Ex South Miami cop federally indicted...

Our comments section has been abuzz about this recently, from the Herald...

By Brenda MedinaThe Miami Herald 

Authorities arrested a former South Miami detective on extortion and fraud charges in a case that reaches into Sweetwater.

Richard Muñoz, a 15-year South Miami veteran until his retirement last year, pleaded guilty March 14 on charges of taking advantage of his position and using false information with intent to commit fraud.

Muñoz’s crimes may be linked to charges against Sweetwater officer William García, arrested in August on charges of identity theft and credit card fraud, but public documents in the federal case did not provide details. However, sources familiar to the case said Muñoz, 45, will be an important witness against García.
Muñoz, who was arrested on March 10, reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors last week after he agreed to be on a list of more than 50 potential witnesses against García when his trial begins in April.

Muñoz had pleaded not guilty when he was first arrested. He is now free on bail and his sentencing has been scheduled for May 9, at which time he could face up to five years in prison.

Muñoz’s lawyer, Gustavo Lage, could not be reached for comment.
South Miami Police Chief Rene Landa said on Wednesday that the crimes committed by Muñoz do not reflect the culture of his department.

“We were not aware of these activities until now, when they were made public,” Landa said. Muñoz was detached to the Drug Enforcement Administration on a task force for more than a year, Landa said.

According to the agreement with federal prosecutors, Muñoz was not charged with giving false information in an official DEA statement.

Sweetwater suspended García after his August arrest. He has maintained his innocence. His defense attorneys say their client acted within his authority as an officer and, in several cases, under orders from his supervisors.

In early March, García asked the city to pay his legal fees. Sweetwater commissioners denied the request.

FBI agents arrested García in August, accusing him of using counterfeit credit cards and stealing credit card numbers, including the card of a suspect he had arrested. García worked with an informant, who later agreed to cooperate with the FBI.

García’s arrest was another scandal that shook Sweetwater in 2013. The FBI also arrested then-Mayor Manuel “Manny” Maroño on charges of accepting bribes in exchange for official favors using his position as an elected official. Maroño plead guilty and is now in federal prison, serving a 40-month sentence.

The scandal also affected other officers. Octavio Oliu and Reny García have been suspended with pay since September, while federal and county authorities conduct an investigation of the Sweetwater force. Auxiliary police officer Richard Brenner also was suspended, but was reinstated, then fired late last year.

Also, as part of the investigation, authorities are reviewing the activities of a towing company linked to Maroño in connection with the police department.

Interesting, we'll dig up the criminal file and discuss tomorrow.

Like a criminal enterprise...

That's how City of Sweetwater resident Deborah Centeno described how former Sweetwater Manny Maroño and his crew ran the city in this Miami Herald article.  While the attention Sweetwater and it's former mayor and friends has been getting lately is all well and good, somehow no one has made the link between the shenanigans in Sweetwater and our favorite little town, South Miami, and it's former Chief of Police, Orlando Martinez de Castro.

Let's not forget that when the City of South Miami would set up DUI checkpoints there was usually Sweetwater cops at those checkpoints or when there were drug raids in the black areas of South Miami, once again, there were Sweetwater cops on the scene.  Now, it's not like Sweetwater is the next town over from South Miami, Sweetwater is actually located nearly ten miles away from South Miami, so the question that begs to be asked is why the hell were Sweetwater cops spending so much time over in South Miami?

It's also worth mentioning that both former chief Orlando Martinez de Castro and South Miami Detective Lopez both had jobs over at Sweetwater before coming over to South Miami, the later of which fled Sweetwater while he was under investigation for beating up a citizen.

There's much more brewing just below the surface regarding the relationship between Sweetwater, it's former mayor and the City of South Miami's former police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro.  While the Herald article recently touched upon the common denominator, Southland Towing, I'm told that that's just the tip of the iceberg.  Let's see what we can turn up, I get the feeling that the tenticles of Sweetwater's "Criminal Enterprise" have deep roots over in South Miami's former chief's administration.

Enough with all the South Miami bullshit.

That's what some of our readers have been telling me, enough with the South Miami centered blog posts.  It's understandable, after all, we don't live in South Miami, don't know anyone that lives in South Miami and despite what some of our detractors have said, I'm not sleeping with anyone involved in South Miami politics or any of the three tellers that were arrested as part of the Airways Auto Tag mess nor do I have a vendetta against the city's police chief or his wife.  

So what happened to our blog that used to discuss all sorts of goings on at the State Attorney's office with tales of dirty prosecutors and lying cops?  What about all the fraudsters we used to expose?  As some of our followers know, we stumbled upon the whole City of South Miami mess because of the Miami Dade Police Department Detective (now patrolman) Jorge Baluja who investigated and subsequently arrested the three tellers that worked in the City of South Miami police chief's wife's tag agency.  From there purely by coincidence did we stumble upon the cesspool that is South Miami politics and the dirty operators behind the scenes like police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro.  Through our efforts we managed to help get the city manager fired and now have the city's police chief on the verge of getting fired because of the ethics investigation we initiated against him.

Why bring this all up now after spending over a year rambling on about South Miami?  It's rather simple, after talking to a friend who's employed by one of the major media outlets, I asked him, why no one is really paying attention to what's going on in South Miami, his answer was as follows:

No one cares about what's going on down there, it's a little two square mile town, it's small time, no one gives a shit.

That's when it dawned on me, what better place for fugitives from the City of Miami police department back political scene to plant there roots?  For these guys, Mirabile, Harms, Martinez de Castro, etc who were chased out of the City of Miami, could you think of a better place for them to take over other than sleepy little South Miami?  "Small Time", no one's paying attention, no one cares, the ideal place to scheme and scam without getting anyone's attention.  Perfect.  In fact, major media cares so little about what's going on down there, I'm told that embattled police chief Orlando Martinez de Castro and his wife sat down with a local reporter to tell there side of their story for over and an hour several months ago.  Has anyone seen anything in the media about said interview?  NOPE.  Why you ask?  When I reached out to the reporter he told me that besides sitting and listening to both of them lie for nearly an hour, nothing they told him, even if true, was interesting enough to write about.  LOL.

Oh well.  At least we now know why we don't here about most of the dirty dealings in South Miami anywhere but here.  Even if no one else gives a crap about what's going on, we're going to stick around a bit longer, at least till the chief is shown the door and the girls from the tag agency are acquitted.

Stay tuned, tomorrow we're going to propose a theory for a conspiracy that went on in South Miami so bizarre and elaborate that it makes the JFK conspiracy theorists look sane in comparison.

The ultimate irony, ICE freeing detainees because of budget cuts!

Literally just days after ICE deported former South Miami resident Warren Papove to his native Canada, they turn around and release all sorts of people they were detaining because of looming budget cuts!  From the Huffington Post article...

WASHINGTON -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement released some people from immigrant detention facilities across the country on Monday in response to looming federal budget cuts.
"In order to make the best use of our limited detention resources in the current fiscal climate and to manage our detention population under current congressionally mandated levels, ICE has directed field offices to review the detained population to ensure it is in line with available funding," agency spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said in a statement.
ICE and the Department of Homeland Security are analyzing spending as congressional inaction increases the likelihood of so-called budget sequestration -- across-the-board spending cuts that begin on March 1. Detaining immigrants is an expensive business, with an average daily cost of $122 to $164 per person, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Alternatives, including ankle bracelets and parole, are far cheaper.
Christensen declined to say how many undocumented immigrants were freed on Monday or to give their locations. She said they have been "placed on an appropriate, more cost-effective form of supervised release." ICE did not drop the cases against the individuals and will still deport them if ordered by an immigration judge, she said.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano foreshadowed the announcement earlier in the day at a press briefing. She said ICE "will be forced" under sequestration to reduce detention and removal of undocumented immigrants.
"All I can say is, look, we're doing our very best to minimize the impacts of sequester," Napolitano told reporters at the White House. "But there’s only so much I can do. I'm supposed to have 34,000 detention beds for immigration. How do I pay for those?"
Immigrant rights groups began buzzing Monday with reports from detention centers, where they said low-priority detainees had been released in large numbers. Activists have long called for ICE to release some detainees, either to allow them to stay in the United States or to keep them out of prison-like detention centers until they are deported. The rights groups have argued that the Obama administration has violated its stated principle of focusing on the most dangerous undocumented immigrants in favor of padding numbers by going after low-level offenders instead, as reported by USA Today earlier this month.
The Obama administration has repeatedly said it will apply more prosecutorial discretion to immigration, releasing immigrants deemed low-priority so it can focus resources on those who are potentially dangerous or otherwise a high priority. The administration also implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that has so far allowed more than 150,000 undocumented young people -- often called Dreamers -- to stay in the United States, work legally and drive.
According to ICE, the administration has increased the proportion of criminal immigrants it has expelled, while setting a record for deportations overall.
Advocacy groups said they were pleased that ICE released some detained undocumented immigrants.
"The people being released today are people ICE could have released months -- or in some cases, years -- ago," Mohammad Abdollahi, a member of the Dreamer-led National Immigrant Youth Alliance, said in a statement. "If ICE adhered to its own policies, they would have. As the president continues to push for immigration reform, his record on deportations will only stand in greater contrast with the policies he has proposed."

Honestly folks, WTF!  Consider how many tens of thousands of dollars our government spent on the detention of Mr. Papove over the last eight or so months, needlessly I might add, is it any wonder they're going broke?!  To think, if Mr Papove's detention was delayed a few weeks, they may have released him!

A happy end to the Warren Papove story...

As we mentioned last week, former South Miami resident Warren Papove is finally back in his native Canada after being detained at the Krome Detention Center for seven and a half months.  Mr. Papove was kind enough to send us this message via email regarding his detention, the people that put him in Krome and his subsequent return to Canada...

Orlando Martinez de Castro must be proud. Fidel and Raul - not so much. my younger sister, Melissa  had an easier time leaving Cuba  she didn't get there until the 10th of February and was home free on the 18th. This was most fortunate for me because on the 19th when i was finally allowed to leave she was able to finish de Castro's job for him. After spending dozens of thousands of tax payers' dollars keeping me on ice for 7.5 months they were frugal enough to save $4oo for transportation for the last leg of my departure.  I was left at the Vancouver airport at 8:oo pm b.c. time with 65 cents and a bag of clothes that bob had left for me in July, they were July clothes. They wouldn't allow him to bring anything like, for instance, a jacket for me. They even denied a final visitation.  The information provided for 20 odd previous visits was suddenly insufficient. 
So, after flying to la and then to Vancouver that was it. Mr  Schoepp of the Canadian consulate had assured me that i would be sent to Edmonton ab. which is my original hometown.  Ice's Nunez also assured me the same. iI guess that's so i wouldn't resist although i had  willingly signed consent on Aug 9 after being denied access to a judge. I also signed again on Dec 17 after finally seeing a judge and asking him to order my removal.  This was because transcripts of a previous court hearing' which would have secured a Miami release were denied to me.  I don't know why anyone would resist release to anywhere after 7.5 months of unnecessary detention,but de Castro and his ice buddy Romon Bado have names to live up to. 
Luckily Luis had recently located my sister for me and lucky for me that the real Castros aren't as rabid about illegally holding Canadians as the wanna-be de Castro.  A lady at the Vancouver airport let me use her phone and my sister, having arrived home from Cuba late the night before, was awake and able to arrange a flight from Vancouver to Edmonton and pick me up from the airport 20 miles south of  the city at 12:30 am local time with my other younger sister and a jacket it was 10 degrees f.  
Note to the Canadian consulate--- lying about  destinations might be a necessary precaution' i suppose. lying about a Canadian based assistance  package might be necessary, i suppose, but i would suggest that including means for a phone call and a jacket be included for any Florida to Canada re;locations in the future, especially if they take place in February.  After having spent close to 100 thousand dollars on an unnecessarily long detention it would be wrong to saddle the tax;payers with the additional cost of a jacket.  Would any of them really opposed allowing bob to having brought me one as he tried to do?  Hey Castro I'd also respectfully like to suggest that as a courtesy to other otherwise law abiding, stadium subsidizing Canadians you do the math first. When acting on a future Newman mc kane tip, remember it takes 9 months to act on it and 7.5 months to execute. please time this for summertime arrivals if jackets aren't included in the equation.

What a mess.  At least Mr. Papove is now with his family, out of reach from the scumbags in South Miami that started this whole debacle.  Good luck to you Mr. Papove!