The Warren Papove saga comes to an end.

We've discussed the bizarre case of Mr. Warren Papove several times over the last year, a South Miami resident who was somehow detained for doing work without a permit but was then picked up by I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and was sitting at the Krome detention center for nearly seven months waiting to be deported back to his native Canada.  Unfortunately for Mr. Papove, he was collateral damage in the war between police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro and the folks in South Miami that are trying to oust him.  Despite the charges against Mr. Papove were dropped several months ago and the fact that he was supposed to be released, he remained in custody until just recently.  Last night, we got this email from one of our readers...

They sent him to Canada this morning with only a sweatshirt to keep him from freezing. Seven months ago I took to Krome a carry on bag with clothes in it, which they did not give him. They sent him to Vancouver, 1600 miles from his home, with no money, no clothes in the middle of a Canadian winter, Thank you Orlando Martinez de Castro, Ramon Bado and crew. You kept him far longer than any of the other Canadians who came and went through Krome in the 7 1/2 months he was there. You put him in the gay wing there. Your witch doctors treated his ailments...

Fuck.  Why in the hell would they send this man to Vancouver broke and penniless in the dead of winter?  Honestly, what the fuck kind of barbaric immigration system do we have here?  What happened to Warren was just wrong, wrong on so many levels that it can't be explained here, from the back room scheming by the South Miami Police that got him detained to the archaic legal records system that somehow was unable to find a single document or transcript to help get this poor man out of Krome.  I don't wish what happened to this man on my worst enemy, all I can say to those involved with putting this man in Krome and subsequently having him deported is that payback is going to be a bitch.

City of South Miami Swat team shuts down Sunset Place...

As the title states, last Friday the City of South Miami Swat team responded to the Shops at Sunset Place where they were told that there was a man carrying a rifle.  From the Miami New Times story...

Police Swarm Sunset Place Because a Man Had an Umbrella

By Kyle Munzenrieder
Published Fri., Feb. 15 2013 at 4:45 PM

Sunset Place, the South Miami open air shopping mall where teenage cliches go to die, was riled up today because a man was carrying an umbrella.

Dozens of police and a SWAT team swarmed the mall because they thought the umbrella-carrying man was in fact holding a rifle.

"It seemed like every single cop in Miami was right there," witness Kristina McGuire, 20, told NBC Miami.

"Miami police and SWAT team at Sunset Place! What's going on?" tweeted Alvaro Vega, according to The Miami Herald.

Managers called employees to inform them of the situation.

Meanwhile, students at the nearby University of Miami were warned at about 3:10 p.m. by the school's police department of the situation.

Of course, the fracas died down once authorities realized the guy was carrying an umbrella. It is rainy out today, after all.

"Nothing is going on," South Miami Major Ana Baixauli told The Herald in a bit of an understatement. "It was just a scare."

Considering all the crazy gunman shit that's been going on lately, it's hard to blame the South Miami PD for making this kind of mistake, on the other hand, I'm told that the PD has been practicing just such a scenario in this same mall over the last few months.  Taking that into account as well as the fact that chief Orlando Martinez de Castro purchased 50 M16's and had them converted into semi automatic rifles, it makes you wonder if this wasn't a simple case of a bunch of amped up cops that were all dressed up and ready with no place to go?  Also, why does a 30 member police department need 50 M16s to patrol a 2.5 square mile city?  Who knows.  I guess we should be thankful that the "gunman" was only carrying an umbrella, albiet one that allegedly had "a handle that could be mistaken for a firearm or some other kind of weapon" according to police.  The moral of this story?  DO NOT WALK INTO SOUTH MIAMI WITH AN UMBRELLA!

One can judge a man by the company he keeps.

So Greek playwright Euripides said.  If indeed that is true, then what can we say about the company embattled city of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro keeps?  If indeed the person he copied in the email we discussed earlier this week was Camillo Padreda, then what does this say about the chief?  Before we get all philosophical, let's first look into Mr. Padreda's past, one of our readers was kind enough to forward us this transcript of a deposition that Mr Padreda gave back when he when he was a government witness against then Hialeah mayor Raul Martinez.  It's lengthy but worth the read and will make you wonder why the hell the chief is affiliated with this guy let alone let him hang around city hall.  Take a look and we'll discuss the highlights tomorrow...

  Camillo Padreda Testimony against Hialeah mayor Raul Martinez by   The Straw Buyer

Who is padcam@aol.com? The answer is in our comments section...

We left off last week with this lingering question, who is the person that City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro copying in an email from his city email account while soliciting business for his wife's insurance agency?  The chief carbon copied someone at "padcam@aol.com" in his email and we asked our readers who that email belonged to and we were given the answer in one of the comments on last Friday's post...

padcam = cam-pad = Camilo Padreda:
convicted felon, former president of Latin American Builders Assn., funded political campaigns & legal defense for Valerie Newman ("La Gorda"), tight personal friends with your chief.
Some old history:http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2003-01-30/news/a-friend-indeed/

Yikes!  Another reader goes on to say...

Why read the New Times article when when you can read Camilo's sworn testimony under cross examination of Raul Martinez's defense attorneys. Padreda copped a plea to falsifying a HUD financial statement so the Feds would not charge his daughter and under the plea he agreed to spill the beans on everybody. Padreda admitted to bribing County Commissioner Jorge Valdez, bribing City of Miami Commissioner Demetrio Perez (in Al Cardenas's office) missappropriating funds from Jefferson Savings Bank in Texas, hiding a 100K profit from a HUD property (Porta del Sol) in the form of a real estate commission, stiffing subcontractors out of 1.4M when he declared Bankruptcy, only to have his wife buy a 535K medical office weeks later, and falsifying a cost statement to HUD, His daughter was about to get indicted so Camilo copped a plea and agreed to sing on everybody including Raul Martinez so she wouldn't. This is the same "best friend of the (Miami) police who got Hector Mirabile promoted from Lieutennant to Major. Your hard earned tax dollars went to buy carpet from the Gibson Bethyl community center from his wife Janet Padreda's carpet company. Instead of installing padding for the weight room like what was budgeted, every big wig in the PD was getting their office measured for new carpet.

HUH?  What the hell is a law enforcement officer, let alone a chief of police doing copying this sort of unsavory fellow in emails sent from his city email address?!  Once again, from our comments section...

The answer to the question is the relationship between the OMG, CAMPAD and the acting manager goes back sometime.

I suppose "OMG" is the new moniker for Orlando Martinez de Castro, fair enough...

OMG joined LBA (despite not being a B) back when CamPad was boss and OMG was unemployed.

Nice.  Once again, I'll ask, if indeed padcam@aol.com is this Camillo Padreda character, why is the chief interacting with him while on city time let alone at all while in an official capacity?  And if this commenter is correct and this guys wife's carpet company is doing business with the city, his past certainly doesn't reflect well on anyone doing business with him or any of his affiliated companies.  We'll have to take a look at this carpet contract business and see what we can find.

The email that earned City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro one of his ethics charges...

After literally months of trying, I was finally able to get a copy of the email that earned embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro one of the many charges from the Miami Dade County Ethics Commission.  From the Ethics Commission press release regarding the chief...

Airways is owned by Ileana Martinez de Castro, the police chief’s wife. She also owns Beck & Lo’s Insurance Agency, Inc. Last April, Chief de Castro used his city e-mail account to solicit business for his wife’s agency. The case will proceed to a public hearing.

That bit about the chief's wife owning the insurance agency isn't exactly correct as this document from Sunbiz shows...

  Orlando Martinez de Castro Insurance Agency by  

Based on what we see here, the chief himself is an officer of this insurance agency, regardless, let's take a look at that email...

  OMC Solicits Business by  

Now this email raises a few interesting points, first we clearly determine that the chief was sending these emails that had nothing to do with his job as police chief during business hours while he was being paid by the tax payers of the City of South Miami, specifically Wednesday April 6th at 4:19 pm.  The email is addressed to jrodriguez2813@comcast.net who I presume is someone named Jossie Rodriguez that's got something to do with the insurance business, as well as two others, the chief's wife and someone else that I was unable to identify whose email address is listed as "padcam@aol.com".  Any of our readers have any idea who this padcam email belongs to or why the chief copied this person on this email?  If you do, drop us a line.

So there you have it, granted this is just one email we found where the chief was conducting business that has nothing to do with the city on city time using his city email and city assets which is clearly a violation of his employment contract.  As I said yesterday, if a professional investigator was given the task of going through the last four or so years of the chief's emails and phone records I can only imagine how many other instances like this one they'd find.  The question again is why hasn't this been done yet?

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?
 

Embattled City of South Miami Police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, files a grievance against the City of South Miami!

That's right!  Our sources tell us that embattled City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro has filed a grievance against the city for taking the parking department away from him.  Why file a complaint against the city?  What's the big deal about the parking department?  Before we go any further, we have to examine the chief's employment contract, let's take a look...

  City of south Miami police chief orlando martinez de castro employment contract by  

Now, where in the contract does it say anything about the parking department being under the command and control of the city's police chief?  On the contrary, the original employment contract states...

shall not assume other duties and obligations as to other City functions and departments (including, but not limited to managing the general parking enforcement or information technology operations of the City),

So there's a specific exclusion in the original employment excluding the parking and IT department from the Chief's command and control.  The contract goes on to state...

except to the extent the parties mutually agree in writing to make such additional duties part of Employee'sobligations and further agree on additional compensation to be paid to Employee for performing those additional duties.

I have no knowledge of whether or not there was a written agreement to hand over these departments to the chief at a later date, but that point is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.  Why?  Simple, the complaint the chief filed really has nothing to do with the parking department, but it has everything to do with the chief knowing that his days are numbered over at the City of South Miami.  By filing a grievance with the city, at least the way I interpret the contract, the chief will trigger an arbitration clause in his contract which in my opinion is a purely strategic move by the chief in case he gets fired.  Granted, this is pure conjecture on my part, but it seems to make sense.

We'll take a closer look at this contract tomorrow.