The man on the grassy knoll and in other news, some lying cops get arrested!

Everyone remember the man on the grassy knoll that conspiracy theorists are convinced was the second (maybe third) shooter that fateful day in 1963 when JFK was shot?  There are several compelling arguments to support the theory of a second shooter that was on the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza when the President was shot, sure we know about Oswald in the sixth floor of the book depository, but one can't discount the possibility of the second shooter.  Some believe that this second shooter was the man that really killed JFK and that Oswald was just a "patsy" or a pawn for the real culprits responsible for the assassination, if you follow this theory, the man on the grassy knoll was an indispensable member of the conspiracy.  Unfortunately though, no one was ever able to locate the man on the grassy knoll, whether through poor investigatory work or (get your tin foil hat on) some sort of conspiracy, this second shooter has disappeared into the annals of history without a trace and all we're left to believe is the "official" version of events proffered by the government from that day.

Can you imagine being able to go back to the grassy knoll and finding the second shooter?  Imagine being able to talk with and question this indispensable member of the "conspiracy"?  What does the grassy knoll have to do with our story?  Put the tin foil hats away, we don't need a stretch of the imagination or a conspiracy theory for this one.  Let's take a look at some rare footage of said "grassy knoll" and see if we can find any clues...

Wait a minute!  Take a look between the tree and the building on the upper right hand of the photo, what is that there?  Is that actually "the man on the grassy knoll"?!  Let's use some of the high tech investigatory skills that we've gleaned from watching CSI shows on TV to blow up this blurry image...

WHOA!  I can almost make out his face!  Let's blow it up a bit more...

 

My god!  Could it be?!  Let's blow it up once more...

ZOINKS!  It's none other than Bernardo Barrera, the man who claimed that his identity was stolen for the purchase of the Oak Avenue home that's at the center of one of our mortgage fraud stories!!  Now, of course Mr. Barrera wasn't at the grassy knoll back in 1963 (or was he?), but he's just as important to our theory of how the mortgage fraud involving the Oak Avenue home went down as the second shooter aka "the man on the grassy knoll" was to the assassination of JFK.  The man on the grassy knoll may have gotten away, but ole Bernie is still right here in Miami, for those of you in the PD or the SAO with a modicum of common sense, don't you think it may be a good idea to take another look at Bernie again?  There's so much that ace Detective Baluja and "veteran" prosecutor Kostrzewski missed, in their investigation, take our word for it, there's a treasure trove of information in the case file that's been overlooked.  Perhaps we're naive though, maybe the powers that be really do know what time it is with Mr. Barrera and are just refusing to do anything about it, no worries though, we'll outline our findings here regardless...

I'm sure by now everyone's heard about the story from last Friday regarding the three Miami Dade county cops that were federally indicted for "their involvement in a conspiracy to obstruct justice, make false statements, and commit perjury...".  WHOA!  What was that Detective Baluja?  Let's take a look at the press release from the FBI website...

Jeffrey H. Sloman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Field Office; and James K. Loftus, Director, Miami-Dade Police Department, announced that a federal grand jury returned an Indictment against three Miami-Dade Police Department officers in connection with their involvement in a conspiracy to obstruct justice, make false statements, and commit perjury in a federal criminal case.
The Indictment charges Officers Jorge Luis Gonzalez, 27, and Alkibiades Dodge, 37, and Sergeant Waell Majed Farraj, 33, with conspiracy to make false statements, obstruct justice, and commit perjury, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, making false statements to a federal agent, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001, and obstruction of justice, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1503. In addition, Officer Gonzalez and Sergeant Farraj are charged with committing perjury in their sworn testimony before a United States District Judge, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1623(a).
The charges in the Indictment arise out of the actions of these three defendants in connection with the arrest and subsequent federal prosecution of an individual (“P.M.”) on a firearms possession charge. As alleged in the Indictment, the three defendants made false statements, and wrote and used Miami-Dade Police Department documents containing false statements, concerning the circumstances surrounding the stop and search of a vehicle in which P.M. was a passenger. The defendants then allegedly provided this false information and these documents to an agent of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives on the evening of the stop and seizure, and P.M. was arrested by federal authorities.
After P.M. was charged federally, all three defendants allegedly perpetuated the obstruction of justice scheme, and Gonzalez and Farraj committed perjury by testifying to the same false account while under oath at a hearing before the presiding judge, United States District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga. This material false sworn testimony was given in a suppression hearing which Judge Altonaga was conducting to determine whether the firearm seized from the vehicle, and the statements made by P.M., would be admissible against P.M. in his trial. When the criminal conduct of these three officers was uncovered, the government then dismissed the case against P.M.
U.S. Attorney Jeffrey H. Sloman said, “Our system of justice is based on the integrity and truthfulness of every witness that testifies in court. Law enforcement officers, like any other witnesses, are sworn to tell the truth. When any witness lies under oath or conspires to obstruct justice, our system of justice is undermined. The damage is twofold when it is a police officer who lies or obstructs justice: it not only weakens the public’s faith in our legal system, but also shakes the public’s confidence in police officers who are sworn to uphold the laws. As prosecutors and law enforcement officers, it is our responsibility to safeguard the integrity of the legal system.”
John V. Gilles, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Miami Office, added, "A police officer’s integrity is never negotiable. It is the backbone of every law enforcement agency and a department will not be successful if it doesn’t have the trust of the people it serves. We are fortunate to have a professional, well-respected organization such as the Miami-Dade County Police Department. Unfortunately, a few police officers have betrayed the oath they took and will be held accountable for their actions, losing not only their jobs but their reputations. The FBI will continue to work with our partners to root out those officers who have not lived up to the high ethical standards law enforcement officers are proud to uphold."
Miami-Dade Police Department Director James K. Loftus states, “Anytime there is an allegation of official misconduct against a member of the Miami-Dade Police Department, that questions integrity and professionalism, we will cooperate and conduct an impartial and thorough investigation. Although the allegation of perjury is very serious, the majority of the men and women of the Miami-Dade Police Department are hardworking dedicated individuals that do an outstanding job of protecting the citizens and enforcing the laws of the State of Florida. Miami-Dade Police Department will continue to work with our federal, state and local partners to address all allegations of criminal behavior, even if it hits home.”
If convicted of all the charges, defendant Gonzalez faces a maximum possible term of imprisonment of 30 years, defendant Farraj faces a maximum possible term of imprisonment of 25 years, and defendant Dodge faces a maximum possible term of imprisonment of 20 years. The initial appearance will be Friday, February 12, 2010, at 1:30 p.m. before the Honorable Chris M. McAliley in Miami. The case has been assigned to District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks.

 Oh boy.  Pay specific attention to the new MDPD director James K. Loftus when he states the following:

“Anytime there is an allegation of official misconduct against a member of the Miami-Dade Police Department, that questions integrity and professionalism, we will cooperate and conduct an impartial and thorough investigation.  Although the allegation of perjury is very serious..."

Oh really?  The allegation of of official misconduct and perjury is serious?  Director Loftus, how many instances of obstruction of justice, perjury and suborning perjury by Detective Jorge Baluja would you like me to illustrate?  Do you really take these allegations seriously or is that just lip service for a press release?  As much as I'd like to believe Director Loftus, it sounds like the latter to me.

Time for a GARAGE SALE at the Besu residence!

So, you've ripped off a client for two million +++, what are you going to do next?  Have a garage sale of course!  We received this email a couple of days ago regarding disgraced attorney Roger Besu who is accused of stealing over two million dollars from one of his clients.  Take a look:

"As soon as Roger Besu and his wife left the country, the whole family mobilized they sold off the property on palm island, the twin engine airplane etc, they went with a U-haul and removed all of there personal belonging and took it to Babelyn Gonzalez (step-daughters) house she sold most of it for cash (garage sale). Several times Babelyn traveled out of the country ie costa Rica were Rogers wifes (barbara) brother lives ?, and other central and south american countries, the family new were they Roger and Barbara were, they are all guilty. In late August Babelyn went to NYC to visit Rebecca Besu to see Barbara Besu she was flying in to see them. why dont the police interview Babelyn Gonzalez, Christopher, George Besu, Rebecca Besu, Cristy Besu. "

Wow.  I haven't been able to confirm any of that information from our anonymous tipster yet, so take the information in the email with a grain of salt.  We're off to the courthouse to get some new information, we'll have an update a little later.

A fantastic new TV series, U.S. naval shipyard and disbarred attorney Roger Besu...

Perhaps one of the contributing factors to the creation of this blog is the lack of anything good to watch on TV, seems like as the years go by, there's less and less worth watching, even the evening news has become unwatchable.  For reasons that I can't understand, I just couldn't summon the energy to sit down and write the latest installment of our blog last night, so I decided to give TV a try and started surfing the channels.  Just as I was about to give up,

I come across a new series on HBO called "How to Make It in America", a spectacular show about a group of kids in their 20's trying to make it in the big apple.  In one of the scenes, the main characters are buying some stolen merchandise from a shady looking character at a location that they call "the docks", the scene only lasts about a minute, but somehow there was something about the location that caught my eye. 
I couldn't figure out why, but somehow I felt like "the docks" were familiar, almost like I'd been there before.  There was no mention of the location during the closing credits, so the location remained a mystery until it came to me, I'd actually been there as a child, the location the scene was shot at was the Brooklyn Navy Shipyard.  

So what's some TV show and a shipyard got to do with our blog?  The Navy decommissioned the ship yard in 1966, since then its been used as a commercial shipyard, most recently it was owned by a company called GMD Shipyard. 

Still confused?  A few years back when the owner of the shipyard sold it, he had the proceeds of the sale of the shipyard deposited into disbarred attorney Roger Besu's trust account.  It's from these proceeds that Mr. Besu allegedly stole over $2 million dollars then fled the country.

Small world isn't it?

Who's our favorite puppet master? Bill Kostrzewski is!

Here we are at the end of another week, as our readers must know by now, we usually try to wrap up the week with some levity, so today, were going to take look at a performance by master puppet master Bill Kostrzewski.  For sure some of you must think by now that I'm off my meds or something, but bare with me.  From the inception of our blog when discussing the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, I've suggested that Detective Jorge Baluja was not running the investigation nor was anyone in the MDPD, in fact it's our theory that the entire investigation was run directly by none other than assistant state attorney Bill Kostrzewski. 

I've poured over detective Baluja's depositions over and over again and I get the weird feeling that although the detective is at the deposition and talking, he's really not really the one answering the questions, sure his mouth is moving, but it seems to me like he's just a mouthpiece or for lack of a better term a "puppet" for Mr. Kostrzewski.  This would fall in line perfectly with our theory that Detective Baluja was nothing but a tool for Mr. Kostrzewski throughout this case and in my opinion proves that it was assistant state attorney Kostrzewski that created and ran the entire Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud investigation.

Lets take a look at some excerpts from detective Baluja's deposition transcripts and you guys judge for yourself what's going on.  Pardon the poor quality photos of the actual transcripts, they're taken by a camera phone, as always click on the image to enlarge it.  First we find that Mr. Baluja had gone to the state attorneys office the day before and prepared for the deposition with ASA Kostrzewski...

 

Anything wrong with the detective getting together and preparing for the next days depo?  I don't know, as long as everything is on the up and up right?  I guess it's kosher as long as the ASA didn't ask the detective to say, lie or testify to things that he didn't have first hand knowledge of?  Somehow this idea of rehearsing for the deposition doesn't sit right with me, it fits right in with our theory of the asa controlling the detective, regardless let's move on.  As the deposition moves forward, you can see several instances where the detective seems confused and has forgotten what Mr. Kostrzewski wanted him to say, so what does he do?   HE STARTS WHISPERING TO KOSTRZEWSKI LOOKING FOR THE ANSWER!

WHAT THE FCUK IS THAT?! I'm no lawyer, but this just doesn't seem right to me.  When asa Kostrzewski is called to the carpet by the other attorneys, he responds with...

 

Pobrecito!  Jorgito is confused!  If he's confused then what in the fcuk is the assistant state attorney supposed to do about it?!  Moving on, I guess once asa Kostrzewski tells detective Baluja what to say, he then speaks up and tells him to answer...

SI PAPI!  I think you get the idea, the depositions are full of this kind of crap, towards the end of the depositions asa Kostrzewski tires of having to speak through the detective, so he starts answering questions for the detective!  Take a look...

 

NO $HIT!  How efficient!  Why bother with the middle man just go ahead and answer for him!  INCREDIBLE!

See what I'm getting at folks?  Based on what we've seen in these depositions, is there any doubt who's in charge?  Is there any doubt left that it was indeed asa Bill Kostrzewski that ran the entire investigation?  It seems clear to me that Detective Baluja was nothing more than a do boy or messenger for Mr. Kostrzewski.  Now we at least have some insight as to why Mr. Kostrzewski has taken this case so personally and gets worked up and defensive when there's been criticism of how the investigation was handled.  I can only imagine the "deer caught in the headlights" look on Detective Baluja's face during the depositions!  In fact, based on what I've read from these depositions, I have to wonder if any of the other attorneys checked to see if asa Kostrzewski's hand wasn't up the detectives a$$ running him like puppet.

Have a great weekend folks!

Timing is everything...

I've learned over the last few months while studying these cases of fraud and identity theft that timing is everything.  Whether we're talking about the exact date and time Bernardo Barrera claimed his identity was stolen, when the purchase contract for the Oak avenue property was signed or when the arrests in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case were made, none of these events occurred randomly, each and every one of those events were precisely timed by the people involved.  Why is it though that no one in the PD or the SAO can see what's happened?  How could the states version of events be so different from what really happened?  After all it's not like I summoned up some sort of super powers to gain some insight into this case!

For those of you in the Miami Dade Police Department and the State Attorneys Office, let me tell you a little story from back when my identity was stolen nearly 15 years ago.  Some miscreant decided to pose as me and use my identity to get a bunch of credit cards, once I found out about it, I quickly contacted all the financial institutions that I worked with and put them on notice.  All the charges were reversed and I was let off the hook for any liability that arose from the ID theft.  The problem was for nearly five years after the incident, obtaining ANY KIND OF CREDIT was a major hassle for me.  No more instant credit approvals, everything I applied for had to be manually reviewed by the company who was offering me credit so they could verify that it was really me that was trying to obtain the credit.  From there on out, my name was flagged and anything involving credit had become a nightmare for me.  A total disaster.

With that in mind, consider that Mr. Barrera had claimed that his identity was stolen in ANOTHER FRAUD case less than 30 days before he reported the ID theft in the mortgage fraud case!  With what I know from my ID theft experience, I know it would have been damn near impossible for Mr. Barrera or someone posing as Mr. Barrera to get a mortgage shortly after he cried ID theft on the other case!  Sure they would have eventually given him the mortgage, but they would have gone through the loan application with a fine tooth comb and probably looked up Mr. Barreras ass before they ever gave him a cent!  So what happened here?  I'm sure Detective Baluja went through the first identity theft case and left no stone unturned in his quest for the facts right?  I think we know better than that by now!

An apology to our readers with mental health issues and a brief discusion regarding boiler parts...

I guess our post from last friday where we discussed the Department of Justice looking for attorneys with mental health issues was in poor taste.  I apologize for suggesting that our readers with mental health issues may want to contact the DOJ to possibly fill one of the ten positions that were available, as a matter of fact I apologize to all our readers for simply suggesting that any of them pursue a career in the legal profession period!  YUCK!

 

So what was the point of last fridays post?   Was it simply a cheap shot at people with mental disabilities?  A chance to make fun of the DOJ making a silly error in a job posting?  NO SIR!  What we illustrated in last fridays post was a common error that's made with BOILERPLATE documents.  So what does the term "Boilerplate" mean?  Let's look:

The term "boilerplate" has been adopted by lawyers to describe those parts of a contract that are considered "standard language"

In other words, the standard legal mumbo jumbo that virtually no one reads.  In the case of the DOJ job posting, someone took a standard Boilerplate form and cut and pasted the specific requirements for the job up top and left the bottom unchanged, in this instance no one took the time to read the "boilerplate" instructions at the bottom of the page that stated that they were looking for people with the targeted disabilities that we got such a laugh out of.  Does it make sense now?

There's a problem with legal boilerplate though, these documents are rarely read because of their complicated legal terms coupled with the often large amount of time needed to read the terms, the expected payoff from reading the document is low and few people would be expected to read it.  Often times people pay attention to the salient parts of such a document and skip over the fine print, it's because of this that many courts have developed special rules with respect to boilerplate documents since it's unclear whether the signor to the document read or understood the terms.  It's precisely because of this that the specific terms or instructions of such documents are clear and up front while the rest of the terms that are in fine print are more of a legal catch all, a CYA that literally no one reads.

So why the soliloquy on boilerplate documents?  Can you imagine someone building an entire criminal case on the boilerplate language in a legal document?  Consider for a moment a mentally disabled attorney (HAH!) suing the DOJ over the mistake in that job posting?  Or imagine an entire criminal prosecution based on such a document?  Absurd isn't it?  Can you guess where we're going folks?

Assistant State Attorney Kostrzewski demonstrates the Jedi mind trick.

Does everyone remember the Jedi mind trick from the movie Star Wars?  Without getting too geeky and talk Star Wars nonsense that I'm not to familiar with, the Jedi mind trick was a technique used by the Jedi to influence and control the minds of others through the use of the "Force" that only they posessed, take a look at this example of the mind trick in use...

So what does this have to do with our story?  Simple.  As you read through the hundreds of pages of deposition transcripts from the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, you come away with the feeling that Detective Jorge Baluja was being told what to do and say by Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski.  The more you read, the more you realize that the Detective didn't do anything on his own, but was instead following orders from the ASA.  Why?  I can't answer that question as I thought the ASA wasn't to meddle in the actual investigation of a crime, I was under the impression that his role was strictly as an advocate for the court.  Regardless, in one instance during one of Detective Baluja's depositions, the defense attorneys seem to be having a hard time getting the Detective to cooperate with their questions and in an effort to make things move along, ASA Kostrzewski offers to ask the Detective a few questions perhaps to clarify a few points for the defense, let's take a look...

OH!  That's great!  Now, watch as ASA Kostrzewski's attempt at using the Jedi mind trick on Detective Baluja backfires...

WHAT?!  The Detective clearly answers yes and through ASA Kostrzewski's incredible lawyering and deposition skills he turns that "yes" into a useless "I can't recall"!  NICE WORK!  I can't wait to see Mr. Kostrzewski perform his magic in court!