We've learned over the last several months that people in law enforcement and the state attorneys office have the ability to destroy peoples lives, some innocent and some not. Check this comment from yesterdays post...
"Forced out of your job? Check.
Humiliated in front of peers? Check.
Career destroyed? Check.
Disgraced in front of friends and family? Check.
Dreams and ambitions annihilated? Check.
This is what this lot did to me, isn't karma a bitch?"
We can only imagine what the story was behind that comment. You have to wonder, does the cop building a case against you take into consideration the consequences of his actions when they make an arrest, especially on a weak case? Could they fathom the irreparable damage that they're going to inflict on their subject? Let's take a look at this comment emailed to us a few weeks back to get a better understanding of the consequences. we've broken up the email with a little commentary...
"Hey I just discovered your blog the other day and love it."
Why, thank you.
"My name is _____________ and I was arrested for Mortgage Fraud and the crazy part is I never committed fraud. But they still "had enough to arrest me"."
We've removed the commenters name to maintain his anonimity.
"Long story short they took me in thinking I was going to be questioned in regards to a case where the lender I use to work for blew the whistle on fraud. Instead they started asking me questions in regards to a loan I denied and referred out because my lender was only doing Full Doc loans. I referred it to a broker that use to rent in our building and he actually gave me a little "finders fee of $500"."
Ok, nothing wrong with that.
"Turns out the seller of the house is the one that actually committed fraud because they gave money back to the buyer without letting anyone know and apparently the seller helped the buyer shop around for a mortgage so they can sell their house to a family member and get some cash out of it."
Wait a minute! Is he saying the person who claimed to be the victim was actually involved in the fraud!? Where have we heard this before?!
"I can keep going and going in regards to this so called Mortgage Fraud Task Force where they have no clue what they are doing."
"My lender handed this task force a case where we as a lender did our due diligence and had depositions with the borrower, title company all the players involved admitting to fraud in a civil case and then we later turned it in to criminally prosecute the players. These dumb asses came to our office and had no clue what the hell they were doing but yet they supposedly have enough evidence to arrest you and detain you."
"In My case I was arrested and treated like a criminal I was given the whole there's no room for parole and you are going to jail unless you start giving up the players in the transaction in question. I never answered their questions other than I denied the loan and I was actually paid a $500 referral fee off the books. At the end of the day this Baluja guy that I never even met signed the arrest affidavit and decided to take me in."
WHAT? Did we hear right?! This BALUJA GUY?! Could that be right?!
"Guess what charges were dropped within 2 weeks. They never returned any of my attorney's phone calls or any interrogatories she had."
"After all that bullshit talk and threatening me and scaring me these assholes have made my life a living hell. I stayed with my company after the arrest because they knew that these cops were complete morons and clowns. We would blow the whistle on fraud cases they said they would do their investigation and they will always come back saying they can't find any evidence or the would start questioning the owners of the company as if they committed a crime."
"They decided to put my face in the news, newspaper and it is still on their website. I lost business because of that, my clients that didn't know me too well would send their business somewhere else. I had a baby girl since then and it has been tough getting a job. If you think it is tough out there to get a job try getting one with a mortgage fraud, grand theft, and intent to defraud charge on your record and terrible credit because I lost alot of business. I have never been in trouble with the law in my life. I have my 215 (health, life and annuities license) and I was just given the ok to take my real estate exam all I have to do is pass. I obviously had to disclose my arrest record along with original copies of the arrest report and they all looked at it and laughed."
Damn shame, it really sucks when your name is out in the media, isn't it BALUJA GUY?
"I agree with you 100% these guys have no clue what they are doing and I have always wondered how the hell can they make up all this stuff on my arrest report so they can get enough to get a warrant and arrest me."
"Just wanted to share with you my experience I'm not looking for notoriety and prove how screwed up this mortgage fraud task force is. If you need anything in my case or have any questions I will be glad to answer them. I just want the general public to know that these detectives are looking for notoriety to flex their fake ass muscles."
"Anything you need let me know remember I'm not looking for any public recognition, I am still job hunting and just want this to all go away. Keep up the good work on the blog. I wrote this pretty quick so my grammar may not be the greatest but you get the point."
No worries. Good luck with the job hunting.
The question we have to ask is while the task force board is running around posing for photos, giving interviews and hyping their creation, who's watching whats going on on the street? Why are the detectives in the Mortgage Fraud Task Force so poorly trained? In the case of our commenter's story, he was able to bring resolution to his case because there was a competent and impartial assistant state attorney who reviewed the Detectives work and found that there was no basis for the arrest. That wasn't the case with the ASA involved in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, but at least now our readers can see how an impartial and competent ASA is supposed to behave.
Now that this poor mans life is ruined because of another instance of sloppy police work, how can things be made right again? Who's going to put the genie back in the bottle? Why is telling these stories left to some mediocre blog on the last page of the internet? How can this level of police incompetence be allowed to destroy peoples lives? We're off to the courthouse to pull up the file on this case, we'll discuss tomorrow.
Say it ain't so!!! That's right, Glenn Theobald, chief legal counsel for the MDPD and the creator and head of the MDPD Mortgage Fraud Task force is in hot water over the misspending of monies set aside by the federal government in a trust fund for the MDPD to go after people committing environmental crimes. We learned a few weeks ago that Mr. Theobald had authorized the purchase of some rather strange items that I suppose the MDPD intended to use for the purpose of fighting environmental crime, when he was called to task for authorizing the trust fund money to be spent on these items, he made a quick about face in the form of a memo rescinding a previous memo where he OK'd the purchases:
"This memorandum rescinds the previous opinion regarding your memo to this writer...trust fund monies in the account can only be used to further environmental investigations...A direct nexus with the expenditure and the furtherance of environmental investigations is required...Any other interpretation was mistaken due to the information provided at the time the memorandum was presented."
I suppose that wasn't good enough, since both Mr. Theobald and the man that was the head of the MDPD environmental crimes investigation unit, Frank Vecin were both reassigned from their posts by MDPD Director James Loftus last week (according to Jim DeFede of WFOR). What difference does it make to us? In the case of Mr. Vecin, it makes none, but what about Mr. Theobald, the head of the Mortgage Fraud Task Force and the MDPD chief legal counsel? Where does he go? Let's see what an online source tells us regarding this matter...
"Theobald will be gone in 30 days. He was allowed to retire in lieu of a demotion as the Major of Crime Scene."
OH SNAP! While that statement should be considered nothing more than rumor at this point, it certainly does sound plausible. If indeed it is true, we're sure the MDPD will quickly find another attorney to fill his spot as chief legal counsel, but who's going to take over his position as the head of the Mayors Mortgage Fraud Task Force?! After all, the task force was Mr. Theobald's pet project, the vehicle with which he gained national press coverage. So what now? Who's going to be the new leader of the "Fraud Squad"?
Considering how the top brass at the MDPD misspent the millions of dollars set aside for the prosecution of environmental crimes, what's going to happen with the $50,000,000 of federal money that the Mortgage Fraud Task Force was supposed to get over the next five years? From what we've read, Mr. Theobald has been lobbying Uncle Sam incessantly over the last three years for tens of millions of dollars of funding for his Mortgage Fraud Task Force, you have to wonder considering what's gone on with the green fund money if anyone has looked into how the mortgage fraud money has been spent?
Our hats are off to the new director of the MDPD, Mr. James Loftus for getting to the bottom of this mess and taking swift action. It's about time the citizens of Dade county had someone in the PD that was serious about cleaning up corruption within the department. Consider for a moment though, since we started our story, the lead detective in one of our mortgage fraud stories get's taken off a headline case and demoted to auto theft, a veteran economic crimes prosecutor get's taken off the same headline case and now, the head of the Mayor's heralded Mortgage Fraud task force may have lost his job. Strange times.
We talked about the MDPD misspending federal monies set aside in a trust fund created for the sole purpose investigating environmental crimes a few weeks back. Monies spent on SUV's, Iphones, assault rifles and tens of thousands of dollars in travel expenses, but now comes this bombshell, a SIXTY FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR MOBILE TOILET! You have to wonder what such a thing looks like, maybe its got gold plated toilets like what disgraced attorney and ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein had in his home?
Jim DeFede did an excellent job covering the story here. We found the following quote from his story most interesting...
Miami-Dade Police is paying for this 24-foot-long rest room with money from a special trust fund which is only supposed to be used to investigate environmental crimes.
As the CBS4 I-TEAM previously reported, the Inspectors General Offices for both Miami-Dade County and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are examining how the department is using those funds.Why would the police department need to build their own five-ton roving restroom and shower trailer, After all the county has standing contracts to rent that sort of equipment when the need arises. But the police official responsible for overseeing the trust fund has repeatedly been refusing our request for an interview.
That certainly doesn't sound good. I can't imagine considering the economic crisis our county is in, how anyone could have justified such an expenditure.
Moving along, check out this article from 15 years ago, a 77 year old man that was being prosecuted drops dead while waiting for Assistant State Attorney Kostrzewski to try him, his defense attorney makes a statement about his deceased client to the press basically saying he was the fall guy for other people he was doing business with. Now, the reporter asks Mr. Kostrzewski for a comment and what does he do? Does he bow out gracefully? Does he pay his respects to the man he was prosecuting and say something befitting his role as a representative of the State Attorneys Office? Check it...
Get him Bill! Maybe you can nail him in the afterlife! Who cares, the guy is DEAD NOW! WHAT FCUKING DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? Why make this kind of comment now after he's passed away?! I think that comment says it all, this is just another example of the fabric that Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski is made of.
Bad news for Michelle Spence-Jones and her supporters, she was indicted yesterday by a grand jury on charges of bribery which essentially kills her chances of being reinstated to her seat as a commissioner. The grand jury also indicted Spence-Jones with grand theft, the same charges that were pressed against her last year, essentially closing up a loophole (IMO) that would have allowed her to regain her seat on the commission. As I understand it, as long as Spence-Jones was charged by information rather than by indictment, she would have been allowed to regain her seat until she was convicted. Francisco Alvarado of the Miami New Times broke the story here.
Suspended Miami city commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones is facing more criminal charges. A Miami-Dade grand jury indicted Spence-Jones on one count of bribery.
She is accused of soliciting money from MDM Hotel Group, Inc., the developers of the Metropolitan Miami office and residential complex, and the Codina Group Inc., for her vote to extend the name of Brickell Avenue further north along SE Second Avenue.
According to a press release from Miami-Dade State Attorney Katharine Fernandez-Rundle, after a contentious March 23, 2006 city commission meeting wherein the name extension was deferred to the next commission meeting for a final vote, Spence-Jones demanded $25,000 and "ultimately deposited those funds into an account accessible to Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones."
The grand jury also formally charged Spence-Jones with grand theft, for which she had been previously charged via information on November 13, 2009.
What we found most interesting though was the coverage from WSVN where State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle is quoted as saying:
"She's going to be offered an opportunity, like everyone else, to surrender. Her lawyer has been contacted by our office to see if they want to make that surrender,"
Of course she's going to be allowed to surrender, why wouldn't she? After all, we all remember when Judge Beatrice Butchko scolded ASA Scruggs on the way the Pastor Gaston Smith arrests went down and then gave her opinion on surrenders and white collar crimes don't we? In case you've forgotten, here it is again...
"It is clear that law enforcement has the absolute right upon probable cause to make the arrest, whatever arrest they feel warranted, but it does not fair well with the defense, when they are having communications that leave rise to a possible delay, a chance to further negotiate, or at least a surrender of the client, that without advanced warning, the client is arrested on the streets, when it's common knowledge in white collar cases that these clients surrender, so that, not professional, lawful, yes, not professional, and you're dealing with a white collar offense.
I have heard no evidence of flight risk, of danger to the community in terms of violence, and a man who is a pastor, who's respected by a lot of people in the community, maybe not the police in this case, not well done, and then he has to sit in the police car for a few hours because he wants to give keys to his wife, I think that could have been done in a more elegant fashion as well."
You all know by now how we feel about the subject of "surrender" when it comes to people that are charged with white collar crimes that ARE NOT FLIGHT RISKS. So we ask again Assistant State Attorney Kostrzewski, why he did order the arrests of the defendants in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud to happen in such an undignified, unprofessional manner? The simple practice of allowing people to surrender themselves, a courtesy that not only Judge Butchko deems a common practice in white collar crimes but now we have your BOSS who agrees, so WTF were you thinking?
We know what Mr. Kostrzewski was thinking, these were the actions of a desperate man, a man who has no concept of dignity or professional conduct, we'll prove our point tomorrow.
So we're reviewing yesterdays post in preparation for today's story when something struck us as strange. No, it wasn't the fact that both Pastor Gaston Smith and Micheal Martinez were both accused of stealing nearly the same amount of money and it wasn't the fact that although their crimes were similar their punishments didn't seem fair. So what was it? After reading the plea agreement between Mr. Martinez and the state (prepared by non other than ASA Bill Kostrewski) , there was one element that bothered me. From item number 6 the plea agreement:
...defendant shall make payments of not less than five hundred dollars ($500.00) per month to victim Citi Mortgage, Inc., or to its successor(s), or, in the event that Citi Mortgage, Inc., is reimbursed for its loss by title insurance, to its insurer of title.
What's the big deal you say? After all, Citi Mortgage is insured not only for mortgages that default but also for errors that may have occurred during the closing by the closing agent. Fine, SO WHAT? We couldn't put our finger on it, but somehow something about that statement got our wheels turning, then it dawned on me. Does anyone think that during the course of the Bernardo Barrera Mortgage Fraud investigation anyone from the MDPD Mortgage Fraud Task Force or the Economic Crimes Bureau of the State Attorneys Office contacted the "insurer of title" aka the title insurance company? I mean, after all these people know the ins and outs of real estate transactions better than anyone else don't they? Wouldn't these be the people that you would want to consult with in building this kind of case, especially since they're involved with the case? Surely if the lead detective in the investigation didn't contact the title insurance company, "veteran economic crimes prosecutor" Bill Kostrzewski must have right? Who knows for sure whether or not they did (we doubt it) but rest assured in an effort to leave no stone unturned, we here at the Straw Buyer contacted the title insurance company's legal counsel. HUH?!
Very nice! Anyone think that Detective Baluja or ASA Kostrzewski ever contacted the title insurance company or their lawyers regarding the Barrera mortgage fraud? Considering that opinion from one of their attorneys, perhaps they did and didn't like what they heard about their "Victim"? Can you imagine that conversation? Perhaps a little trouble understanding what's obvious?
Should anyone be surprised? Just another example of how poor the investigation and subsequent prosecution of this case has been, only now we're beginning to see that the blame isn't all on the shoulders of Detective Baluja, perhaps more of the blame rests on "veteran economic crimes prosecutor" Kostrzewski. Nice going Bill.
Granted Pastor Smith is a public figure that abused the public trust given to him by his community, but don't lose site of the fact that Mr. Martinez made his $10,000 through the heinous crime of MORTGAGE FRAUD, a crime so rampant here in South Florida that they had to form a special task force just to combat it. With that in mind, one must wonder what kind of punishment veteran economic crimes prosecutor Bill Kostrzewski gave Mr. Martinez, let's take a look at that plea agreement...
Nice! It sounds harsh doesn't it? Take a look at #2:
2. The Court shall adjudicate defendant guilty and shall sentence defendant to two (2) years of Community Control, followed by three (3) years probation.
OUCH! Look at #3
3. As a condition precedent to this agreement, defendant shall pay stipulated investigative costs to the Miami-Dade Police Department, Economic Crimes Bureau, in the amount of one thousand dollars ($1,000.00).
YES! $1,000 to the MDPD for all their hard work, moving on...
4. As a condition precedent to this agreement defendant shall pay stipulated investigative costs of prosecution to the Office of the State Attorney for the 11th Judicial Circuit in the amount of one thousand hundred dollars ($1,000.00).
Sure, why not let the SAO get reimbursed for all the hours Mr. Kostrzewski spent on this case?!
5.As a special condition of Community Control and probation, defendant shall perform one hundred (100) hours of Community Service at a rate of not less than eight (8) hours per month, as directed by the Department of Corrections.
Community service! Right on. Last but not least...
6. Defendant agrees that he is responsible for stipulated restitution in the amount of fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000.00) payable to Citi Mortgage, Inc. As a special condition of Community Control and probation, defendant shall make payments of not less than five hundred dollars ($500.00) per month to victim Citi Mortgage, Inc., or to its successor(s), or, in the event that Citi Mortgage, Inc., is reimbursed for its loss by title insurance, to its insurer of title.
COOL! Even Citi Mortgage gets their money back! All bases covered I guess. That's pretty harsh, perhaps equally as harsh as what Pastor Smith got. No matter how you cut it, it looks like Mr. Martinez is going to do 5 years worth of probation, but then comes this...
9. As a condition of Community Control, defendant may not petition the Court for conversion of Community Control to probation until the defendant has successfully
completed six (6) months of Community Control and is current in his payment of restitution, cost of supervision and his community service hours. Also as a condition of probation, defendant may not request early termination of probation for two (2) years from the date of this agreement and only if the defendant has successfully completed his requisite Community Control and probation, and has fully paid his restitution and satisfied his community service obligation and cost of supervision. Defendant agrees to extend the term of his probation to the statutory maximum to insure full payment of his restitution obligation.
In other words, if Mr. Martinez pays his restitution and is behaving, he can have the Community Control converted to regular probation and then if he fullfills his obligations under this agreement, he can petition the court to end his probation in just TWO YEARS! Fantastic. I wonder, did Pastor Smith get the same kind of deal? Some deterent to people commiting Mortgage Fraud Mr. Kostrzewski. Nice job.
After all the drama and hype by the Assistant State Attorney Scruggs and the State Attorney's Office, the judge in the Pastor Gaston Smith theft case handed down a lengthy probation sentence rather than the one to five years of prison time the prosecutors were seeking. For those of you who don't remember, this is the case where a Pastor from a Liberty City church was convicted of stealing ten thousand dollars from a county grant. Based on what we've read in the media surrounding this case, there seemed to be some prosecutorial monkey business surrounding this case.
In our opinion, the first prosecutorial misstep began with how the arrest went down, we covered it here. Rather than allow the Pastor who is a prominent member of his community who has no previous criminal record and whose defense attorneys were in constant contact and negotiations with the prosecutors to surrender, the prosecution decided to arrest him. This hit a nerve with the Judge, she went on to state the following:
"...the way that the arrests took place in the case...give the defense a reason, pause and again, leave them with this taste in their mouth and this feeling of impropriety. There were negotiations between the state attorney, defense counsel and prosecuting attorneys...the client is arrested on the streets, when its common knowledge in white collar cases that these clients surrender...then he has to sit in the police car for a few hours...I think that could have been done in a more elegant fashion as well."
In other words, the prosecutors decided to show the Pastor and his defense team who had the bigger dick. Good for you, hardly the behavior you would expect from a seasoned veteran prosecutor.
The next misstep came when the police and the prosecutors secretly recorded interviews they conducted with the Pastor before he was indicted (Francisco Alvarado of the Miami New Times covers it here), although they were fully aware of the recordings, they neglected to notify the Pastor or his attorneys of their existence, another major lapse in the prosecutors judgment. The judge wasn't too happy about this either...
"The way you handled this disclosure was very unprofessional... As soon as you found this out, not only did you need to call them, you needed to draft a letter explaining exactly what happened and the purpose of the tape and the meaning of it, to avoid an appearance of impropriety... That didn't happen."
There's also the issue of the Prosecutor not properly complying with a public records request by Miami New Times staff, the judge scolded the prosecutor again...
"I couldn't believe...you testified in court that you intentionally tried to get around complying with a lawful public records request because you don't like the practice. You can't do that."
Wow! We're really warming up to Judge Butchko. Regardless though, now that the Pastors been sentenced, what happens to all the prosecutorial misconduct that occurred during the case? Does it all get swept under the rug? Does the conviction negate all the wrong doing? Kinda like, the ends justify the means? I hope not. At the end of the day though, at least in our opinion, the sentence handed down was a little harsh for a first time offender, five years probation and five more years of monitoring? After all, he didn't actually steal the money, he was given it through a grant, if he's guilty of anything it's misspending the money. Does that seem right? Funny, we know someone in Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case that was convicted of stealing nearly the same amount of money as Pastor Smith, we'll take a look at what kind of punishment he was given in comparison and see if it seems "fair".
To our readers, be careful out on the roads and keep a keen eye out for runaway Toyotas! The Straw Buyer almost got run off the road the other day by ANOTHER RUNAWAY TOYOTA! We're processing the videos and will be posting them later this week...
I read a story in the Miami Herald on October 7, 2008 regarding a mortgage fraud case that didn't make any sense to me, I did a little digging and what I found left me stunned. A tale of a task force head whose political ambitions have run amuck, a detective without a modicum of common sense, a reporter that prints anything that's put in front of him, the railroading of an attorney by this machine to further the ambitions of its head and the lengths that those involved will go to in order to salvage a case that should have never been. Please take the time to start from the oldest post first and enjoy...
