Wacky conspiracy theories...

I must apologize to our loyal readers for my sporadic posting of late, I've been extremely busy out in the real world and haven't had enough time to dedicate to the blog and all the things we've been talking about.  Today, I'd like you guys to think of all the various conspiracy theories that we've all heard about throughout the years, whether it's the moon landing hoax conspiracy, the Pearly Harbor attack conspiracy or the JFK assassination conspiracy.  Think about how many moving parts each of these conspiracies have and just how many people have to participate in the stories to make them viable.

With that in mind, I'd like you to revisit this statement from former City of South Miami city manager Hector Mirabile when asked for a statement from the Miami Herald regarding the Chief of Police, Orlando Martinez de Castro, sending city business to his wife's tag agency...

City Manager Hector Mirabile said Martinez de Castro knew nothing about the purchases at the time they were made, and when he found out, immediately told his staff to stop using his wife’s company.

Think about that statement, we'll discuss tomorrow when we discover a conspiracy over at the City of South Miami that will make the moon landing hoax pale in comparison!

An interesting thought...

I lay awake last night thinking about the Airways Auto Tag mess, the three girls that were railroaded by our favorite police chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro and asshat former MDPD detective Jorge Baluja when it dawned on me that the investigation into the alleged theft of tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars from the tag agency was done all wrong.

Considering the alleged theft occurred using computers and the internet, it seems to me that the jurisdiction wasn't correct.  See, the agency that investigated and subsequently arrested the three tellers was Miami Dade County, while they have the authority to do anything throughout the county, I would think that because the wires (internet, phone lines etc) were used, the proper jurisdiction would have been federal.  Take a look at the federal wire fraud statute and tell me what you think...

18 U.S.C. § 1343 provides:

Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. If the violation affects a financial institution, such person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.^[3]

See what I mean?  So why weren't the feds called in to investigate this case? It's simple.  If the feds did come in they would have done a proper investigation and Chief Martinez de Castro wouldn't have been able to influence the investigation the way he did with the county cops.  More importantly, I'm sure the feds don't have anyone nearly as stupid as former MDPD detective Jorge Baluja on their payroll!

Now, go back and review the events surrounding the Airways Auto Tag mess, tell me, how do you think a real cop would perceive things?  I wonder if it's worthwhile to give the feds a call.  What do you guys think?

So what about that ethics hearing that was supposed to happen this month?

Several months ago the Miami Dade Ethics Commission sent out a press release stating that they were going to move forward with a public hearing into the alleged ethics violations committed by City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro.  In case you missed it, here it is again...

Police Chief faces ethics violations
The police chief of South Miami is facing four charges of violating ethics laws for steering city business to his wife’s companies. The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust (COE) today found probable cause that Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro violated South Miami’s “prohibition on transacting business with the city,” as well the County Conflict of Interest and Code of Ethics Ordinance’s “prohibition on exploitation of official position.” The complaint against Martinez de Castro (C 12-31) cites three times during 2011when the South Miami Police Department contracted with Airways Auto Tag Agency for tags and titles for forfeiture vehicles. Airways is owned by Ileana Martinez de Castro, the police chief’s wife. She also owns Beck & Lo’s Insurance Agency, Inc. Last April, Chief de Castro used his city e-mail account to solicit business for his wife’s agency. The case will proceed to a public hearing.

Shortly after the press release, our sources from within the ethics commission told us that the case was going to proceed to a public hearing at some point during January 2013.  Well, guess what?  Here we are smack dab in the middle of January 2013 and I haven't heard word about an ethics commission hearing regarding the police chief.  WTF is that about?

In fact, to add insult to injury, last Friday I was told that the hearing has been postponed till some time this summer!  HUH?

How the hell could that be?  From our standpoint, this seemed like a slam dunk, open and shut case, what in the hell is Joe Centerino and his cohorts on the ethics commission thinking about?  Isn't it amazing how quickly the ethics commission acts with certain politicians and how they drag their feet with others?  Could the ethics commission's decision to postpone the hearing have anything to do with embattled City of South Miami police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro's relationship with Centorino's former boss and state attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle?  Who knows, at the very least, this is a disappointing turn for Centorino's commission and possibly just another example of how when it comes to "let em go Joe" nothing has changed.

We'll drop the Ethics Commission an email and see what they have to say.

The start of a new year and a proposition for the Martinez de Castro clan.

Party's over.  After spending the last two or so weeks lounging around and doing nothing, it's back to the grind.  I apologize to our readers for not posting as I had promised during the holiday break, trust me, I really did need the time off.

Now, during the holiday break I had plenty of time to think things over, especially regarding the City of South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro and his upcoming hearing with the Miami Dade County Ethics Commission.  Since we started to write about the Chief and his wife's tag agency over a year ago, it never once dawned on me to see things from the Chief's perspective, I've always approached the subject of the chief's behavior and the situation with his wife's tag agency from my perspective, that is the perspective I was able develop from my examination of the documents associated with the various cases and incidents.  Perhaps there's an explanation for everything?  After all these years of writing about how unfair the cops and prosecutors are, have I found myself guilty of the same faults that I've accused them of making?  Whatever happened to "the presumption of innocence?"

With that said, I'd like to start the new year off on a new leaf and would like to afford both the Chief and his wife the opportunity to explain themselves.  I know that might sound a little outrageous to some, why would they want to talk to some jerk with a blog on the last page of the internet?  Let's not forget that it was our humble little blog that put the chief in the position he's in today where he risks losing his job if he's found guilty of the ethics violations that were levied against him and as far as his wife's tag agency and the three girls that they accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from, I suspect if not for our actions throughout the course of last year, the three girls would probably already be serving time behind bars.

So how about Chief?  I'd be more than willing to listen if you'd like to talk.  I'm sure by now you know how to reach me, I'll be waiting...

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...

City of South Miami police chief in deep shit...

It seems like just yesterday we were moaning about how the Miami Dade County Ethics Commission was dragging it's feet in the investigation that arose from our ethics complaint against the City of South Miami Police Chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro, for steering city business to his wife's tag agency.  Literally an hour after I made that post we get this email from the Ethics Commission...

For Immediate Release:  October 23, 2012
Contact: Joseph Centorino, Executive Director
 (305) 350-0613 or centori@miamidade.gov

Police Chief faces ethics violations 

The police chief of South Miami is facing four charges of violating ethics laws for steering city business to his wife’s companies.  The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust (COE) today found probable cause that Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro violated South Miami’s “prohibition on transacting business with the city,” as well the County Conflict of Interest and Code of Ethics Ordinance’s “prohibition on exploitation of official position.”  The complaint against Martinez de Castro (C 12-31) cites three times during 2011when the South Miami Police Department contracted with Airways Auto Tag Agency for tags and titles for forfeiture vehicles.  Airways is owned by Ileana Martinez de Castro, the police chief’s wife.  She also owns Beck & Lo’s Insurance Agency, Inc.  Last April, Chief de Castro used his city e-mail account to solicit business for his wife’s agency.   The case will proceed to a public hearing.

HOLY CRAP!

This press release confirms rumors that we heard months ago.  Our sources told us that the ethics commission had issued a probable cause letter several months ago and that Chief Martinez had hired a criminal defense attorney that was trying to cut a deal with the Ethics Commission to let him simply get off with a fine or some other slap on the wrist.  Luckily for us, the Ethics Commission stood firm and refused to let Chief Martinez off, now we have to wait for the public hearing and see how things pan out.  Our sources also tell us that Chief Martinez has hired Miami doper era criminal defense attorney Simon Steckel to defend him during this ethics investigation.  Mr Steckel is an interesting character with a checkered past, you can read a little about him here and here.

The consequences of this public hearing could be dire for the chief, let's not forget that if he's found guilty, his cushy job as the chief of police is TOAST!  What's really sick about this whole ordeal though is that we're told that the Chief's defense is going to consist of making City of South Miami Police Major Ana Baixauli the scapegoat for his misdeeds.  That's too bad but is to be expected from someone like Chief Martinez, I guess we'll have to end up giving the ethics commission the video recordings of people we interviewed over the last year who told us in no uncertain terms that the Chief himself directed them to take city business to his wife's tag agency...

Some news on the ethics investigation into South Miami's police chief through a rather unusual source...

Anyone wonder whats been going on with that investigation by the Miami Dade Ethics Commission into the Chief of Police of the City of South Miami, Orlando Martinez de Castro, for allegedly steering city business to his wife's tag agency?  We've contacted the ethics commission several times since they opened the investigation into Chief Martinez's activities and they've always told us that they can't comment because it's an ongoing investigation.  That's understandable I guess.

Recently though, word has reached us that the Ethics Commission had found probable cause to move forward against the chief for allegedly sending his wife's tag agency business, clearly in violation of the City of South Miami's own ethics code.  Unfortunately though, I haven't been able to substantiate any of these rumors, that is till the other day when I received a letter in the mail with no return address.  I've redacted some sensitive information that we'll reveal a little later on, but for now take a look at the letter for yourselves...

So according to this letter the Ethics Commission has found probably cause against South Miami Police Chief Orlando Martinez de Castro on four counts, one of which is a misdemeanor.  If true, this certainly doesn't bode well for the chief since as per the City's own code of ethics, he'll have to forfeit his job as the police chief!  Accordingly if we're to believe the contents of this letter, Chief Martinez has gone ahead and hired a criminal defense attorney which is completely understandable as his job is on the line.

Another source tells us that the Ethics Commission did indeed send a probable cause letter to the chief.  Several people claim to have heard the Chief ranting and raving in his office after receiving and reading this letter claiming "this is serious" and that he could "lose his job over this".  Indeed Mr. Martinez de Castro, this is serious and yes, you could lose your job over this! 

Now, isn't it ironic that just a few months after we starting writing about how the chief's wife had railroaded three innocent girls in the Airways Auto Tag Agency boondoggle that now the chief himself allegedly has to go out and hire his own criminal defense attorney?  

That's some ironic shit right there folks.  Regardless, things are really starting to heat up in South Miami, there's some really ugly shit going on down there.  Stay tuned...

I thought everything was alright over at Airways Auto Tag?

Seriously?  Weren't all of Airways Auto Tag Agency's problems over once the owner, Ileana Martinez de Castro, had the three tellers that were working for her arrested for allegedly stealing tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars from her tiny auto tag agency?  That's what any reasonable person would have been lead to believe, right?  If indeed things did go down as Mrs. Martinez de Castro had suggested and the three tellers did indeed steel all that money which according to her caused her to borrow money from all over the place to keep up with the tag agency's day to day obligations as well as it's most important obligation, paying the state of Florida the taxes that the agency collects on the states behalf.  So here we are 20 months after the alleged thefts occurred and 16 months after the tellers were arrested, shouldn't everything be fine over at our favorite tag agency?

Let's step back for a moment and re-read Mrs. Martinez de Castro's own words during one of the depositions regarding this case...

Ok, that's understandable.  If indeed the three women arrested in this case were really stealing money from the tag agency, their actions would leave the tag agency's owner, Mrs. Martinez de Castro, in quite the pickle.  As she goes on to tell us, she had to borrow money, going so far as to get a second mortgage on her house to replace the missing money.  No doubt, a shitty position to be in.  The next part is even more interesting...

Here Mrs. Martinez tells us besides wanting to give up the tag agency and "turn it in" that "they" "came in and started doing an investigation..."  I suppose since we're talking about money that was owed to the state in the form of "sales & use" taxes that the tag agency collected on behalf of the state that the "they" Mrs. Martinez is referring to must be someone from the state, namely someone from the department of revenue or another state law enforcement agency.  I get it.  You're late in paying the state the money you collected on their behalf then "they" come looking around in order to figure out WTF is going on.  Makes sense.  But this shouldn't be a problem any longer since those evil women who allegedly bilked this poor little tag agency out of tens of thousands of dollars were arrested and were no longer working there, right?  WRONG!

Fast forward to October 3, 2011, six full months after our favorite MDPD police detective, Jorge Baluja, slapped the cuffs on these three tellers and escorted them to jail.  Check out this little love letter that the state of Florida department of revenue sent the folks over at Airways Auto Tag Agency...

Airways Auto Tag Agency Warrant

WTF?  This letter in no uncertain terms gives the court or the local sheriff to go over and snatch $6,807.11 in cash or assets from Airways Auto Tag Agency for non payment of tax revenues they collected on behalf of the state of Florida!  Now, this just doesn't happen because you missed one months worth of payments to the state, the Department of Revenue only issues a warrant after you've missed several payments and only after they've exhausted every possible way of getting you to reimburse them for the money you've collected on their behalf.  Strange, huh?  What makes this even more bizarre is that the three tellers that the tag agency owner alleged were the root of all her financial issues had been gone for six months when this warrant was issued, so we're left to ask, who's at fault in this instance?

Now here's the real kicker, earlier we presumed that when the struggling tag agency was having problems repaying the state's tax and use fees that it was solely because of the money the three tellers allegedly stole.  The tag agency owner in her deposition tells us that when she couldn't pay the state that "they came in and started doing an investigation", my question now in this instance where the state had to go so far as to issue a warrant in order to try to recover their money, did "they" ever come in and try to figure out why they hadn't received their money or do "they" only come in when "you" need to railroad three innocent women in order to cover up your own misdeeds?

Strange times over at Airways Auto Tag Agency, strange times indeed...

Ethics Commission? We don't need no stinking ethics commission!

While those of us that are following the City of South Miami/Airways Auto Tag Agency boondoggle are sitting around on our hands waiting for the Miami Dade Ethics Commission to render a decision on possible ethics violations by the city's police chief for steering business to his wife's tag agency, there seems to be another remedy in place to deal with just such a situation.  Courtesy of one of our readers who brought it to our attention...

SOUTH MIAMI CITY CHARTER
14 AMENDED 2-14-12

ARTICLE II (Cont’d)

SECTION 9.

Investigations
Notwithstanding any other provisions of this Charter, the Commission or its authorized representative or representatives may make investigation into the affairs of this City and the conduct of any City department, Board, Officer or Agency and for this purpose may subpoena witnesses, administer oaths, take testimony and require the production of evidence. Any person who fails to obey a lawful order issued in the exercise of these powers by the Commission shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and punishable by a fine of not more than $500.00 or by imprisonment for not more than six months, or both.

NO KIDDING?!  This would be the same commission that seems to be proactive on so many other fronts, why haven't they moved forward with an investigation into this matter on their own rather than sit around and wait for the folks downtown at the Ethics Commission?  Does this make any sense?  What exactly is going on down in South Miami these days?  According to the Miami New Times yesterday...

The leafy hamlet of South Miami has turned into a cesspool of political backbiting and allegations of unethical behavior by some of its officials.

YIKES!  Of course, we know where those allegations of unethical behavior came from... 

Now, here's another comment that one of our readers left for us the other day that got our attention...

I WAS WONDERING WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS TELLERS I THOUGH THEY WERE FREE FROM ALL THIS CRAP BUT I GUESS NOT WOW THIS NEEDS TO GET SOLVE THEY NEED JUSTICE

This comment refers to the three tellers that were arrested for allegedly stealing tens of thousands of dollars from Airways Auto Tag agency which happens to be owned by the City of South Miami's Police Chief's wife.  Not much has happened over the last few months, which is to be expected as ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENS IN THE CRIMINAL COURT SYSTEM DURING LATE SPRING AND SUMMER!  Most lawyers and judges are out for the summer and if you have the misfortune of being stuck in the criminal justice system, well, YOU'RE FUCKED.  Now despite the summer break, I have heard one unconfirmed rumor regarding this case, my sources tell me that the owner of the tag agency, Ileana Martinez de Castro, has offered to drop the charges against the three tellers if they simply write a letter of apology to her for their alleged thefts.

LOL!  How do we go from accusing the three tellers of stealing tens of thousands of dollars and wanting to get them locked up to simply asking for a letter of apology and having the whole thing go away?  WTF?  While justice may not be swift, it'll come sooner or later, it's karma that you have to watch out for...

The slam dunk case against the Airways Auto Tag Agency tellers...

It's been a while since we've discussed the Airways Auto Tag case, so let's do a brief rundown of the case...

• We start off by learning that our old friend, MDPD Detective Jorge Baluja, is still busy screwing things up.
• Off to the friendly neighborhood tag agency to renew our tag only to find out that three of the tellers in the tag agency had recently been arrested by none other than Detective Jorge Baluja who has the dubious distinction of not being able to investigate his own way out of a wet paper bag.
• A little digging nets us a police report where Detective Baluja alleges that three tellers from the tag agency were stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the agency by collecting money from the clients then voiding out the transactions afterwords and pocketing the money.
• Now we realize how improbable it is for tens of thousands of dollars to be missing in one day from such a small tag agency.
• We go through some of the accounting procedures at this tag agency and once again come to the conclusion that stealing anything let alone tens of thousands of dollars would be near impossible from such a small, tightly controlled operation.
• A quick glance at some of Detective Baluja's previous less than stellar investigative work.
• Now we realize that the owner of the tag agency is married to none other than the Police Chief of the City of South Miami, therefore calling into question the impartiality of any detective investigating the tag agency case.
• We ask whether or not there was probable cause to arrest the tellers that were charged.
• Strangely enough now we find out that there were several other people that had access to the accounting software other than the tellers that were arrested and that the owner of the tag agency also owns the company that wrote the accounting software and therefore had access to the tellers confidential access codes.
• The tag agency owners own testimony reveals that the company's finances were in such bad shape that she was looking to "turn it in" and walk away from the business.
• Things get even more bizarre, we learn that the tag agency owner's daughter in law abruptly left the her job at the agency right after the money went missing and that her son is also one of the owners of the company that writes the accounting software that the agency uses therefore adding one more person to the list of people other than the tellers that knew their confidential access codes.
• Even worse, despite the tag agency having security cameras all over the place, somehow they didn't catch any of the alleged thefts.
• The height of stupidity, the prosecutor in the criminal case against the three tellers tries to convince the court that this blog is in some way shape or form working in concert with the three tellers to harass the owner of the tag agency and therefore wanted the court to revoke the three tellers bonds.

Ok, that pretty much sums up where we left off a few months back.  To be perfectly honest though, we stopped writing about the case hoping that once a new prosecutor was assigned to the case after the previous prosecutor tried to get the tellers bonds revoked, the charges against the tellers were going to be dismissed.  Unfortunately, it didn't happen, so it seems like it's time to start shedding some light on this case again.


The crux of the states case against the three girls that were charged with stealing tens of thousands of dollars from this tag agency was that once the individual transactions were processed, the tellers would later go back and cancel said transactions using their access codes in both the state system and the tag agencies internal computer systems and then pocket the money.  Fairly simple right?  In essence, by virtue of the tellers logging into the state and tag agency computers, they would leave an electronic fingerprint on all the transactions that would make it easy to identify who initiated the transactions and cancelled the transactions.  Simple enough, that is until we proved that there were several people that knew these so called "confidential passwords" the tellers used in the tag agency's computer system.


Now, in order to be perfectly clear, let's go through how the state proposes one of these transactions occurred:

1. First, the teller in question logs into the State of Florida computer system (that only the individual teller knows the password to) then processes the transaction.
2. Second, the teller in question logs into the tag agency's internal computer system (the one that the tag agency owner led the state to believe that only the tellers knew the passwords to that we later proved that several other people knew the passwords to) then processes the transaction generating a receipt for the customer.
3. At some point either later that day or early the next day, said teller logs back into the tag agency's computer system and cancels the transaction then subsequently pockets the money.

Fairly simple scheme right?  Now one thing we know for certain, the individual tellers are the only ones that know their passwords for the state of Florida computer system, no one else.  While we know that several other people that had access to the tag agency's computers other than the tellers that were arrested and that the owner of the tag agency also owns the company that wrote the accounting software and therefore had access to the tellers confidential access codes, the tellers are the only ones that could log into the state's system and generate receipts with their user ID's on them.  That's a really important point as we're about to discover, take a look at some excerpts from the receipts generated by the states computer system that were given to the state as part of the discovery in this case, specifically, pay attention to the initials outlined in red...

Now, for the sake of our discussion, I've omitted the rest of the receipt that contains an innocent customers personal information.  What's important here are the three letters that I've outlined in red as they identify the person who logged into the state's computer system and created these transactions.  In the instance of these two transactions, the identifying initials, IJM, don't belong to any of the tellers that were arrested, they belong to none other than Ileana Josefina Martinez de Castro, the owner of the tag agency and the City of South Miami's police chief's wife who claimed that tens of thousands of dollars were missing through the tellers nefarious schemes.  Remember that when it comes to the states computer system, only the person who is assigned the password knows their password, so if you're to believe the state's theory of this case, how did the owner of the tag agency processing these transactions fit in to there version of events?  Even worse, how did the dipshit detective who investigated this case not realize this horrendous error in his investigation?


While this revelation of the owner of the tag agency having her "electronic fingerprint" on some of the transactions in question doesn't absolve the three tellers that were charged of any guilt, it certainly does call into question the investigative work that ultimately culminated with the arrests of the three tag agency employees.  The same "electronic fingerprint" the detective used to build his case against the three tellers he arrested could have been used to implicate the owner of the tag agency!  WTF?

I'm getting sick and tired of writing about this stupid case.  Three innocent women are stuck dealing with this bullshit while the state takes its time fucking around.  More tomorrow.

Trying to understand what's going on with that ethics investigation...

I wonder how that investigation by the Miami Dade County Ethics Commission is going?  You all remember when we discovered that the City of South Miami was doing business with it's police chief's wife's business right?  We discovered that this business relationship was a clear violation of the city's own code of ethics and clearly against the county's code of ethics as well.  As we reported a while back, the Miami Dade County Ethics Commission found this business relationship so interesting that it decided to conduct an investigation to see what was going on down at South Miami.


While I was over at the ethics commission, I met with its head, Joe Centorino, and was then introduced to the investigator who was going to look into the strange relationship between the city and the chief's wife's business. The investigator I met that was assigned to the City of South Miami seemed a little less enthusiastic than I thought he would be about this case, at the time I couldn't figure out why.  Regardless, I told him everything that I knew and he basically told me that he'd get back to me after he had a chance to look at everything.  In the interim, I sent this investigator several emails to no avail.  I figured that they're doing their thing and it would be best to sit back and wait, so I left it at that.


Fast forward to last night when I got a bombshell dropped on me.  One of my sources tells me last night that the investigator assigned to South Miami is good close personal friends with the City of South Miami city manager, Hector Mirable, who is obviously tight with the chief!  So much for a fair and unbiased investigation!  It's no wonder that this investigator seemed uninterested in what I was telling him and it's rather obvious that considering the relationship between the investigator and the people that he was "supposedly" investigating that this ethics complaint wasn't going to go no where.  Oh well!

A juror from the Veldora Arthur trial leaves us a comment and some comments from the City of South Miami Leo Affairs message board regarding the chief...

You never know who's reading our blog, a couple of days ago we get this comment regarding former City of Miami assistant fire chief Veldora Arthur's federal mortgage fraud trial...

I served on that jury. I am so glad we saw through all the lies and deceit. I cannot believe she got to keep her pension and did not pay restitution!

Imagine that, a juror from her federal mortgage fraud trial not only reads our blog and but seems pissed that she got to keep her pension and didn't have to pay any restitution to the banks that she ripped off!  Sweet!


Now, let's take a look over at the City of South Miami Leo Affairs forum and read some of the comments regarding the Chief, Orlando Martinez de Castro and the matter of his wife's company doing business with the city...

Re: Chief Martinezby Guest » 03/19/12 16:22:56
Talk about corruption. This chief seems like the f--kup of the decade! Who on earth would ever trust a loser like this?

Re: Chief Martinezby Guest » 03/25/12 08:18:32
Is FDLE and the CJSTC looking into this? How can this guy be a Chief of Police? They should relieve him of duty immediately.

• 
  

Re: Chief Martinezby Guest » 03/25/12 08:48:43
The one that can, the city manager, will not. The questions the mayor and city commissioners must ask of the city manager are these: What did he know about this clear violation of the city’ charter? When did he know it? How does he intend to correct the violation?

OK!  The members of that forum go further and on this thread suggest that someone's going to end up losing their job as a result of this matter...

Herald reports on chief's ethics investigation.by Guest » 04/13/12 21:31:32
Splain Jefe!!

Re: Herald reports on chief's ethics investigation.by Flummoxed » 04/14/12 12:42:26
He cannot! Martinez-De Castro; city manager Hector Mirable knew, they all knew these transactions blatantly violated the governing city charter provision. If the mayor and most of the commission had a shred of courage and decency in them, they would fire the most culpable parties. They are cowards; worse complicit. Guess the appearance of impropriety is no longer or never was a concern at South Miami?

Re: Herald reports on chief's ethics investigation.by Guest » 04/22/12 10:11:38
Fire the Chief

Re: Herald reports on chief's ethics investigation.by Flummoxed » 04/23/12 15:54:18
This is not going away! So who’s going to fall on the sword? This is incestuous; it is “Malum Prohibitum!”

 Re: Herald reports on chief's ethics investigation.by Spartacus » 04/24/12 20:28:38
Let me see....Who was in charge of Vehicles the last few years? Hmmm, I know, Let's blame it on Salerno. He's Retired, He's Old. He wont fight back... Lt. Dan, say hello to Mr. Sword...LOL

Re: Herald reports on chief's ethics investigation.by Flummoxed » 04/25/12 09:09:20
No, that will not do! Unless city leaders are willing to sever the manager and chief’s contracts and consequently payout significant sums to both men, an active duty sacrificial lamb is required. Ana Baixauli is it!

Wow.  I don't know much about the inner workings of the South Miami PD, anyone care to comment?

From a simple ethical lapse to a full blown cover up...

Yep, from a simple ethical lapse to a full blown cover up.  That's where we're at now with the story of the City of South Miami doing business with it's police chief's wife's company. This all started with us uncovering a number of transactions between the city and the police chief's wife's tag agency.  Simple enough, that is until we discovered that this relationship between the city and the chief's wife's company was strictly prohibited under the city's own ethics code...

(c)Prohibition on transacting business with the city. No person included in the terms defined in paragraphs (b)(1) through (6) and in paragraph (b)(9) shall enter into any contract or transact any business in which that person or a member of the immediate family has a financial interest, direct or indirect with the city or any person or agency acting for the city, and any such contract, agreement or business engagement entered in violation of this subsection shall render the transaction voidable. Willful violation of this subsection shall constitute malfeasance in office and shall effect forfeiture of office or position. 

Fair enough.  Shortly after we reported on this ethical lapse, City of South Miami City Manager, Hector Mirabile, sends out an interoffice memo that speaks directly to the "related parties parties transaction"...

"A "Related Parties Transaction" form was developed for inclusion to the Vendor Registration process.  Vendors registering with the City must affirm their company or principals do not violate the City's code of Ethics as defined in Section 8A-1.  Completion of the form confirms that no employees, directors or officers of the vendor are related to any City personnel.  The form is under review by the City attorney."

Ok, so it's fairly obvious that our findings have gotten the attention of the folks over at City Hall.

Just a few days later our story gets the attention of the Miami Herald.  Several city officials, including the city manager, go on the record and claim that the police chief nor anyone else within the city had any idea that the city was doing business with the police chief's wife's company.  Fantastic right?  That is until we get the email that we posted on Monday, in case you missed it, here it is again...

I worked at Airways Auto Tag Agency for several years, and in one occasion I processed transactions for the City of South Miami.  At the time of these transactions three individuals from the city actually came in to the office to perform these transactions.  They introduced themselves as being coworkers that were refered by Orlando Martinez De Castro husband of Ileana Martinez De Castro and also chief of City of South Miami.  Before coming to the office a quote for the amount of the transactions was issued to the individuals representing the City of South Miami, and about a week later that individuals came to the office to process those transactions.  Those transactions were paid with a check from The City of South Miami for the amount of the quote. 

After receiving this email, I contacted the person who sent it to me and set up a meeting.  Needless to say, I met with the person who sent me the email and went over the story again and again.  Rest assured, they were able to identify the three people from the city that came over from the tag agency, their interaction both on the phone and in person.  I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of their story as it was backed up by other eyewitnesses that I was able to find that were familiar with the transactions in question.  The icing on the cake?  Everyone I spoke to regarding these transactions are willing to cooperate and give sworn statements to any agency that may be investigating this case.

So now what?  What about the "no on knew what was going on" statements the city officials gave the Herald?  What about the city manager, Hector Mirabile, assertions of the chief not knowing the city using his wife's tag agency?  Bullshit, that's what.  The chief knew exactly what was going on as did the city manager and everyone else involved.  What began as a simple ethical lapse has now turned into a full blown cover up orchestrated at the highest levels of the City of South Miami government and not just because someone has stepped forward saying so, there's more evidence coming in that's going to further bolster my claims, we'll hold back on posting these documents so we can watch everyone involved dig themselves deeper and deeper into the hole they've created.

Now, for those of you who have any hope that Joe Centorino's ethics commission will do anything about the goings on in South Miami, take a look at our friend Al Crespo's site and see how Mr. Centorino and friends screwed up the investigation into the Regalado's campaign finance case.

If a picture is worth a thousand words...

Then this email I received over the weekend is worth far more when it comes to the City of South Miami and it's Police Chief's relationship with his wife's company, Airways Auto Tag Agency.  Remember, ever since we uncovered the City of South Miami's dealings with the police chief's wife's company, clearly in violation of the city's own ethics code, everyone involved from the city has denied every knowing that this unethical business relationship was going on.  Remember, when confronted by the Miami Herald, both the city manager, Hector Mirabile and police major Ana Baixauli simply brushed it off as an innocent mistake that the police chief, Orlando Martinez De Castro knew nothing about.


Take a look at this email which turns the city's version of events on its ear, rest assured, I've verified the source of this email...

I worked at Airways Auto Tag Agency for several years, and in one occasion I processed transactions for the City of South Miami.  At the time of these transactions three individuals from the city actually came in to the office to perform these transactions.  They introduced themselves as being coworkers that were refered by Orlando Martinez De Castro husband of Ileana Martinez De Castro and also chief of City of South Miami.  Before coming to the office a quote for the amount of the transactions was issued to the individuals representing the City of South Miami, and about a week later that individuals came to the office to process those transactions.  Those transactions were paid with a check from The City of South Miami for the amount of the quote. 

Now what?  So much for that "we had no idea this was going on" nonsense, right?  We'll discuss in detail next time.