Karma, reflecting on last week's events...

As we all know, last Thursday the City of South Miami commission adopted a resolution that stated that former police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's employment contract was voided when he took on the position of acting city manager.  A couple of hours later city manager, Steven Alexander, issued a memorandum appointing Major Rene Landa acting police chief since he concluded that he "had no police chief in place".

Shortly after the commission meeting, de Castro's son, Christopher Martinez de Castro, confronted me and accused me of "writing bullshit about his family, wrecking his family, putting his family through hell, etc" and ultimately concluded his tirade by calling me a "bitch ass nigger" then tried to physically attack me.  That's all well and good, its understandable that the friends and family of the de Castro clan would be upset, after all their patriarch just lost a formidable position within the community as well as six figure salary, in part because of my actions.  

This must be a traumatizing experience for the former chief and his family, I can only imagine.  Somehow though, I know what it feels like to be publicly humiliated and accused of all sorts of wrong doing, I know the shame that is visited upon a family after being written about in the local media for your alleged nefarious deed.  I suspect that the three tellers that were framed for stealing tens of thousands of dollars from de Castro's wife's tag agency have some idea of what this feels like as well, accused of wrongdoing, humiliated in public, thrown out on the street with no job, etc.  How about Warren Papove?  I suspect he knows how it feels?  Taken away from his home and thrown into detention for months on end then deported, for what?  Some bullshit immigration charge trumped up by some bogus code enforcement violation that the former chief de Castro dreamed up?

I could go on and on with stories of people getting screwed by former chief de Castro, the one distinction that Mr de Castro enjoys when compared to these other folks is that he wasn't falsely arrested, striped of his rights then had to fight the criminal court system for months if not years to clear his name.  Next time the members of the de Castro clan are sitting around thinking about how unjust everything that has happened to them is and what an asshole I am for writing about their misdeeds, think about the people that you've fucked over and just how bad you've altered the course of their lives.  

Consider that the girls from the Airways Auto Tag case were/are facing 190 years in prison for the crimes that you've accused them of committing, consider how you racially profiled and victimized prominent attorney Joe Klock's law clerk countless times for no other reason than his skin color, consider the different city employees, constituents and former elected officials whose lives were shattered because of your political machinations.  Take a moment while you're stewing over what happened to you over the last year or so culminating with the loss of your beloved job as chief and think about the people I've mentioned and the countless numbers of people I haven't mentioned and contemplate what you've done to them before you lash out at me or any of your other critics.  Only then can you come to peace with yourself and your actions.

The benefits of having a police chief as a friend...

A few weeks back we discussed how embattled City of South Miami police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, abused the federal NCIC database to look up people for apparently no good reason.  Specifically we mentioned to people that the chief looked up, one of which was prominent attorney Joe Klock...

Mr. Klock didn't respond to our request for a comment, but shortly after we made our blog post, Mr. Klock responded to the New Times when they covered our story and said...

This is an invasion of privacy and a violation of a person's Fourth Amendment rights," Stoddard says. "When the chief of police is doing this, we have a serious problem."
Adds Klock: "I think the police chief believes he is above the law and he can do anything he wants. The people who continue to employ him can solve the problem by firing him."

Very well.  Now let's move on to the second person that the chief looked up, leader of the nonprofit Cuban exile organization Brothers to the Rescue, Jose Basulto...

Rather than get ignored with an email request for a comment, I decided to call Mr. Basulto and see what he thought of the chief running his name through the NCIC system,  I certainly wasn't expecting the response that I got!  When I got Mr. Basulto on the phone he told me that Mr de Castro was a good friend and that he used the NCIC system to look him up as a favor to see if there were anything going on that he should know about!

WTF?!  Really?  A friend asks a fucking police chief to run his criminal background to see if there's anything that he needs to be made aware of?!

No shit!  I won't even get into how outrageous this situation is, I'll leave it up to you guys to deal with it in the comments section...

What exactly is a plea of "No Contest"?

As we all know, embattled City of South Miami police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, took a plea of no contest in his case before the Miami Dade County Commission on Ethics.  While we all know what a plea of "no contest" means, let's take a look at the definition as provided by Law.com...

n. in criminal law, a defendant's plea in court that he/she will not contest the charge of a particular crime, also called nolo contendere. While technically not an admission of guilt for commission of the crime, the judge will treat a plea of "no contest" as such an admission and proceed to find the defendant guilty as charged. A "no contest" plea is often made in cases in which there is also a possible lawsuit for damages by a person injured by the criminal conduct (such as reckless driving, assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated assault), because it cannot be used in the civil lawsuit as an admission of fault. "No contest" is also used where there has been a "plea bargain" in which the defendant does not want to say he/she is guilty but accepts the sentence recommended by the prosecutor in exchange for not contesting the charge (which is often reduced to a lesser crime). It is standard practice for the judge to ask either the attorneys or the defendant, "Is there a factual basis for the plea?" before accepting it and finding the defendant guilty.

Simple enough.  I think this bit is most interesting...

While technically not an admission of guilt for commission of the crime, the judge will treat a plea of "no contest" as such an admission and proceed to find the defendant guilty as charged

While there was no judge in the ethics case, there was a quasi judicial board that had to approve the chief's plea deal.  And remember, regardless of how lame the outcome of the case was, the advocate for the Ethics Commission, Michael Murawski, did say...

There is substantial evidence to show that De Castro was, in fact, well aware that his department did business with his wife’s company...

The obvious question is despite the airtight case against the chief, why the hell did the ethics commission cut him a deal?  We think we answered that last week.  The only question that remains to be asked then is why did the chief take this plea rather than go ahead to trial?  We're going to examine why and discuss further tomorrow.

The truth behind the embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's ethics hearing.

As you all know embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro got a slap on the wrist and a small fine that was classified as "investigative costs" by the ethics commission.  A total farce in my opinion.  Our friend Al Crespo did a bang up job covering the hearing and also included a short video of what went on, check it...

That's all well and good, to the average guy it seems like the chief had his day before this quasi judicial panel and after a year and a half this was the outcome.

The Miami Herald even follows up their original story and gives the reader a glimmer of hope that the chief might still suffer a more serious punishment than what was doled out last week...

The draft final order written by Murawski states the commission “specifically made no finding as to whether the violation was or was not ‘willful.’”
That draft order has not yet been adopted by the commission, and each side will present draft final orders for the ethics commission to consider next month.

This part about the violations that the chief pled no contest to being "willfull" is the most important part though as if the commission finds that the violations are willful, the chief automatically forfeits his job as the chief of police.  While the commission is going to vote on this part of the chief's deal next month, it's just a matter of them deciding which final order the commission is going to adopt, the one written by the commission or the one written by the chief's attorney.  That's a good one isn't it?  The commission adopting an order written by the defendants attorney?!

In case there's any of you who don't realize what went on here and need further clarification, let's make it a bit clearer using some photos.  Before we start, let's preface this discussion with the claim that City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro makes about his relationship with our State Attorney, Katherine Ferndandez Rundle, according to everything I've heard, the chief claims that he is one of Rundle's closest friends and confidants, so close in fact that they're borderline family.  Good enough.  With that in mind, let's take a look at who attended this ethics hearing, starting with the head of the ethics commission himself, Joe Centorino...

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/12/v-print/3497731/south-miami-police-chief-pleads.html#storylink=cpy

I know it's a shitty picture, I lifted it from Al Crespo's video of the actual hearing.  Look how interested Joe looks in what's going on and what's being discussed.  Let's not forget that Mr. Centorino was the former head of public corruption over at the state attorneys office, Rundle's golden boy for when she wanted to prosecute political figures.  From his own bio...

Joseph Centorino assumed the position of Executive Director of the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust on September 1, 2011, following his laudatory 25-year career at the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. For most of that time, he served as Chief of the Public Corruption Division where he oversaw the investigation and prosecution of crimes committed by public officers and employees.

Good enough, anyone with a modicum of common sense can see that there is a pretty strong relationship between Mr. Centorino and our state attorney Ms Rundle.

Now, let's move on to the chief's attorney, Mr Simon Steckel, from an old New Times article regarding Mr. Steckel...

Steckel nonetheless was at the peak of his professional life. As a successful prosecutor he had moved quickly up the ladder at the Dade State Attorney's Office. Over four short years he had risen from intern to supervisor, then division chief.

Another former prosecutor, a division chief no less.  While I don't know of any direct relationship between Mr. Steckel and our state attorney, the possibility for some sort of connection is there.

Now, the last member of the chief's defense team is in my opinion the most interesting, take a look at this guy...

That's attorney Michael Band, another former top prosecutor with close ties to our state attorney, Mr. Band was one of our state attorneys most trusted division chief's as well as a close personal and family friend.  What exactly was he doing at this hearing?  Just how many attorney's does the chief need to defend a case before the ethics commission?

Regardless of what Mr. Band was doing at the hearing, the scene that played out was an obvious one, an alleged good friend of one of the most powerful people in South Florida, Katherine Fernandez Rundle, is being prosecuted by a commission that's led by one of her former top and closest employees and as luck would have it, another former top employee and family friend is representing her friend in front of the ethics commission.  Come on, honestly, did anyone expect an outcome any different than what we got?  Can you possibly think of a better example of how this network of politically connected folks down here protects their own?

From the get go, this entire ethics case has been nothing more than a sham, a dog and pony show, an orchestrated scheme to make the citizens of our county think there was some sort of watchdog watching over politicians and public employees.  I think the relationship between the folks that run the ethics commission, the attorneys that represented the chief and our state attorney will make you think twice about how "ethical" the handling of this case was.

The Miami Herald covers embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's ethics case

The folks over at the Miami Herald did a bang up job reporting on embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's ethics case today.  Take a look for yourselves...

South Miami police chief to go before ethics commission

BY DANIEL DUCASSI AND MARIA PEREZThe Miami Herald

South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez De Castro will appear in front of the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust on Thursday facing charges that he steered city business to his wife’s companies, Airways Auto Tag LLC and Beck and Lo’s Insurance Agency, Inc. The ethics-commission advocate will likely present a settlement agreement. It is unknown if De Castro and/or the commission will accept it.

De Castro is accused of violating the city’s ethics code, which bars city employees from doing business with immediate family members who have a financial interest with the city. Willful violation constitutes malfeasance and results in forfeiture of office. He is also charged with violating the county’s ethics code, which prohibits exploiting one’s official position. 

“There is substantial evidence to show that De Castro was, in fact, well aware that his department did business with his wife’s company,” according to the probable-cause memorandum, written by the ethics commission’s advocate, Michael Murawski. He refused to comment on the case. 

His memo states the city did business with Airways Auto Tag in February, June, and October 2011.A fourth charge alleges that De Castro was soliciting business for his wife’s insurance company using his city email address. 

The issues were first reported in March 2012 by a local blogger known as The Straw Buyer. The blogger also filed the complaint against the chief.

Murawski’s memo presents an interview with Lt. Dan Salerno (now retired from the police department) who asked De Castro in 2011 whether his wife could help obtain titles for vehicles forfeited to police after being used in felonies. Salerno said the chief answered “yes” and gave Salerno his wife’s phone number. 

“Salerno was taken aback when he was advised that De Castro claimed to have no knowledge of Airways’ business transactions with the city,” the memo said.Interoffice memos requesting checks payable to Airways do not have De Castro’s signature on them but were addressed to De Castro. 

De Castro has denied knowledge of the city doing business with his wife and denied giving any order to do so, according to the memo. The memo states De Castro admitted he gave Salerno his wife’s phone number but that Salerno wanted to ask for help in filling out the forms — not give her city business. 

However, the memo also states Salerno said his understanding was that De Castro gave him his wife’s number to have her tag agency handle the matter — not merely to offer help — and that Salerno worked with Ileana Martinez De Castro every time he went to Airways.For her part, Ileana Martinez De Castro said that she does not discuss her business with her husband or anyone, according to the memo. 

After evolving over months of negotiations, the settlement agreement likely to be offered to De Castro would have him plead no contest to the first three counts, while the fourth count would be dropped. He would also have to pay $2,000 in “investigative costs” and receive a letter of instruction. The agreement, as well as the draft order from the commission, specifically states that the commission makes no determination as to whether or not the violation was willful or knowing. 

South Miami Mayor Phil Stoddard, who wants to see the chief fired, said he thinks the chief would be getting off easy if the commission accepts the settlement and that the agreement does not serve the public interest. 

“The police chief is the highest law enforcement officer in the city,” Stoddard said. “If he is accused of breaking the law and the investigations have it clear, why are they betraying the public trust?”

Now, considering the evidence that the Herald story discusses against the chief, how the hell is it possible for the ethics commission to give him a slap on the wrist and a small fine then send him on his way?  What's so telling though is that despite all the assertions by the Ethics Commissions advocate  Michael Murawski, about having such a slam dunk open and shut case, Mr. Murawski couldn't comment on the case when asked by the Herald reporters.  

This case was supposed to have been concluded a couple of months back with a sweetheart deal for the chief as we had discussed before but because of scheduling problems, the conclusion of the case had been delayed, conveniently to the middle of the summer when there's no one around to be finished.  The hearing at the Ethics Commission is today at 10 am if any of you have an hour or so to waste.

Nice work by the Herald's Daniel Ducassi and Maria Perez on reporting this story.

Justice delayed or justice denied?

Here we are over two years from the date that the tellers at the Airways Auto Tag Agency were accused and arrested for allegedly stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the tag agency and the state.  After nearly two and a half years after the fact, today the court docket indicates that the trial of these three tellers is supposed to start.  

While the docket might give some degree of hope for this mess to come to an end, the reality, at least in my opinion, is far different.  You can't go to trial without having deposed witnesses that were involved in the case at hand.  In this particular instance, one of the main witnesses is none other than embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Maritnez de Castro, whose wife owns the tag agency where the alleged thefts occurred.  For reasons unbeknownst to me or anyone else, Mr. Martinez de Castro refuses to appear for a deposition, now this is nothing new for the chief as we saw this same pattern of behavior with the Ethics Commission, through trickery and subterfuge, Mr. Martinez de Castro and his lawyers managed to keep from getting deposed throughout the course or the ethics investigation and the discovery phase of the Airways tellers case.  

The question that begs to be asked is why is a veteran law enforcement officer, who I'm sure knows how to deal with attorneys, avoiding getting deposed?  What exactly is the chief afraid of?  Regardless of the games the chief is playing to avoid getting deposed, what excuse do the defense attorneys have for not having the court compel the chief to appear at a deposition?

Whatever the case may be, there is no excuse for a case like this to drag on for over two years, two years during which the defendants lives are in limbo, two plus years where the defendants are literally unemployable and are watching everything crumble around them.  I don't know who's more to blame, the prosecutors for not moving forward with the case or the defense attorneys for not insisting that the case go forward in a reasonable period of time.  

Regardless, in this instance, justice delayed is justice denied.  Who knows, maybe today the judge will hold the attorneys feet to the fire and make them try the case or perhaps the tellers will get lucky and the state will drop the case.  We'll fill you all in tomorrow and let you know what went down in court.

THE HEAT and some pretty embarrassing stats for embattled City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro

As much as I'd like to sit here and write about the goings on in local politics or the asshat that I helped get indicted yesterday, I'm too happy and way too tired to to so after last nights Heat victory!  So today we're going to have a first, a guest blogger whose given us a rather interesting perspective into the City of South Miami's chief of police, Orlando Martinez de Castro's performance over the last few years as chief.

How good a police chief is Orlando Martinez de Castro? You decide.

South Miami Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro’s contract states:

“The Parties agree that Opa Locka, North Miami, North Miami Beach and Homestead are comparable cities for the purpose of evaluating changes in crime statistics over time.”

The Chief chose these comparison cities himself, so let’s look at FDLE’s crime statistics for these cities and see how his performance has stacked up to his handpicked competition. Chief Martinez de Castro was re-hired as South Miami’s Chief in October 2010, so we’ll use 2010 as a baseline for comparison. Are we being fair so far?

Compared to the average changes for police departments in the Chief’s comparison cities, South Miami’s total crime changes rose 3%, burglaries rose 17%, and percent of crimes resolved by the SMPD (clearance rate) fell 17%. These numbers speak for themselves.

Beyond these dismal numbers, in the two and 2/3 years Mr. Martinez de Castro has been Chief in South Miami his department has failed to achieve state or national accreditation.

For this performance, the former city manager gave the chief $10,000 in merit raises while his rank and file got nothing, and the PBA gave Chief Martinez de Castro “leadership” awards two years in a row. For this same performance, the City Commission fired the manager and voted no confidence in the Chief, both by 3:2 votes.

Yikes!  Those are pretty damming numbers, aren't they?  With that said, thanks to our reader and guest blogger that compiled those stats for us.  Till next time, have a great weekend and GO HEAT!

If the broad light of day could be let in upon men’s actions, it would purify them as the sun disinfects.

Yesterday we soldiered over to the Miami Dade Commission on Ethics for their monthly hearing where we expected to see the ethics case against embattled city of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro come to a conclusion.  As we had mentioned in yesterday's post, the good folks over at the Ethics Commission had cut a sweet heart deal with the chief and his attorneys where he essentially plead no contest and was given a small fine (which wasn't classified as a fine) and then sent on his way.

Unfortunately though not enough of the ethics commission board members showed up to form a quorum so the board couldn't vote on the plea deal, essentially it was a total waste of time for everyone that showed up.  With that said, I can't begin to describe how disappointed I am in how things have turned out over at the Commission on Ethics regarding this matter.  I personally met several times with investigators and the advocate, Michael Murawski, who theoretically is there to represent the people of Miami Dade County.  Generally, I think I'm pretty good at reading people and I have to tell you, Mr Murawski and his staff did one hell of a job bullshitting me about this case, they had me convinced that they were moving forward at all costs against the chief and that they had an open and shut case.  Unfortunately though, I was wrong, the fix was in long ago in this case, Mr Murawski and company were doing nothing but what they've been accused of time and time again, simply giving free passes to the politically connected here in Miami Dade County.

Go back and listen to Mr Murawski in the recording we posted yesterday where he vehemently states that he had a strong enough case where if he went forward, he was certain he was going to prevail.  With that said, he then goes on to say that it was in the public's interest to go ahead and cut a deal with a man who he knew was guilty of the ethics violations that were filed against him.  I ask you this, if we're talking about the public's interest to cut a deal with this character and let him off the hook, how the hell did it take nearly a year and a half to come to this conclusion?  Was it in the public's interest for the ethics commission to spin it's wheels for the past year and half?  Just how much did it cost the tax payers before you came to this conclusion Mr. Murawski?  The fine, I'm sorry, investigative costs that you billed Mr de Castro for, just how many hours of your "investigation" does that actually cover?

It's all bullshit folks, the Miami Dade Commission on Ethics is nothing more than a dog and pony show, a sham, a total waste of money.  

As frustrating as the whole experience was, I emerged from the aborted meeting in a funk and a cloud of confusion, that is until I made it out to the hallway outside the ethics commission's offices where at the other end of the hallway just out of earshot I found this scene...

Granted, that's a pretty shitting photo that's been cropped but what you see there is a meeting between Mr Murawski, Orlando Martinez de Castro and his attorneys and way in the back you can see possibly one of the worst former police chiefs in the history of the City of Miami, Kenneth Harms.  This scene made me as well as everyone else who saw it extremely uncomfortable.  What we see here is the advocate for the people of Miami Dade County, Murawski, cavorting with the very people he was supposedly fighting against on our behalf.  While it's technically not a violation of the state's sunshine laws, this meeting gave off an air of impropriety and definitely erased any veneer of impartiality that these ethics proceedings may have had.

With that said, our friend and fellow blogger, Al Crespo, came to the rescue and decided to confront Mr Murawski and crew, I managed to capture a shitty video of the entire interaction...



In case you couldn't make out the audio, here's how it went down...

Al Crespo: We figured we'd stand in and listen to the conversation, you got a public hallway, you got a public official here...

Murawski: Well we'll go someplace that's not public.

Al Crespo: Oh ok!

Unknown: Thank you for giving us this opportunity.

Emaciated looking old man under his breath: Straw buyer

Al Crespo: Always good to see transparency in government!

SWEET!  There you have it!  We no longer have to imagine how these backdoor deals go down, now you see it right before your eyes!  A perfect example of how things are done here in Miami Dade County, of all places at the Ethics Commission no less, which brings us to the title of today's post, a quote from former supreme court justice Louis Brandeis...

If the broad light of day could be let in upon men’s actions, it would purify them as the sun disinfects.

As soon as the sunlight hit the characters in the hallway, they scurried away like rats!  

Fuck it, just another day in Miami!  Till next time...

Meanwhile at the Ethics Commission....

Last month the Miami Dade County Ethics Commission met to discuss a possible plea deal for embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro in the ethics case that was filed as a result of his sending city business to his wife's tag agency.  We've had an audio recording of what went on during that meeting but have been struggling for weeks to try to figure out how the hell to post it in such a way that you guys can listen to it.  With that said, hopefully this link will let you listen in on what went on at the last ethics commission meeting...

The man you hear speaking on behalf of the citizens of Miami Dade County is Michael Murawski who is the staff attorney over at the commission who is responsible for handling the case against Mr de Castro.  The recording speaks for itself, according to Mr Murawski the South Miami cops are protecting their chief and refuse to testify against him and aside from paying some fines that the ethics commission have reclassified as "investigative costs", the chief is pleading "no contest" and being given a letter of instruction.  That was what was supposed to happen but then at the last minute the chief's criminal attorney, Simon Steckel, said that he had to talk to his client before he could accept the deal therefore delaying the plea till the next ethics commission meeting, which turns out to be today, June 13.  Hopefully we'll be able to get a recording of today's meeting, as soon as we get it we'll post it up.

The question that remains unanswered though is that if Mr. Murawski and his colleagues over at the ethics commission are so sure that they'd prevail if they went forward against the chief, then why the hell did they cut such a sweet deal and basically give him a slap on the wrist for what was an open and shut case?

Meanwhile at embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's deposition...

As we mentioned yesterday, embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro was supposed to be deposed by the defense attorneys representing the three tellers that were arrested as part of the Airways Auto Tag Agency case.  Everything was all set to go at 2:30 pm then at the last minute, Mr. Martinez de Castro through his attorney (I believe Simon Steckel), decided to cancel the deposition.

I don't get it, whether it's ducking depositions from the Ethics Commission or avoiding depositions in this criminal case where the chief and his wife allege that their employees stole tens of thousands of dollars from them, Mr. Martinez de Castro seems to do anything he can to avoid getting deposed.  I wonder why?  Does he have something to hide?  Is he scared of all those big bad lawyers?  Perhaps he's afraid of the questions they might ask him?  Who knows.  The next trial date for the Airways criminal case is just one month away, perhaps by the Martinez de Castro clan continually cancelling their depositions, maybe they think that they'll pressure the defendants into taking a plea?  Whatever.

Another interesting development is that the other Airways Auto Tag Agency employees that were scheduled to be deposed have all lawyered up.  How does that work?  Considering that these people survive on a meager income and theoretically have nothing to hide, how and why did they hire attorneys to represent them in a deposition?  

Whatever the case, things will definitely get interesting over the next few weeks.  Now on another note, here's another example of our constitutional rights getting trampled on again, in the fair state of New York, it's now a FELONY to annoy a police officer!  Check it for yourselves...

"A PERSON IS GUILTY OF AGGRAVATED HARASSMENT OF A POLICE OFFICER OR PEACE OFFICER WHEN, WITH THE INTENT TO HARASS, ANNOY, THREATEN OR ALARM"

Thank god we don't live in New York any more! 

An update on embattled City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's ethics case.

There's been plenty of rumors leading up to the deadline given to embattled City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro to accept a plea in his ethics case that's before the Miami Dade county ethics commission.  We've heard all sorts of stories ranging from the ethics commission dropping the charges or even having the chief admit no guilt and pay a fine.  To say those rumors were disheartening would be an understatement, if indeed any of those rumors were true, it would just feed into the overall belief that the Ethics Commission is nothing but a paper tiger that was solely in existence to give free passes to those who are politically connected in our town.

With that said, I reached out to my source at the ethics commission to see what was going on since the deadline that we were told for the plea offer, May 22, had come and gone and to see if this rumor about the chief dispensing of the case with a simple fine and no admission of guilt was true.  The response I got regarding the rumors was short and sweet, THEY ARE FALSE and it appears that the ethics case is going to trail!

It looks like it's going to be an interesting next few months as the ethics commission moves forward with it's case against the chief.  Till then, next week we'll pick up where we left off with our first amendment rights being trampled on by the state attorneys office and we'll deal with a public information request from the City of South Miami regarding the federal NCIC database.

And yet another letter from a City of South Miami Police officer and a well written order regarding Michelle Spence-Jones

Once again, continuing our theme from this week, letters from City of South Miami police officers regarding their chief, we have another letter much in the spirit of the other we posted earlier...

Same theme, same threats of retaliation against the chief's detractors, etc.  Could this be a case of a few disgruntled officers or could it be the prevailing mindset over at the PD?  We'll see, as we said earlier, we have more letters that we'll post up.

On another unrelated note, we haven't been following City of Miami commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones struggle to be able to run for a third term lately, apparently former commissioner Richard Dunn filed suit against Spence-Jones and the City of Miami in order to prevent her from running again.  After the judge ruled against Spence-Jones and effectively prohibited her from running again, Spence-Jones accused the judge who was a former prosecutor of not disclosing that he had previously investigated her while he worked at the Public Corruption Unit of the state attorneys office.  Due to these allegations of misconduct, yesterday the judge recused  himself and took a couple of shots at Spence-Jones while doing so.  Check out the order courtesy of the Justice Building Blog...

Cueto order from Justicebuilding

We're getting letters from City of South Miami police officers regarding their embattled chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro!

Have things finally gotten so bad over at the City of South Miami police department that it's officers are writing anonymous letters for me to publish?  I guess so!  This week we're going to post several letters that found their way to that appear to be written by unhappy police officers over at the South Miami PD.  While the letters are anonymous and leave me with no concrete way of authenticating them, the tone of the letters seem genuine.  Also, the way the letters are written lead me to believe that they have different authors, therefore making it unlikely that they were written by the same person.

With all that said, let's take a look at the first letter that we received, as always, click on the image to enlarge...

That's all for today, more letters tomorrow and even better, we'll conclude on Friday with a letter that the chief attorney wrote me!

WHOOPS! We made a mistake regarding the LeoAffairs police message board.

Yesterday while discussing a post on the South Miami section of the LeoAffairs website, we suggested the following...

Secondly, if the chief has a friend or supporter that's moderating that subsection of the South Miami forum then that same moderator has access to all the IP addresses of anyone that posts on the forum. The IP addresses along with the resources a law enforcement officer has at their disposal makes it a breeze to be able to identify whoever is making the derogatory posts about the chief or his department therefore making it impossible to have a proper vote of no confidence.

After posting that, one of our readers sent us this excerpt from the LeoAffairs website...

Moderators are unpaid volunteers assigned to Message Boards. They are responsible for enforcing the Terms of Use by Deleting inappropriate content, Editing content on rare occasions and Submitting the worst offenders for Banning. Moderators should read through new content on their respective Message Boards on a daily basis and, when this is impractical, the use of additional Moderators can be arranged. Moderators should also access the Moderator Forum at least weekly for updates, training, etc. Moderators are also encouraged to post frequently as the Moderator, Themselves and Anonymously. Moderators’ identities are strictly confidential and, those whose identities have been compromised will be removed. Moderators DO NOT have access to IP addresses.Ok, if you say so!  I was basing what I said on my own experience moderating internet forums where the moderators have complete access to posters IP addresses as well as registration info.  I suppose that it's entirely possible that the LeoAffairs website is set up completely differently.

Now with that out of the way, someone has actually forwarded us anonymous letters written by South Miami police officers complaining about the chief and how he runs his police department.  Stay tuned, we'll post those letters tomorrow.

In the mean time, while we're trying to figure out a fair way of conducting a no confidence vote for the chief, I'm told by my sources that a prominent local politician has been conducting meetings with the Broward State Attorneys office regarding the Miami Dade county absentee ballot scandal.  If what they're saying is true, you're going to see a lot of political heads roll.  I'll update as I get more information.

Where are all the South Miami cops going?

I overheard some interesting statistics yesterday regarding the City of South Miami police department.  This 2.5 square mile city has a police department that consists of 35 officers and detectives, seems a bit much for such a small city, but whatever.  What's interesting though is that recently, three of those thirty five have left and six more have applied for work in different police departments.  A quick glance at the Leoaffairs.com South Miami forum shows several thread topics where cops are discussing looking at work in other departments.

So what's the deal here?  Based on these stats nearly 26% of the pd is either gone or about to leave, that doesn't say much about the pd and those who lead it.  Could it have something to do with the Chief's overreaching political machinations or just low moral based on the poor leadership under the current administration?  

Regardless, whenever you have a quarter of your police force heading out the door, that kind of turnover is never good for the city...

I'm beginning to think that the folks over at the City of South Miami don't wan't to cooperate with me.

Is it just me or do the people over at the City of South Miami's clerk office not want to cooperate with me? I've sent over a few public information requests to the city clerk, the first few were ignored and most recently I got this response when I requested any and all email communications between City of Miami director of human resources Latasha Nickle and the police chief's wife, Ileana Martinez de Castro or any representatives of Airways Auto Tag Agency...

Regarding the Public Records request below for any and all emails between Latasha Nickle and Iliana Martinez de Castro there are no messages that come up on a search with that criteria. The PRR also requests that any emails from employees of the agency be included however without specific names that search cannot be performed. I have no information on the agency or it’s employees.

Thank you
Emily

That's strange, either I was vague about the scope of my public information request or there are no emails between the parties that I identified in my request or worse, the emails that I requested do exist and someone over at the City of South Miami is trying to keep anyone from seeing them.

So what's the big deal you ask about some possible emails between a human resources director and the police chief or his wife?  A quick search reveals a very interesting fact about Ms. Nickle, it seems that in addition to her job as a Human Resources director over at the city, Ms. Nickle is also an attorney who's office address is listed as the City of South Miami's city hall...

Now there certainly is nothing wrong with a lawyer being the director of Human Resources although I'm sure this isn't the job Ms. Nickle had in mind when she graduated from law school.  So what's the point of all this?  I'm guessing with a lawyer on staff over at the city, especially one that's in such close proximity to the police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, that there's a pretty good chance that the chief may use Ms. Nickle to do legal work that has nothing to do with the city or any city business.  After all, imagine the convenience of having a lawyer at your beck and call just a few steps away from you free of charge to you?  It's certainly a possibility.   What remains to be seen though is whether or not the chief actually had Ms. Nickle do any legal work for him and if he did so whether or not there were any email correspondences between them, if indeed there were then these emails would be subject to a public information request under Public Records Act, Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes.


We'll give the public information request another shot, perhaps this time we'll word it a bit differently and maybe we'll get lucky, if we do though then things are going to get a lot worse for the police chief...