surfside?  Sgt. Davis and Officer Brooks got together and decided to plant cocaine on Mr. Senter then BUST HIM!  WTF?! 

Davis, who is head of the department's police union, was overheard planning to plant the drugs, apparently in retaliation for Senter's reporting of another officer to the FBI regarding the code violations case. Officer Woody Brooks is the second officer suspended in connection with the allegation.

Even worse, when the mayor of Surfside decides to start looking into rumors of Sgt. Davis and Officer Brooks nefarious activities, they decide to set the mayor up!  Take a look at this excerpt from the story by Michael Putney:

In another twist, Surfside Vice Mayor Howard Weinberg told Putney that the same officers were also plotting against him. Weinberg said that he stops by the Flanagan's in Surfside several nights a week to talk with constituents. He said that he was told that Davis and Brooks planned to stop him leaving Flanagan's and charge him with drunk driving. He said they planned to release dash-cam video to the news media to try to embarrass him.
But the alleged plan was never carried out -- and Putney says if it had been, the charges wouldn't have stuck because Weinberg drinks only iced tea.

HOLY CRAP!  Planting cocaine, conspiring to set up the Mayor with a fake DUI, what the hell else is next from these two cops!  The question I have to ask myself is how the hell did ASA Kostrzewski make that kind of statement to the New Times knowing full well that the cop that ran the case he was prosecuting was involved in this kind of monkey business?  I say fcuk Davis and his intensity and who gives a crap whether or not he sees a bull$hit case through till the end!  What the hell are you thinking Mr. Kostrzewski!?!?!  The more I think about this, the more confusing it gets, but then again, ASA Kostrzewski seemed overly fond of Detective Baluja as well, my favorite line from the ASA in reference to Detective Baluja is:

"...he's young, but he means well, he tries really hard."

No $hit Bill!  Funny how this ASA seems to align himself with bad cops.  Seems like ASA Kostrzewski was rather smitten with Detective Baluja, that is before he began using Jorge as the scapegoat for this steaming pile of $hit he called the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case.  Once things started to get a little hot (I wonder if we had anything to do with it?) the accolades disappeared and were replaced with:

"...the Detective is incompetent, ...he's so tainted he can't be put on the stand..."

HAH!  Incompetent?  Tainted?  NAH!

Moving on, I must apologize to our readers who haven't gotten their share of dirt on disbarred attorney Roger Besu.  I've been getting TONS of tips on Mr. Besu and his activities just before he decided to flee the country, in an effort to produce the most accurate record of these events as possible, I'm holding off posting the facts until I can confirm everything.  I'd really hate to screw up sensitive facts and permanently tarnish someones reputation, it's a shame that we here at the Straw Buyer take more care in preparing our facts than say certain assistant state attorneys do...