Shitty postal service and other important evidence overlooked by the cops and prosecutor...

Problems with the mail lately?  People sending you things that you never receive?  Happens to all of us now and again, just how often though?  Maybe once or twice a year at best?  Not for Bernardo Barrera, the man who is at the center of one of our mortgage fraud stories, based on what he's told the police and Citi Mortgage, he'd have us believe that he's got the worst mailman walking the face of the earth.

The entire case that Detective Baluja and assistant state attorney Bill Kostrzewski put together rests on Mr. Barerra's assertions that he had no knowledge that the fraud was occuring, let's take a look at the letter Mr. Barrera sent Citi Mortgage stating as much...

Bernardo Barrera Letter to Citi Declaring He had no idea that anything was going on

In his own words:

"This account was open without my knowledge using my personal information fraudulently.  I have not engaged in the purchase of a House in the Miami-Dade county Florida."

Oh, very good, missed a few days in English class I see.  So you had no knowledge of this fraud occurring correct?  OK.  We especially like this bit...

"I do not understand who will do something like this, but I do know that this needs to be resolve as soon as possible..."

You know what, Bernie?  I have a pretty good idea of "who will do something like this (sic)", he's overweight, unemployed and has a knack for committing mortgage fraud.  Sound like anyone you know Mr. Barrera?  Now, Citi Mortgage answers that pathetic excuse for a letter with the following...

Leter From Citi Mortgage to Bernardo Barrera

Fantastic!  Notice that this letter from Citi Mortgage was sent and recievied via U.S. Postal Service to Bernardo Barrera at his primary residence located at:

16562 SW 48th Terrace

Miami, Fl 33185

Superb!  Now we've established correspondence from Citi Mortgage to Bernardo Barrera at his primary residence via the U.S. Postal Service.  All good.  Now that we've established clearly that Mr. Barrera is receiving mail from Citi Mortgage, let's take a look at some other mail that Citi Mortgage sent Mr. Barrera...

Bernardo Barrera Good Faith Estimate From Citi Mortgage for Oak Avenue Home

SWEET BERNIE!  Congrats man, it looks like Citi Mortgage sent you a good faith estimate on January 25, 2008 for a new mortgage (loan #002005062091).  Good deal!  Now, lets look at another letter that Citi Mortgage sent Mr. Barrera at his primary residence...

Bernardo Barrera Commitment Letter 1 From Citi Mortgage for Oak Avenue Home

NICE!  A commitment letter for a mortgage for a home located at 3390 Oak Avenue (loan #002005062091) that was mailed on January 29, 2008 to Mr. Barrera at his CORRECT home address.  Good deal, now another letter...

Bernardo Barrera Commitment Letter 2 From Citi Mortgage for Oak Avenue Home

Even better, a second commitment letter mailed to Mr. Barrera's primary residence for the purchase of the Oak Avenue home on January 31, 2008.  Moving along...

Bernardo Barrera Commitment Letter 3 From Citi Mortgage for Oak Avenue Home

Oh boy, another commitment letter for the Oak avenue home mortgage mailed to Mr. Barrera at his primary residence dated February 18, 2008.  Can it get worse?  Yes!

Thank You Letter From Citi Mortgage to Bernardo Barrera for the Purchase of the Oak Avenue Home

BRILLIANT!  A thank you letter sent to Mr. Barrera for his new mortgage for the home located at 3390 Oak Avenue mailed to his primary residence by Citi Mortgage dated February 19, 2008, the same day the fraudulent transaction occurred that Mr. Barrera claimed he had no knowledge of.  

Keep in mind that Mr. Barrera clearly stated in the first letter we posted today dated March 28, 2008 to Citi Mortgage, that he had no knowledge of this transaction taking place.  For us to buy into that story, we would have to believe that Mr. Barrera NEVER received any of these letters from Citi Mortgage.  I know we've discussed these letters in the past, but I thought it would be worthwhile to post them in their entirety to show how preposterous it is for ANYONE to believe that Mr. Barrera had no knowledge that this transaction was occurring.  Not a FCUKING chance Bernie.

By know, you all must be wondering where the hell we've gotten all these letters from?  The two people that must be the most curious about where these letters came from are Detective Jorge Baluja and Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski.  So where did these letters come from Jorge?  How did we unearth these documents that destroy your headline case Bill?  We got these documents from the state's own case file.  That's right folks, both Detective Baluja and ASA Kostrzewski have had these documents from day one.  Why were they ignored?  Who knows.  What I do know is this, Mr. Barrera better get real comfy down in Panama...

So how does that "amended discovery" we discussed affect the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case?

Yesterday we discussed the amended discovery that we found listed on John Romney's docket, what could this amended discovery be?  In the words of one of our commenters, was there going to be a "bombshell" for the defendants hidden among those papers that the state filed that was going to sink the defense?  Perhaps some new groundbreaking testimony that was going to ensure a slam dunk case for the state?  Hardly.  After an afternoon of nothing but hassle, we finally got the 160 pages of "amended discovery" which consisted of 60 or so pages of John Romneys bank statements and about a 100 pages of additional documents regarding the mortgage for the Oak Avenue home.

At first glance what we found in the amended discovery was nothing more than what we already had seen, purchase contracts, loan applications, closing documents, etc, all for the purchase of the Oak Avenue home that is at the center of the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case.  Seemingly nothing new here, so we set aside the pile of documents and went about our business.  Later in the evening though while on the throne, we decided go through the documents one more time to see if there was anything different than the documents that we already had, that's when it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Let's start with the purchase contract...

3390 Oak Avenue Purchase Contract 3

Now, how many purchase contracts do we have for the Oak Avenue home?  We discussed two other contracts yesterday, one where both John Romney Maxine Andrews were sellers and Bernardo Barrera was the buyer and now today we have another contract where only John Romney is the seller and Bernardo Barrera is the buyer. Take a good look at the signatures we'll discuss them in depth later.  


So what else did we find?  How about this "Florida Mortgage Broker Contract" that we found which was executed by someone posing as Bernardo Barrera and the mortgage broker...

Florida Mortgage Broker Contract With Fake Bernardo Barrera Signature

I know, its a little hard to read isn't it?  Why don't we take a look at this larger, clearer version of the "Florida Mortgage Broker Contract" that the state initially provided...

Florida Mortgage Broker Contract With Real Bernardo Barrera Signature

That's better now isn't it?  What makes this document that much better is that IT'S GOT THE REAL BERNARDO BARRERA'S SIGNATURE ON IT! 

WTF is right!!!  You have to ask yourself, why was Bernardo Barrera's real signature on that document if he wasn't involved in the fraud?  Even worse, why was ASA Kostrzewski sitting on these documents since the summer of 2008, even before anyone was charged?  For the uninitiated among our readers, you have to understand that the cornerstone of Prosecutor Kostrzewski's case was Mr. Barrera's assertions of identity theft, the documents that are contained in the "Amended discovery" that was filed on 3/16/2010 completely disprove the theory that Mr. Barrera had no involvement in the fraud therefore negating the entire basis for Mr. Kostrzewski's headline case.


So why this new amended discovery 18 months after the case was filed?  There are two possible explanations:

1. Mr. Kostrzewski knew his case was based on pure bullshit and was so desperate to put his name in the papers that he hid this exculpatory evidence.  The new prosecutor being a responsible and ethical attorney realizes that Mr. Kostrzewski had buried this evidence decides to hand it over to the court in an effort to write Mr. Kostrzewski's wrongs.
2. The new prosecutor found these new documents, glanced at them and handed them over thinking they were just copies of other documents that the court already had.

I have too much faith in the new prosecutors to think that the production of these new documents was simply a mistake.  These guys aren't on the same playing field as Kostrzewski, these guys are the real deal.  That leaves us with the first scenario which considering what we've learned about Mr. Kostrzewski seems much more plausible.  


Game over Bill, your ass is cooked.

Just the facts please! Confirming some rumors and more dirt on Bernardo Barrera...

DAMN GUYS! I'm amazed at the traffic we've generated here! It looks like we have a loyal following of readers just eating this story up! Looks like the Straw Buyers investigators were working OVERTIME the last few days! We got a number of interesting facts confirmed, lets see:

1. A call to the MDPD Economic Crimes Bureau confirmed that Jorge Baluja is working AUTO THEFT!
2. County Trust Mortgage confirmed that if I had lost my job before closing on a home mortgage that I would have to notify the lender and they would reevaluate the whole loan application from scratch, therefore leading us to conclude that Mr. Bernardo Barrera committed MORTGAGE FRAUD in 2005.
3. We discovered the cause of Swine Flu.
4. We also discovered that Bernardo Barrera was involved in another case of IDENTITY THEFT.

WHOA THERE! WTF WAS THAT?! That's right boys and girls, we've discovered that the states poor little victim in the Mortgage fraud case that's at the center of this story SCREAMED identity theft less than one month before he filed the police report on the Mortgage Fraud/Identity Theft for the home on Oak Avenue! HOLY CRAP! Whats even more surprising is the date that Mr. Barrera went down to the Economic Crimes Bureau to give a statement regarding this other case! Just when you thought our story was getting boring!

On February 8, 2008 Bernardo Barrera calls the MDPD and states that his identity was stolen and that someone had purchased a boat under his name. Officer N. Palacios shows up and writes police report number PD080208066734 where Mr. Barrera states the following:

"On February 8, 2008, Barrera ran a credit check and discovered that this unknown subject has purchased a boat in his name and he had an open account with GE Money Bank in the amount of $95,424.00 and was paying monthly $942.18. "

That's an interesting statement isn't it? I mean after all, how often are you casually sitting around and suddenly decide to pull your credit report? Did masturbation get boring? Not to mention, why the hell would you pull your credit report when Mr. Barrera stated to the police in the other ID theft case that he subscribes to several credit monitoring services? Come on! After Mr. Barrera files a report, he makes an appointment to go down to the MDPD Economic Crimes Bureau to give a statement. Guess what date Mr. Barrera chooses for the interview? Ready for it? Mr. Barrera sets up an appointment for February 19, 2008!

HOLY FCUKING $HIT YO!

Did anyone else pick up on it? Mr. Barrera chose the exact date that the closing for the house on Oak Ave was to occur! IS THAT A BULLET PROOF ALIBI OR WHAT!

OH HELLS NO!

Can you imagine the statement to the cops for the Mortgage Fraud case, perhaps it would go like this:

"hey it couldn't have been me at the closing, I was at the MDPD filling out a report for the other ID theft case!"

That's fantastic if you have a pea sized brain, but if you have at least two brain cells running around in your head, all kinds of alarms should be going off right now. Perhaps when I was four or five years old I would buy into a bull$hit alibi like this, I mean come on this is Scooby Doo level criminality. I digress, lets move on.

Now, lets take a look at the owner of the boat company that sold the boat to the "fake buyer", Alex Orriols the principal of Ocean Waves Powerboats. From the "Narrative Continuation" attached to the police report, this is what we got from Mr. Orriols:

"On November 1, 2007, an unknown male walked into the boat show located in the Miami Beach Convention Center to purchase a boat. After looking around at all the boats on display, the unknown subject walked up to the Ocean Waves Powerboats display and spoke with the manager Alex Orioles about purchasing a boat and filled out all the necessary paperwork for the boat. After Mr. Orriols reviewed all the necessary paperwork and made copies of his identifications for the deal he sent the paperwork to GE Money Bank for their review. In about a week GE Money Bank had approved the deal and sent the paperwork back to Mr. Orriols. On November 10, 2008, the unknown subject came to the office at Ocean Waves Power Boats LLC to sign the final papers and pick up the boat."

What do we find in that quote above? YOU GOT IT, WE GOT FAIL! MUCHO FAIL! Where's the fail? Well, lets start with the following, THERE IS NO BOAT SHOW IN THE MIAMI BEACH CONVENTION CENTER IN NOVEMBER YO! WTF! GOOD LORD! How the hell did that get by the cops!

Really now, do cops buy up ANYTHING people tell them? What the FCUK is going on over at the MDPD! When a cop interviews someone claiming that he too was duped by this "unknown man" posing as Bernardo Barrera, does he bother checking who he's talking to? Well, we here at the Straw Buyer DO NOT FCUK AROUND! So we took a look at Mr. Alex Orriols, the man at the center of the boat ID theft case. You know the drill, first stop, Miami Dade County Clerk of Courts office...


DAMN IT! I'M RUNNING OUT OF EXPLETIVES! WTF x 1,000,000,000!!!!! This TOOL gave a statement to the cops in an ID theft case and didnt' get arrested?!? Considering the nature of the crime and what this guy has in his past, wouldn't you have looked a little deeper into the claim of identity theft HERE?! $HIT! After all this, would you believe that THERE WERE NEVER ANY ARRESTS MADE IN THIS CASE?! Not only were there never any arrests made, but guess what? The loan was discharged from Mr. Barreras credit and was wiped clean from his credit history!!!! HOLY CRAP!

So you ask, whats the status of the boat identity theft case today? The case is listed at the MDPD as being "OPEN" with no arrests ever being made. You think the Cold Case department is working on it? HA! No arrests, no boat ever recovered and POOF, $95,424.00 has disappeared into THIN AIR! Now comes the kicker;

• Consider for the moment that the states victim in the Mortgage Fraud Case filed another identity theft case just before he filed the one for the home on Oak Avenue.
• Consider that he made an appointment to give a statement to the detective who was investigating the boat case THE SAME DAY THAT THE CLOSING ON THE OAK AVENUE HOME WAS TO OCCUR!
• Consider that the guy who "supposedly" sold the boat that's at the heart of the boat ID theft case has A PREVIOUS HISTORY OR FRAUD AND ID THEFT.

Now comes Detective Jorge Baluja investigating the Mortgage Fraud case, do you think he looked at the other ID theft case that Mr. Barrera had filed just weeks prior to the case he was investigating? I mean its a logical conclusion isn't it? Victim screams ID THEFT and you find out that he did the same thing less than a month ago, isn't it worth a gander? From what I see in the Barrera mortgage fraud case police file, I see NO MENTION OF THIS PREVIOUS ID THEFT CASE. Can you comprehend that?!

Can you guys handle any more fail? Did you think that it was possible to witness this much fail? Mr. Baluja is not one to disappoint, as usual Mr. Royal Caribbean Baggage clerk delivers...


I know this is the first time Detective Baluja is seeing what his "victim" is about, so for his benefit, lets recap what we've found on good ole Mr. Barrera:

1. A statement to the police regarding the mortgage fraud that should have raised the detectives eyebrows.
2. Discovering that the Mr. Barrera has committed mortgage fraud in the past.
3. Mr. Barrera opening a corporation with a bizarre name with a place of business that doesn't exist.
4. Another incident where Mr. Barrera claimed his identity was stolen involving someone with a dubious track record in ID theft and a very suspicious appointment with the MDPD to discuss the previous claim of ID Theft.

What we have here guys is enough red flags on the states victim to warrant further investigation into his past and his claims of ID theft. Considering what we've learned about the "victim" and what we've seen go on in real estate in Miami over the last few years, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that there is enough evidence to suggest that Mr. Barrera was somehow involved in the Oak avenue home identity theft/mortgage fraud case. Furthermore, I'm going to suggest that THERE WAS ENOUGH PROBABLE CAUSE TO ARREST BERNARDO BARRERA! That is if you spent 10 minutes researching Mr. Barrera. At the very least we have enough for anyone investigating this case to seriously call into question any kind of claims that Mr. Barrera would make to the police, yet funny enough THERE IS NO MENTION OF ANY OF THE POINTS THAT WE RAISED IN THE POLICE FILE!

What were going to find out though is that neither the state or Detective Jorge Baluja had any interest in Bernardo Barrera. Don't worry, there's more coming. I've gotten another tip, to pursue it, I have to go learn about mortgages!

Another look into the states victim, Bernardo Barrera.

Thank god for Florida's sunshine law. Because of this wonderful law we have access to all kinds of records that we may not otherwise be entitled to. Combine the Sunshine Law with the county's excellent online services and you have most of the tools you need to investigate without ever leaving your desk. In looking a little closer at the states victim (Bernardo Barrera), I was able to check the Miami Dade County clerk of the courts office website, the Miami Dade County Property appraiser website and now I'll take a look at www.sunbiz.org and see what I can find there. Perhaps Mr. Barrera after losing his job got the entrepreneurial spirit and incorporated his own company? BINGO! I searched for registered agents named Barrera, Bernardo and find this.


All good. I noticed that the address listed the principal address didn't match Bernardo Barrera's home address, so perhaps it was an office address for the corp. A couple of things struck me as strange though, as a former Coconut Grove resident, I recognized the zip code as a Grove zip code, but 527 SW 22 ave is certainly not in the Grove. The second thing is who uses "MGMT" in their company name? After all the state doesn't charge you by the character when you incorporate! Stuff like Inc. & Corp. I understand, but "MGMT"?! That got me thinking. I ran to google earth and look up the location. First problem is that neither Google earth, Mapquest or the Miami Dade County property appraisers office recognize that address as being valid. Now I'm really interested.

Mapquest suggests using zip code 33135 instead and here is what it gives us:

Again, I get as close as I can with the Property Appraisers office and get no 527 SW 22 ave in this vicinity, I only get this where it should be:

Now we're getting hot. I'm not up for another field trip, so my lazy ass is going to try to use Google Earth to find the address. Surely Mr. Barrera's place of business is hiding there SOMEWHERE! Here's what I found...


Are you seeing what I'm seeing?! I SEE AN EMPTY LOT! I know what you must be thinking!

NO WAY!

Is this possible?! Did Bernardo Barrera set up a phony corporation with a phony address? NO WAY! I can't say with certainty that the business was phony, but the address CERTAINLY WAS!

Accident? Mistake? I don't know, but why the hell would you make up an address like that which leads to an empty lot, not to mention one that's been empty for MANY YEARS? Technically the address doesn't even exist, the photos that I'm showing here are of where the address should be if indeed it was a real address. That's also assuming that the zip code was a mistake (33133) as the zip code that would correspond to that address is 33135. Add in that "MGMT" in the company name and it all sounds a little too bizarre.

Forget what I think, if you were sitting in Detective Jorge Baluja's shoes and you had Bernardo Barrera telling you about his identity being stolen in a mortgage fraud case, after a little bit of investigating, wouldn't you begin to wonder about the validity of your victims claims? I mean after exerting the tiniest effort, we've already found that the states victim (Bernardo Barrera) has already committed mortgage fraud in the past, his claim of how he came to find out about the fraud is suspect and now we've found that Mr. Barrera is involved in some kind of monkey business with this funny corporation with a fake address. What we've discovered after a cursory examination of the facts really makes you wonder, doesn't it? I mean, here I am a chump with no investigatory background, no formal police training and look at what we've uncovered. After seeing what we've found, can you find anything that Mr. Barrera says credible? At the very least any statements from Mr. Barrera would require a closer look wouldn't they? That's what you would think right?

The problem is that Detective Jorge Baluja didn't think to look into Mr. Barrera's claims. Based on what I've been able to obtain from the file, Detective Baluja (is it really fair to call him that?) DID NOT LOOK INTO THE MAN WHO CLAIMED TO BE THE VICTIM! If Detective Baluja would have checked the background of his "victim" he would have uncovered enough to raise doubt about his victims claims. Unfortunately Detective Baluja didn't think it was necessary to investigate.

For Detective Baluja, IT'S OFF TO THE RACES! From what we've seen so far, how bad could this investigation get? I've already requested the whole police file from the MDPD, I suspect its going to be a while before they give me anything. For the time being I'm left to what I can find on my own. Here we had the good detective, with all the resources available to him through the MDPD and he managed to miss these facts. Considering what we've found undermined his victims credibility, you have to wonder what else he could he have missed? How could he have built a case when he started off like this? Remember, we're talking about investigating a complex crime, Mortgage Fraud, not some entry level street crime or investigating a traffic accident!

It's time to take a better look at Detective Baluja's background. Tomorrow, I'll put in a request for his personnel file. Based on what I've seen so far I think we'll find a boatload of entertainment in there...

The state's victim, WHO DAT IS?

Just like the title of this post says, the state's victim, "WHO DAT IS" YO?!  I think by now those of you who've been diligently following our story of a botched mortgage fraud investigation know that the man that the state alleges was the victim of the mortgage fraud that involved the home located at 3390 Oak Avenue is none other than Bernardo Humberto Barrera.  Smile for us Bernie...  

Finally we have a face to attach to the name that we've been throwing about for the last seven months or so.  Unfortunately we here at The Straw Buyer have a hard time buying Mr. Barrera's claims of identity theft, we discussed our doubts at length several times, when it comes to Mr. Barrera's claims of being in the dark regarding this transaction, I have to defer to an old friends favorite saying, "NO SALE!".  I digress.  The other day I'm listening to some recordings from the latest court hearings regarding this case and I noticed that Assistant State Attorney William Kostrzewski among other things kept mispronouncing Mr. Barreras name.  I didn't thing anything of it until I heard the judge make the same mispronunciation.  WTF I asked myself?  There was so much more comedic material in that hearing that I let the mispronunciation slide and I quickly forgot about it until this afternoon when I heard someone else pronounce a name that sounded very similar to Barrera but with the same mispronunciation as the ASA and the judge had made.  I thought for a moment that perhaps I had miswritten Mr. Barrera's name at some point and then kept miswriting the name again and again.  So I decided to go back through the mountain of paperwork I've accumulated and find the original incident report that Mr. Barrera filed with the MDPD.  Here is what I found:

That's the card that the police officer (in this case a PSA) gave Mr. Barrera when they took down all his information in the form of a MDPD "Offense-Incident Report".  Let's take a look at the first page of the incident report and see if we can find Mr. Barrera's name...

There it is in red (I've outlined it in red for the sake of clarity), let's take a closer look at that name...

Ok, so the man who claims to be the victim of identity theft is Bernardo Humberto Barrera.  So far so good, only problem is that I keep hearing an "I" in his last name every time ASA Kostrzewski or the judge says his name.  What gives here folks?


To say we here at The Straw Buyer were frustrated would be an understatement.  We needed an explanation, what better place to start than the arrest affidavit prepared by none other than Detective Jorge Baluja?  So here it is...

Uh oh!  Did anyone catch it?  Let's take a closer look...

Bernardo Humberto WHO?  Barreira?  That's the damn "I" that I kept hearing!  Perhaps that was just a typo, let's take another look:

Who is the "true Bernardo Humberto Barreira"?  I thought the victim was name Bernardo Humberto Barrera?  Let's take another peek...

Ok, now you got me Jorge, who's the "alleged buyer Barriera"?  Was this a typo or is "alleged buyer Barriera" and "true Bernardo Humberto Barreira" one and the same or two different people?  Then who the hell is Bernardo Barrera?! FCUK ME!  Is this for real?  I'm beginning to think I'm stuck in an Abbott and Costello "who's on first" routine!

Ok, I know what you all are thinking.  I'm sure what's going on in everyone's mind is "damn the straw buyer is being more of an a$$hole today than normal", what gives?  Remember folks, in this story of mortgage fraud and the subsequent botched investigation, PRECISION IN EVERYTHING!  If names, dates or amounts are screwed up then the outcome of the case can be completely different than what Detective Baluja intended.  I would like to think that the extra "I" in Detective Baluja's arrest affidavit is simply a spelling error, but I can't rest until I confirm that theory.  Let's now move on to one of Detective Baluja's deposition transcripts and see if the state's victims is Bernardo Barrera, Bernardo Barriera or Bernardo Barreira.  What say you Detective Baluja?!

WELL SPANK MY ASS AND CALL ME CHARLIE!  Jorge, WHO IN THE FCUK IS ROLANDO BARRERO?  Good lord!  Let's see how many victims the state now has:

1. Bernardo Humberto Barrero
2. Bernardo Humberto Barreira
3. Bernardo Humberto Barriera
4. Rolando Barrero

HUH?!  Who's on first Jorge?  Now I'm really confused.  It's a god damn shame that Detective Baluja put together a document that was going to permanently alter the lives of three people AND HE COULDN'T EVEN TAKE ENOUGH CARE TO GET THE VICTIMS NAME RIGHT!


Is anyone surprised?  I'm certainly not.  What we've seen here today is not just an example of sloppy police work, it's just another incident of piss police work that Detective Baluja has exhibited throughout this mortgage fraud investigation.  Disappointing to say the least.  I do have a theory that would partially exonerate Detective Baluja from most of the blame for these mistakes, what if Detective Baluja didn't write this arrest affidavit on his own?  What if Detective Baluja didn't write this arrest affidavit at all?  Consider for a moment if someone else wrote it for him, I wonder who would be so kind as to do that for him?  Any guesses folks?  We'll examine that theory in more depth tomorrow.  On the other hand, If Detective Baluja did write this arrest affidavit then there's only one word that can describe his performance...

Identity theft. What is it?

What exactly is identity theft? Among the three charges brought upon the defendants in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, this is the charge that carries the harshest penalty, from what I understand the charge carries a lengthy minimum mandatory sentence. At the very least we owe it to ourselves to fully understand what the charge means, let's take a look and see what we find. Let's begin by checking the definition of Identity Theft as it appears in Wikipedia:

Identity theft is a term used that is to refer to fraud that involves someone pretending to be someone else in order to steal money or get other benefits.

That's fairly straightforward isn't it? Pretending to be someone else in order to steal money or get other benefits. I wonder, is that how Detective Baluja defines Identity Theft? (We'll wait till some new documents are available tomorrow before we address that question.) This isn't what we talked about yesterday when we talked about the guy who claimed that "homeboy stole my credit card and bought some stuff", this involves actually stealing someones identity and posing as that person through fraudulent documents (IE fake drivers license, fake social security card, etc) to achieve some sort of monetary gain. By now we're familiar enough with the Bernardo Barrera Mortgage Fraud case to know that there was (according to the state) an impostor who stole Bernardo Barrera's identity and posed as Mr. Barrera at the closing for the purchase of the Oak Avenue home who then with his co conspirators subsequently defrauded Citi Mortgage out of over $480,000.

With that said, I have one important question for Detective Jorge Baluja and Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski, WHERE'S THE MAN WHO POSED AS BERNARDO BARRERA AT THE CLOSING FOR THE OAK AVENUE HOME PURCHASE? Let's take a look at the players involved to date:

1. John Romney - The man who paid $185,000 for the home located at 3390 Oak Avenue who six days later resold it for $600,000 to a man who according to the state had stolen Bernardo Barrera's identity. According to the Miami Herald article, Mr. Romney made $369,896.88 from this transaction.
2. Michael Martinez - The man who lent the "straw buyer" or the man who impersonated Bernardo Barrera (supposedly) at the closing the down payment to close on the fraudulent sale and mortgage. According to the Miami Herald article, Mr. Martinez made $135,000 from the transaction.
3. Delaila Estefano - The attorney whose office closed the transaction involving the Oak Avenue purchase and mortgage. Neither the Miami Herald article or the information the state filed in the criminal case alleges that the attorney made any money off of the transaction. Our examination of the closing documents in the states case file shows that the attorney pocketed $1,270 in fees for the closing.

OK, we have the seller, the guy who lent the down payment and the attorney that closed the transaction, so where's the guy who actually posed as Bernardo Barrera at the closing that stole his identity? It looks to me that the state arrested everyone that could possibly identify the impostor, so WHERE'S THE DAMN IMPOSTOR? Why hasn't the man who is actually guilty of identity theft been arrested?

Does this make any sense to anyone? As far as I can see, it makes as much sense as anything else in this story has. I suspect the answer to this riddle is going to come in the tomorrow, perhaps the Detective and the Assistant State Attorney that put this case together don't know what Identity Theft is. Can you imagine that?

Let's take a quick look at our instruments to see where we're at...

OH $HIT!

I SWEAR! I KNOW NOTHING! Or so Bernardo Barrera says...

The man who claimed his identity was stolen for the purchase of the Oak Avenue home that's the center of this mess is one hell of a letter writer! Not only did Mr. Barrera sell Detective Baluja on him being the victim of fraud in this case, but he goes on to tell the court (in the foreclosure case) in detail that he had nothing to do with the purchase of the home! We have our own ideas about this (here and here), regardless let's take a look at some of the correspondence between Mr. Barrera and the court...


He didn't know anything about the purchase of the Oak Avenue home, I get it. Let's pay specific attention to the following:


Ok, he knows nothing. He goes on to say:


Here Mr. Barrera establishes that he receives mail from Citi Mortgage at his home address regarding the fraudulent purchase and the process involved with dealing with the so called "identity theft". Fantastic! After all, you would expect Mr. Barrera to open ANY AND ALL LETTERS FROM CITI MORTGAGE WOULDN'T YOU? Really, who wouldn't open a letter from a bank? Best case there's a check in there for you or maybe a credit card, worst case you owe them money! Either way, you're going to open the letter aren't you? Let's take a look at that letter from Citi mortgage that Mr. Barrera references in his letter to the circuit court...


OK, let's take a closer look at the address that Citi Mortgage mailed that letter to:


Now we've clearly established that Mr. Barrera (aka Barrero) receives mail at his primary residence located at 16562 SW 48th terrace, Miami Florida, 33185. Wonderful! Let's go back to that snippet from the letter Mr. Barrera wrote the court (which mimics what he wrote in his statement to Detective Jorge Baluja):


You sure about that Bernie? Detective Baluja, are you following along? He clearly states he had no participation or knowledge of the purchase of the home located at 3390 Oak Avenue. Are we clear? ONCE AGAIN, HE HAD NO IDEA THAT A "FRAUDULENT" CLOSING TOOK PLACE ON FEBRUARY 19, 2008 WHERE SOMEONE USED HIS IDENTITY. With me so far folks? Remember, we've clearly established that Mr. Barrera receives letters from Citi Mortgage at his primary residence. Let's take a look at this letter...


Well lookie here JORGE! It's a Truth in Lending Statement sent to Mr. Barrera for the mortgage on the Oak Avenue home that he wasn't aware of! Look at the date and the address the letter was sent Detective (hah!) Baluja!


That's right Jorge! January 25, 2008 NEARLY TWO MONTHS BEFORE HE FILED HIS POLICE REPORT! And what address is that Jorge? 16562 SW 48th Terrace Miami, Fl 33185, MR. BARRERA'S CORRECT HOME ADDRESS! Ok, let's give both Mr. Barrera and Detective Baluja the benefit of the doubt, perhaps this letter made it's way through the cracks and never reached Mr. Barrera. Then how do you explain this...


WHAT THE FCUK IS THAT JORGE?! A commitment letter from Citi Mortgage mailed directly to Mr. Barrera's primary residence clearly spelling out the terms of this loan for the Oak Avenue home that he had no idea about! WHAT THE FCUK JORGE?! Look at the date, JANUARY 29, 2008, STILL NEARLY TWO MONTHS BEFORE BARRERA FILED THE POLICE REPORT! Ok, let's say that the first letter fell through the cracks, for $hits and giggles, let's say that the dog ate this one, then what about this...


OH $HIT! ANOTHER COMMITMENT LETTER FROM CITI MORTGAGE SENT DIRECTLY TO MR. BARRERA'S PRIMARY RESIDENCE! WTF?! Look at the date, January 31, 2009! WELL BEFORE HE CLAIMED HIS IDENTITY WAS STOLEN! OK, again, let's say that the first letter fell through the cracks, the dog ate the second letter and some how this third one got jammed in the back of the mailbox and was never found, but then what about this...


HOLY $HIT! ANOTHER COMMITMENT LETTER! WTF JORGE x 1,000,000,000!!!!!!!! Again, the letter was sent to Mr. Barrera's primary residence and once again, well before he claims he found out his identity was stolen. Play along with me, the first letter got lost, the dog ate the second letter, the third one got jammed in the back of the mailbox and perhaps one of the fraudsters who "supposedly" stole Mr. Barrera's identity intercepted this one before Bernie got to it, but then what about this...


A FCUKING THANK YOU LETTER SENT TO BARRERA AT HIS CORRECT HOME ADDRESS FOR CLOSING ON THE LOAN FOR THE OAK AVENUE HOME! Once again, ONE MONTH BEFORE HE CLAIMED HIS IDENTITY WAS STOLEN! Do I need to continue? Do you get the message Jorge? If you don't, I HAVE PLENTY MORE OF THESE LETTERS SENT TO BERNARDO BARRERA AT HIS PRIMARY RESIDENCE BEFORE HE FILED THE POLICE REPORT!

Ladies and gents, what I propose here today is worse than the fraudsters defrauding Citi Bank, what I've proven today is that Mr. Bernardo Barrera perpetrated a fraud on the Miami Dade Police Department, the Mayors Mortgage Fraud Task Force and the Court. Anyone with a modicum of common sense can see that there is no way shape or form that Mr. Barrera wasn't aware of the purchase and closing of the home at the center of this supposed "fraud". Unfortunately for us, Mr. Barrera had the dumb luck of getting Detective Baluja to investigate this case, a Detective so gullible that he bought Mr. Barrera's story hook, line and sinker. Shame on you Detective Baluja, your oversight of these documents are an embarrassment to all the fine men and women that you work with.

As if all of this wasn't bad enough, you know what makes this all the more embarrassing for Detective Baluja? See, these documents didn't come to me out of the blue or because of some fantastic investigative work that I did, what makes this worse for Detective Baluja IS THAT ALL OF THESE DOCUMENTS CAME OUT OF HIS OWN FILE. That's right folks, Detective Baluja had all of these documents well before he made any arrests in the Barrera mortgage fraud case.


No funny pictures today folks, just embarrassment.