Does special agent Roadruck of the FDLE have X Ray vision? Also, federally indicted City of Miami Assistant Fire Chief Veldora Arthur is on the road again!

I'm in a bit of a rush today so I'll leave you to ponder this question over the weekend; does special agent Roadruck of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have X Ray vision or is he just a poor investigator?

We'll discuss on Monday.  Now, here we are nearing summers end and what do you know, federally indicted City of Miami Assistant Fire Chief Veldora Arthur wants to travel again!  Take a look at the motion...

Veldora Arthur Second Motion to Travel


THE FUCK YOU SAY!  Let's not forget that Ms. Arthur had just taken off to the Bahamas from April 21 through April 24th then to the Carolinas from May 26 through May 31, now Ms. Arthur is off on another trip August 7 through August 21st!!!!!!  WHAT IN THE FUCK!!!????  That's 25 vacation days just in the past five months alone.  If that isn't bad enough, our sources tell us that Ms. Arthur has been on paid leave from her position in the City since her indictment early this year! 

I have a really hard time with this whole Veldora Arthur thing, this woman is a black eye on the City's fire department.  Think about it for a minute, the City of Miami Firefighters want to initiate a recall against Mayor Tomas Regalado for trying to balance the city's budget by cutting their salaries and benefits, how does it look when you have people like Veldora making over $300k per year, sitting at home on administrative leave then taking 25 days of vacation over the course of five months?!  Not to mention that she's been federally indicted for crimes that would have gotten anyone else fired from their jobs!

Like they say, only in Miami!

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.

Keeping the inconvenient truths from the jury in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud trial.

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Throughout the course of the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case the defendants have contended that the lead investigator from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), Dennis Roadruck has been intimidating, threatening and coercing witnesses to get them to say what he needed.  That kind of behavior from a cop is hardly in keeping with the "we who labor here seek only the truth" signs that we discussed yesterday.  It's always been our opinion when witness testimony is obtained using threats and coercion, the testimony is worthless.  This is no different than torturing an innocent person until they finally break and say whatever you want them to in order to stop the torture or as we discussed months ago, MDPD Detective Jorge Baluja scaring a key witness in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case shitless till she lied and told him exactly what he wanted to hear in order to put his case together.

So here comes FDLE special agent Dennis Roadruck who the defendants accuse of intimidating, threatening and coercing witnesses, shouldn't the jury sitting in judgement of the defendants know that the case was possibly put together with statements and witness testimony that was obtained through these illicit means by the investigator?  Also, what if the investigator has a history of such behavior?  In the Barrera mortgage fraud case we were able to dig up proof that the lead detective, Jorge Baluja, couldn't tell his ass from his elbow (check this article), if the case had ended up going to trial, don't you think the jury would have been entitled to hear about the detective's history of screwing up cases?  I certainly do.  So if there existed some sort of proof of Agent Roadruck threatening and intimidating people, wouldn't it be relevant to his credibility and the credibility of the witness statements that he's produced as result of his interviews throughout his investigation?  Of course it would be relevant, take a look at these statements chronicling special agent Roadruck's history of domestic violence...

Dennis Roadruck domestic violence reports

The report documents several instances of assault, battery, stalking, false imprisonment, kidnapping, etc by Agent Roadruck against his estranged wife.  Considering the accusations made in that report, does it seem far fetched that special agent Roadruck may have crossed the line when interviewing witnesses in the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case?  Of course not.  If this is the way you deal with your own family, how can you be expected to deal with total strangers that you're interviewing in a criminal investigation?  Surely the jury should know about this kind of a pattern of behavior by the man who built this case, right?  I don't think anyone with a modicum of common sense could argue that Mr. Roadruck's history of domestic violence isn't relative to his behavior in the Plantation Cop's mortgage fraud case, that is anyone other than the prosecutors prosecuting the case...

Government's Motion in Limine to exclude Dennis Roadruck previous history of domestic violence

According to that motion, the prosecutors don't want the jury to know about Mr. Roadruck's history, they go so far as to say that the claims of domestic violence are "unproved allegations".  Unproven allegations?  Mr. Roadruck's ex wife states she has tape recordings of threats from her husband as well as other police reports documenting the abuse, yet according to the prosecutors the allegations "carry a high and unfair level of prejudice to agent Roadruck and the government"!  NO SHIT!  Of course they do, the prove a long history of what the defendants are alleging, that the investigator who built the case has a history of threatening and intimidating people to get what he wants.  

How couldn't this be important for the jury to hear?!  What happened to that quest to "seek the truth"?  I guess that quest is solely limited to the truths that help the prosecution while anything that helps the defense needs to kept from the jury, truth and justice be damned.

Indicted City of Miami assistant fire chief Veldora Arthur and firefighter Thomas Thelusma on paid leave?! And "Operation Cop out", what's in a name?

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Could this be true? Several sources as well as several of our commenters tell us that both Veldora Arthur and Thomas Thelusma have been on paid administrative leave since they were federally indicted for mortgage fraud! From our comments section...

Anonymous said...

Where the F*^k are the Cops!Veldora Arthur has been on PAID LEAVE since March! Now Thomas Thelusma has the same special 'LEAVE' Plan!! WTF I total agree that all are innocent until proving guilty BUT that doesn't mean you CANT WORK. But then again we DON'T Get IT.....because its a 'Black Thing'.

May 19, 2011 10:09 AM

While I don't agree with the "black thing" comment, the rest is very troubling if true. As we've said time and time again, we believe in the presumption of innocence, innocent till proven guilty, but this business of getting federally indicted and then being put on paid administrative leave is a bit much, isn't it?


What's even more troubling is the fact that the cops indicted in operation "Cop out" aka the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case were put on "leave" without pay after they were indicted. Why did the cops get sent home with no money while having to prove their innocence while the City of Miami fire department employees get to stay home while still raking in six figures? Worse still, with the City of Miami teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, how the hell can they justify paying these federally indicted employees while they're sitting at home? Can we really afford to have anyone sitting at home while getting paid as if they were at work?


Now, going back to the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud case, aka "Operation Cop out", we learned yesterday that the decision to go after the cops was made by FDLE special agent Dennis Roadruck...

In the spoilation hearing before this court Lead Agent Dennis Roadruck testified that he in his sole disgression limited this investigation to the cops.

I wonder what it was about the cops that caused agent Roadruck to focus his attention on them and them alone? We've been told time and time again throughout the course of this investigation and subsequent trial that the mortgage brokers involved, Rene Rodriguez and Matt Gulla, had committed hundreds if not thousands of similar frauds. Even worse, the government was not only aware of these other cases of fraud but they also had the mortgage brokers records and hard drives which contained proof of these frauds, so why did this investigation only zero in on the cops that were indicted?

You guys hash it out and we'll discuss further next time.