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...

Party time, another anniversary...

I've been feeling a bit under the weather lately therefore the lack of posts over the last week.  I started to get my shit together this afternoon when I realized that tomorrow is October 3, which would make it the fifth anniversary of the Miami Dade County Mortgage Fraud Task Force's first case and also the fourth anniversary of the arrests in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case that turned my family's life inside out. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the Barrera mortgage fraud 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's everyone now?  As we mentioned before, Mr. Barrera after selling whatever he had in the United States, hauled ass and escaped to his native Panama safe from extradition to the United States.  How about the assclown detective that put together the bullshit case?  From what I've been told, he's been demoted several times, most recently to driving a marked patrol car in the Northside District of Miami Dade County.  That's a far cry from his days as a detective on the MDPD Economic crimes unit, isn't it?  How about that dipshit prosecutor, Bill Kostrzewski, who tried to prosecute the case?  I'm told that he's been taken off any meaningful prosecutions and relegated to petty bullshit economic crimes cases.  Nice.  So much for that headline case he put together that appeared all over the news early that October back in 2008.

What amazes me the most though since I started writing this blog is how some criminal prosecutions make headlines yet others manage to escape the spotlight.  When Mr. Kostrzewski went after my wife, somehow both he and the state attorneys office managed to get a press release to anyone in the media with a pulse, yet after following such cases for four plus years now I can't believe how many other cases that should have been in the media somehow were never mentioned.  A perfect example would be the Veldora Arthur mortgage fraud case.  There wasn't a single peep about that case until we broke it here on our blog.  I wonder why?  Wasn't a City of Miami assistant fire chief getting federally indicted for millions of dollars worth of fraud newsworthy?

I've come to realize over the last few years that the main ingredient in keeping this blog going is anger, specifically my anger towards those in law enforcement and the state attorneys office that abuse their powers to destroy innocent people's lives in order to further their own goals.  Need examples?  How about the three tellers that were railroaded Detective Baluja in the Airways Auto Tag case as a favor to the City of South Miami's police chief?  Can you think of an abuse of power worse than that? 

So what now?  Four years after the "headline case" that prosecutor Kostrzewski and detective Baluja put together was filed, have we achieved anything?  I like to think we have.  I have to believe that we played some part in getting Mr. Baluja demoted and I know that we are, at least in part, responsible for getting prosecutor Kostrzewski thrown off the mortgage fraud task force within the state attorneys office.  Is that enough?  I think not.  We have some more work to do, I'm going to start talking about some of the things the state attorneys office did to me over the last few years and for shits and grins, we're going to try to get at least one member of the Baluja clan arrested.  Stay tuned...

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.

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!

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...

Conflict anyone?

By now all of you here in the City of Miami must be familiar with the ongoing feud between long time Coconut Grove resident Reid Welch and City of Miami commissioner Marc Sarnoff which culminated in Mr. Sarnoff violently attacking Mr. Welch a few weeks back.  Our friend Al Crespo covered the story, here is the Police incident report where Mr. Welch is clearly identified as the "victim"...

That's all well and good until Mr. Sarnoff's wife decided to serve Mr. Welch with a restraining order...

Ok, whatever.  Now this is where things get interesting, on Monday Mr. Welch had to appear before a Miami circuit court judge regarding this restraining order where the judge continued the case till January 6, 2012.  Mrs. Sarnoff was represented by an attorney named Jay Solowsky while Mr. Sarnoff was represented by a City of Miami attorney named George Wysong, this is where things get a little interesting.  Let's take a look at Mr. Wysong's bio from the City of Miami website...

Mr. Wysong serves as the Police Legal Advisor for the City of Miami Police Department. In that capacity, he handles matters which affect the Police Department, and provides counsel and advice to the Chief of Police and his staff, litigates contraband forfeiture cases, prepares legal bulletins for dissemination to the sworn police officers, provides advices and counsel to the City's Emergency Operations Center in times of emergency. In addition to those duties, Mr. Wysong also reviews contracts and agreements relating to the Police Department and drafts legislation relating to quality of life issues.

So Mr Wysong is the City of Miami police liason, from his bio says his job is to "handle matters which affect the Police Department."  If that's the case, why was he representing Sarnoff at this hearing?  In fact, based on his bio, shouldn't he have been attending this hearing on behalf of the City of Miami police department who should have arrested Mr. Sarnoff for his assault on Mr. Welch?  Doesn't this constitute a serious conflict of interest for Mr. Wysong?


Now, this isn't the first time that I've found Mr. Wysong wearing two hats, there are several other instances where Mr. Wysong has found himself in places where he shouldn't be where there is a clear and undeniable conflict, we're going to have to wait a couple of weeks before we can reveal those stories.  Regardless, if this was any other city, I'd be shocked and appalled at Mr. Wysong's behavior but it's Miami so it's par for the course!


On another note, for those of you that have been following my story regarding the "body wire at attorney's office", things are about to get a lot more interesting.  It seems as if the attorney whose privileged conversations were recorded at the behest of assistant state attorney Bill Kostrzewski isn't too happy about those recordings being made...

Here we go again with that attorney client privilege shit again!

We've discussed this concept ad nauseum since the inception of our blog.  It's a pretty simple concept, from Wikipedia...

...a legal concept that protects certain communications between a client and his or her attorney and keeps those communications confidential. The attorney-client privilege is one of the oldest recognized privileges for confidential communications.^[1] The United States Supreme Court has stated that by assuring confidentiality the privilege encourages clients to make “full and frank” disclosures to their attorneys, who are then better able to provide candid advice and effective representation.

Simple enough right?  Go into your attorney's, bare your soul and tell your attorney the truth about whatever you're involved in so that that can effectively represent you and possibly get you out of the pickle you've found yourself in.  When you run afoul of the law, you'll tell your attorney things that you wouldn't want the cops or the prosecutors to know about, if you're smart, you'll tell your attorney the truth about what's gone on and hope that they can figure out a proper defense to make sure you stay out of trouble.  


Several months ago we played you a tape of Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein trying to reach out to his client, former Plantation cop Joe Guaracino who was under federal investigation for mortgage fraud at the behest of the feds who were trying to get Guaracino to talk to Rothstein about his pending legal troubles while the feds listened in.


We outlined a "hypothetical" scenario a little over a year ago, take the time and read over that post again.   Problem with that "hypothetical" scenario is that it wasn't hypothetical, it actually happened.  The prosecutor that was running the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, the first case we discussed on our blog, actually forced one of the targets of his investigation to wear a "body wire" while they were at their attorneys office with other targets in the case discussing the case with their attorney!  From what we had heard at the time, assistant state attorney Bill Kostrzewski had threatened to arrest the individual unless they wore the wire and worse, both Kostrzewski and that assclown mortgage fraud detective Jorge Baluja both threatened this person with arrest if they ever told anyone about wearing the wire!  NICE!  Of course they wouldn't want anyone to know that they were able to listen in on privileged attorney client conversations, the cop could always say that he did it at the direction of the prosecutor, but what excuse would the prosecutor have?


At first I really had no proof other than a rumor I heard that started with a distant relative of the person wearing the wire.  Regardless, for the last three years I kept at it until I finally managed to meet the person who wore the wire who then confirmed the whole story and also confirmed that the wire at the attorneys office was approved by non other than assistant state attorney Bill Kostrzewski himself.


For those of you who don't understand the magnitude of the state listening in on privileged attorney/client conversations regarding a pending criminal matter, talk to an attorney and see what they tell you.  As for our friend Mr. Kostrzewski, get ready, the ride ahead is going to get a bit bumpy, I suspect you'll be hearing from the Florida Bar pretty soon...

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?

Missing receipts in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial and our friend and fellow blogger Al Crespo gets banned from a public building on his quest for public information!

Throughout the ongoing saga that is the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial, one of the governments contentions is that the alleged mastermind of the mortgage fraud scheme, Joe Guaracino, pocketed nearly $1.2 million dollars from escrow withholds and other credits at the closings for the properties that are the subject of the federal indictment.  As we mentioned last Friday, this week was going to be Mr. Guaracino's chance to explain everything while on the stand, from the hearing yesterday...

Q: Did Joseph Guaracino of Home Buyers Group get money back on these occasions?


A: Yes, on most occasions we did.


Q: What was the purpose of getting money back?


A: To do whatever was state, remodeling, upgrading, in some cases, buying furniture.


Q: What did you do with that money?


A: Exactly that.

Pretty simple, right?  There were credits given to the buyers from the sellers for various improvements to the homes and the money was disbursed to the buyers at the closing, these would be the same funds that the government alleged was misspent or misappropriated by Guaracino and/or his group.  Before the indictment, Guaracino was asked to produce evidence of the money from these transactions being used for their intended purpose, there's a small problem though, take a look for yourselves as defense attorney Michael Walsh and Guaracino go through and compare the receipts the government produced to the court versus the receipts that Guaracino produced to the government...

Q: Let's do this, let's take our time and go through the Government's evidence.  Do you see a receipt on the Government's for 8443?


A: I do not.


Q: Is there a real receipt in there for 8443?


A: Yes, sir, on the second page.


Q: Do you know why those two receipts are missing from the government's chart?


A: It goes to the quality of the investigator.

WHOOPS!  You get the idea, this search for receipts that are somehow missing from the governments evidence goes on and on and on.  Somehow the receipts for the home repairs were given to the investigators pursuant to a subpoena yet somehow they never made it into the case files.  As we discussed before, the difference between what the government came up with and what was really spent came up to roughly around $600,000.  That's a rather large discrepancy isn't it?  Why would the governments investigator play so fast and loose with these receipts?  I mean, this is a paperwork intensive case where one of the main allegations against the lead defendant is that he misused funds that were credited back at closing, receipts are provided pre-indictment that shows were nearly every penny went yet the investigator and the prosecutors conveniently leave out nearly $600,000 worth of receipts?  What gives here?  Is it just me or is this starting to sound like some sort of set up?

There's something else though regarding the recent court proceedings regarding the second phase of the Plantation cops trial that's rather interesting.  Out of the three men on trial, only Joseph Guaracino is putting up a defense, neither one of the other defendants, Dennis Guaracino or Steven Stoll, are putting up a defense.  Could the governments case be so weak that a proper defense isn't necessary?  Obviously the defense thinks so, it remains to be seen if the jury agrees.

Now, onto something even more disturbing, we caught this on the news last night...

That's City of Miami Assistant Manager Luis Cabrera banning or friend and fellow blogger Al Crespo from entering the Miami River Center, a City of Miami building that's open to the public!  What a crock of shit.  Here we have a blogger that's gotten a little too close to the real story and is finding the skeletons in peoples closets, unearthing the back room deals between incompetent boobs that make up our city government and what happens?  They do whatever they can to shut you down.  We're no stranger to this bullshit, as some of you already know, our work here has caused some of the people that we've written about to go to the MDPD, FBI, FDLE, etc to initiate investigations against us.  No worries though, despite their best efforts, we're still here.  Now that everyone's back from summer vacation, we'll have time to discuss some of the lengths that Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski and his boy Detective Baluja have gone through to get us shut down.


Stay tuned.

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.

Banks ready to pay $20 billion dollars to get themselves out of trouble stemming from the mortgage meltdown and FINALLY! A mortgage fraud task force that's targeting the banks rather than the borrowers!

I couldn't believe what I was reading this morning, after all the years of maintaining that the real criminals in the mortgage and real estate meltdown was the banks, we finally have some validation to our claims.  Today we've learned that the banks at the core of the mortgage meltdown are willing to pay $20 billion dollars or more to win releases of liability from future claims that could arise from their lending practices!  From the Bloomberg article...

A push by U.S. banks to win broad liability releases has become one of the main obstacles in talks to resolve a nationwide probe of mortgage-servicing and foreclosure practices, two people briefed on the matter said.
The mortgage servicers want protection from additional state and federal claims over their mortgage practices as part of reaching a settlement that may exceed $20 billion, according to the people, who declined to be named because the talks are private. The banks are seeking releases that go beyond servicing of mortgages to include lending and securitization of loans, one of the people said.

Of course they want to settle, $20 billion is chump change compared to what their potential exposure could be.  But not so fast...

That effort has encountered resistance from at least two states. Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who are investigating the bundling of mortgage loans into securities, don’t want their probes blocked by a broad settlement of liability.
Biden said he has “strong reservations” about a deal that provides releases related to practices such as securitization and lending, because servicing is the focus of the nationwide settlement talks.
“We have an investigation going on. It would hinder our ability to do that, so that’s why I have real reservations,” Biden said in an interview. 

“Attorney General Schneiderman remains concerned by any settlement agreement that would preclude state attorneys general from conducting comprehensive investigations of the mortgage crisis,” Danny Kanner, a spokesman for the attorney general, said in an e-mailed statement.

Biden said it would be “imprudent” to relinquish claims in areas that haven’t been fully investigated.
“I hesitate to release those claims and those potential liabilities mostly because we’re still in the midst of investigating many of the other related issues,” he said. 

Could this be real or simply some state attorney generals that are raising objections simply for political gain?  Here's the best part, a quote from the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon...

“I would do anything to get it done today,” Dimon said July 14 about a settlement, according to a transcript of the company’s second-quarter earnings call.

NO SHIT?  He'd do anything to get this settlement done today?  How often do you hear people that are this eager to give away TWENTY BILLION DOLLARS??!!  Remember, by settling the banks will be absolved of all civil and criminal liability, so of course they're eager to settle.


Now comes the best part, California Attorney General Kamala Harris has created a mortgage fraud task force that's going after the LENDERS who were at the epicenter of the mortgage/real estate meltdown!  Better late then never!  From the L.A. Times...

California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris, saying that years of unscrupulous lending still haunts the state, is creating a 25-person task force to target mortgage fraud of any size — from small operations that preyed on troubled borrowers to corporations that sold risky loans as safe investments.
The team of 17 lawyers and eight special agents from the state Department of Justice will pursue three major areas, Harris said in an interview:

•Corporate fraud, including instances in which bundled mortgages were sold as securities to the state or its pension funds under false pretenses. Harris said her office plans to prosecute some cases under California's False Claims Act, which she described as "one of those very powerful tools that California uniquely has … to pursue, in essence, what are false claims that are submitted to the state."
•Scams, including instances in which consultants, lawyers and others took fees from people in foreclosure, saying they would help the homeowners get loan modifications or other remedies, but delivered nothing.
•Fraudulent lending practices, including deceptive marketing, failure to fully disclose loan terms and qualifying people for loans who couldn't afford the terms.
Harris said the mortgage fraud that ultimately led to the housing crash continues to be a drag on the state, causing huge losses in jobs, property values and state revenues.
"We are looking at a situation of up to $640 billion in wealth having been lost because of this wave of foreclosures that has hit the state," Harris said, referring to the decline in homeowner equity. "There is a direct connection" between mortgage fraud "and the issue that we are challenged with in terms of our state budget crisis."
Creation of the state's Mortgage Fraud Strike Force, which Harris will announce at a news conference Monday in Los Angeles with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, comes as other states turn up the heat on the lending industry.

Harris said that although successful prosecutions of major players in the mortgage meltdown have been difficult, the severity of the crisis called for a tough-minded approach to mortgage fraud, one that could target executives of major financial institutions.


"If the evidence leads us there, no case will be too big or too small to pursue," Harris said. "There remain millions of people affected by the mortgage crisis."

Fantastic.  I wonder though, why hasn't the Miami Dade State Attorneys Office set up a similar task force?  Why is it that the SAO down here refuses to go after the lenders?  It's been four years since the task force was created and they're still stuck on prosecuting small time fraudsters, why not go after the big guys, the people that actually fueled the mortgage meltdown?  The task force is no longer made up of inept and incapable prosecutors like Bill Kostrzewski, the men and women working their now are experienced and highly capable, so why not put together a case targeting the lenders who caused this mess?

Even if the banking industry ponies up the $20 billion and gets away from any liability for playing an indispensable role in the mortgage/real estate meltdown, they'd still be acknowledging some sort of responsibility in the crisis that ultimately brought our economy to it's knees.  That at least in my opinion is huge, suddenly the defendants in cases like the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud case who claimed that the banks were the villains don't seem so far off base. 

Prosecutors gone wild. An outrageous instance of prosecutorial misconduct in the Casey Anthony murder trial.

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Before we get started, I want to make one thing abundantly clear.  I absolutely loathe Casey Anthony, if for nothing else because of the way she carried on during the month after her daughters untimely death.  While I do believe she had something to do with her daughters death, I think it was a stretch to get anyone to believe that she was guilty of the crimes the prosecutors charged her with as did the jury who ultimately found her not guilty of first degree murder and spared her a possible death sentence.  With that said though, Ms Anthony, like anyone else charged with a crime no matter how heinous, entitled to have her day in court with the rights provided to her by the constitution.  Regardless of how horrendous the allegations against her were, law enforcement and the prosecutors still have to play by the rules, especially when it comes to exculpatory material or as it's often called, Brady Material.


Now, for those of you who followed the Anthony murder trial, you'd know that one of the prosecutions most damaging allegations against Anthony was that she googled "chloroform" 84 times during the time her daughter went "missing".  The prosecution implied to the jury that since she googled "chloroform" so many times that she must have therefore used chloroform in some way to kill her daughter.  A bit of a stretch perhaps, but it was one of the prosecutions strongest weapons against Anthony in an otherwise circumstantial case.  The prosecution came to this conclusion through a forensic computer expert named John Bradley, from the New York Times article...

The finding of 84 visits was used repeatedly during the trial to suggest that Ms. Anthony had planned to murder her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, who was found dead in 2008. Ms. Anthony, who could have faced the death penalty, was acquitted of the killing on July 5.

Ok, but at some point during the investigation Mr. Bradley comes to another conclusion about this google search for "chloroform"...

Assertions by the prosecution that Casey Anthony conducted extensive computer searches on the word “chloroform” were based on inaccurate data, a software designer who testified at the trial said Monday.


The designer, John Bradley, said Ms. Anthony had visited what the prosecution said was a crucial Web site only once, not 84 times, as prosecutors had asserted. He came to that conclusion after redesigning his software, and immediately alerted prosecutors and the police about the mistake, he said.

If he immediately alerted prosecutors and the police then why the hell didn't we or anyone else here about this during the trial?

“I gave the police everything they needed to present a new report,” Mr. Bradley said. “I did the work myself and copied out the entire database in a spreadsheet to make sure there was no issue of accessibility to the data.”

No kidding?  

Mr. Bradley, chief executive of Siquest, a Canadian company, said he even volunteered to fly to Orlando at his own expense to show them the findings.

Yet somehow the prosecution never had Mr. Bradley come down and correct his testimony, interesting.

Cheney Mason, one of Ms. Anthony’s defense lawyers, said it was “outrageous” that prosecutors withheld critical information on the “chloroform” searches.


“The prosecution is absolutely obligated to bring forth to the court any and all evidence that could be exculpatory,” Mr. Mason said. “If in fact this is true, and the prosecution concealed this new information, it is more than shame on them. It is outrageous.”

There you have it.  Even if Ms. Anthony was found guilty of all the charges against her, this instance of the prosecutors withholding exculpatory evidence would have been enough to get the verdict against her thrown out.  How the hell do these guys feel they have the right and the power to play with peoples lives like this by withholding crucial evidence like this?  This type of behavior simply highlights the "win at all costs" attitude that we've seen time and time again by morally and ethically challenged prosecutors and police.  This instance of prosecutorial misconduct is no different than Miami Dade county prosecutor Bill Kostrzewski sitting on crucial exculpatory evidence in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case (evidence that the state to this day claims doesn't exist), prosecutor Richard Scruggs sitting on exculpatory evidence in the Michelle Spence-Jones case or even worse, Prosecutor Mike Nifong's behavior in the Duke Lacrosse scandal.

Consider now for a moment what the consequences of withholding this evidence from the jury in the Anthony murder trial could have been, Casey Anthony being convicted and sentenced to death.  Is that right?  The prosecutors conducting themselves in this manner to get a conviction by any means necessary?  Think about this most egregious example of prosecutorial misconduct next time someone you know that's run afoul of the justice system tells you that the cops and prosecutors have made up evidence or are trying to railroad them, maybe you'll think twice.  Or how about the allegations of misconduct by the prosecutors and investigators involved in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial?  Doesn't seem to far fetched now, does it? 

Shame on the prosecutors and the law enforcement officers involved in this mess.  In a perfect world prosecutors Linda Drane Burdick and Jeff Ashton should be disbarred and criminally prosecuted for their behavior as should any other prosecutor who exhibits the same pattern of behavior.