More mortgage fraud arrests, big fcuking deal...

From the Miami Herald today...

4 South Floridians face mortgage fraud charges

Four South Florida residents have been charged in a $6 million mortgage fraud scheme.

Arrested were Carlos Cano, 53, of Delray Beach; Robyn Colon, 34, of Boynton Beach; Jose L. Colon, 52, of Boynton Beach, and Maria L. Lozada, 40, of Miami.

They were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and eight counts of substantive bank fraud, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

The indictment says Lozada would identify Miami-Dade County properties that could be used to defraud the lenders and then recruited the others to pose as purchasers of the properties. The buyers would prepare fraudulent loan applications and Lozada would use her company, Southeast Florida Marketing, to receive mortgage proceeds and cash rent payments.

That's it huh?  Four people arrested in $6 million dollars worth of fraud?  Once again, they miss the mark and a bus load of people got away.  For those with any knowledge of real estate transactions, you know that there were several more people involved in dirty transactions like the ones that these people were involved in, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, appraisers, title agents, attorneys, etc.  Unless the four people arrested fulfilled all those roles, then where the hell is everyone else?  Why haven't any of the other players been arrested?  What a crock of $hit.  What's worse, the unproportionate amount fraud that goes on in Florida or the horrific way law enforcement handles these cases?  No wonder Florida is fertile breeding ground for fraudsters!  

Big day in court tomorrow folks, the man at the center of the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, John Arthur Romney, changes his plea tomorrow.  We'll see how the man who made off with several hundred thousand dollars as a result of this fraud, get's slapped on the wrist and sent on his way...

So stealing over $100,000 is a civil matter huh Mr. Prosecutor?

Today's post is going to be a bit short, but nonetheless, we have an important update.  Does everyone remember several months back where we discussed how a shyster ripped off a group of people in excess of $100,000 on a phony discounted cruise deal?  From the post back in September, 2009...

"I booked a cruise for my family which would have cost nearly $12,000 all for the paltry sum of $5,000, what a deal! It seemed like the more people I asked in my group of friends, the more people had given this travel agent money! In some instances we were even going to be on the same cruises! With the dates booked, we anxiously awaited our confirmation and reservation information, first she explained there was some delays, then as we drew within a week from the sailing date still no confirmation, she assured us that everything would be alright though. Now we were two days before the date the ship was supposed to sail and STILL NOTHING! One day before the trip was to start, STILL NOTHING and now we couldn't get the travel agent (at least the woman that was posing as the travel agent) on the phone. At this point we had given up and figured we got screwed. "

So we went down to the State Attorneys Office...

After hearing our story, what do you think the ASA's conclusion was? An investigation? A call to the MDPD to go pick the woman up? An immediate arrest affidavit? NOPE! After all this, the best the ASA could do was to tell the attorney that there was nothing that he could do and in fact this was a CIVIL MATTER! WTF?!

That's right, the ASA from the Economic Crimes department of the SAO basically told us to pound sand.  We left our readers to figure out who that ASA was, did anyone figure it out?  Who was this ASA that told us that the theft of over $100,000 was a civil matter and that there was nothing he could do about it?  The ASA that told us that was none other than...

William J. Kostrzewski!

You got it, the ASA that refused to prosecute this charlatan was the same attorney that bungled up the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud investigation and prosecution.  Incredible huh?  Who knew back then that our paths would be so inexorably intertwined just a short time later.  

So whats the big deal?  We didn't let Mr. Kostrzewski's lack of initiative dissuade us from going after this bitch who made away with our hard earned money, we kept at it by going to the FBI.  Things moved slowly, but we were told yesterday that the AUSA involved in the case is about to indict the woman.  Incredible!  How could Mr. Kostrzewski have concluded that there was no criminal case yet the feds were able to make one?

The lesson here is a simple one and one that we'll be following, when law enforcement and prosecutors at the state level refuse to act on an injustice as egregious as this (or a handful of others that come to mind during the course of our blog), forget dealing with them and go directly to the feds.  

Happy St. Patrick's day folks!

Why is a prosecutor telling a defendant not to answer questions during a deposition?

Let's lay off the incompetent cop theme and focus our attention on an incompetent prosecutor for today.  As the title of today's post states, why would a prosecutor tell a defendant not to answer questions during a deposition?  After all, the defendant has their own attorney, so in what legal capacity can a prosecutor tell the defendant not to answer a question?  Strange, huh?  In preparing yesterdays post about photo lineups, we had to go through the deposition of one of the defendants in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, Michael Martinez, the man who was accused of lending the straw buyer in the fraud $125,000 for the down payment of the Oak Avenue home.  In doing so, we came across several instances where Assistant State Attorney Bill Kostrzewski repeatedly undermined the defense attorneys questioning of Mr. Martinez by telling Mr. Martinez not to answer the questions.  WTF you say?  Let's get started.

We start off by one of the defense attorneys reminding Mr. Martinez that he is represented by an attorney and that if he feels at any time during the deposition he needs to talk to his attorney he can do so and furthermore that Mr. Kostrzewski does not represent him in any shape or form...

Simple enough right?  If you have any issues, we'll get your attorney on the phone, in the mean time, ignore that easily excitable little man since he doesn't represent you.  Makes sense after all, that guy is the one that created this mess he calls a case!


Moving along, we get to a rather sensitive question regarding previous conversation between the police, the prosecutor and Mr. Martinez that must have made prosecutor Kostrzewski a little uneasy, check the prosecutors reaction...

Oh really?  Am I confused or did the prosecutor just tell the defendant not to answer a question?  That's a major no no isn't it?  Why doesn't Mr. Kostrzewski want Mr. Martinez to answer the question?  Is there something he'd like to keep hidden?  Let's see what happens next...

From the looks of it, Mr. Kostrzewski has done a nice job screwing up the deposition at this point and the defense attorney has to remind the defendant that the prosecutor can't tell him not to answer.  They start the depo again only to have the witness look over to the prosecutor for instruction again...

Doesn't the prosecutors behavior during the course of the deposition thus far give you the feeling of impropriety?  Let's not forget, this is the same prosecutor that to date hadn't been exactly forthcoming with documentation that the defense attorneys had been requesting, yet this rises to a different level of misconduct.  Here is a roomful of people gathered with the intention of obtaining meaningful information from Mr. Martinez only to have their efforts stifled by ASA Kostrzewski.  What is prosecutor Kostrzewski trying to keep the defense attorneys from finding out?  Why is his behavior so erratic during these depositions?  Would you characterize his behavior as becoming of an attorney, let alone an assistant state attorney representing the people of Florida?  What the hell is going on here?


Rest assured, this is just the tip of the iceberg, we have to admit, we've been holding back from our readers, we have much, much more on ASA Kostrzewski and his shocking level of misconduct throughout the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case, from sloppy mistakes, to willful misconduct, we got it covered, just be patient.  Best of all, the unintended consequence of writing this blog has been the honing of our writing skills that are going to come in mighty handy when we start bombarding Mr. Kostrzewski with a myriad of Bar complaints.  By the time we're done with Mr. Kostrzewski, he'll be working right along side one of his former colleagues, Mr. Mike Nifong...

How a MDPD Detective manages to screw up a simple photo line up...

Everyones familiar with the method police use to identify suspects known as the "Photo Lineup".  It can't get any easier or more basic than a cop asking a witness to take a look at some photos and see if they can pick out the subject, easy enough.  Yet if a photo lineup is conducted improperly it can actually end up doing more harm than good, fact of the matter is that there are specific procedures that need to be followed when introducing a photo lineup to a witness.  There was a great piece on 60 Minutes a while back that addressed photo lineups and the consequences of conducting them improperly, if you have a few minutes, take a look...

At the very least what we come away with after watching that story is that not only is there a science to putting a photo lineup together, but there are a specific set of instructions that are to be read to the witness before showing them the photo line up.  What's this got to do with us?  The lead detective, Jorge Baluja, in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case used photo lineups several times during the course of his investigation (if that's what you wanna call it), at this point considering his track record, you have to ask yourself, did he conduct the photo lineups correctly?  Let's take a look, starting with the instructions that he's supposed to read before showing the lineups to the witness, from his deposition, here's one of the defense attorneys asking Detective Baluja about these very instructions...

Ok, that's easy enough, the detective acknowledges that on the back of each group of photos there are instructions that the Detective has to read before conducting the photo lineup, fine.  So does Detective Baluja go ahead and read these instructions to the witness before conducting the photo lineup?  Let's hear it in his own words...

Oh really Jorgito?  You can't recall whether you read the witness the instructions or not?  That's no good now is it?  Let me refresh your recollection Jorge, you didn't.  How do we know that Detective Baluja conducted the photo lineup without reading the witness the instructions?  Because he says so!

DUH!  Those pesky instructions, what a pain in the ass, huh Jorge?  It's not like they're given to you with the GOD DAMN INSTRUCTIONS WRITTEN ON THE BACK OF THE PHOTOS NOW IS IT?!  Never one to disappoint now are you Detective Baluja?


Now that we've seen how Detective Baluja conducts his photo lineups, let's see what its like from the perspective of the witness that's suffering through a Baluja photo lineup.  Here's a excerpt from the deposition of co defendant Michael Martinez, with ASA Bill Kostrzewski asking a few questions regarding a Baluja photo lineup...

So what was the purpose of the lineup?

Ok, so the purpose of Detective Baluja showing Mr. Martinez the lineup was to identify Attorney Delaila Estefano, did he know anyone else that was in the lineup?  Lets see...

So Mr. Martinez knew some of the people in the line up, but not all of them?  We wonder though, who else was included in the photos that Mr. Martinez was shown other than Attorney Delaila Estefano?  Let's see...

Oh, OK!  Detective Baluja is trying to get the witness to identify a female out of a group of six photos where at least 2 maybe three of the photos are of MEN!  WTF?!  Out of the remaining photos, one is of the witnesses coworker, another is of some unknown woman and the other is OF THE WITNESSES FIANCE?!  Did we read that right?!  Let's continue...

Hey, you know, sometimes it's tough having a fiance, it doesn't hurt for someone to show you a picture of your significant other now and again just to see if you recognize her.  WTF IS THIS $HIT?!?!?!??!?!  Come on!  How was anyone able to sit through this deposition without laughing their a$$es off?  

Let's recap, knowing how important it is for the witness to be read the instructions for the photo lineup, the pride and joy of the MDPD's Mortgage Fraud Task Force forgets to read the instructions to the witness.  Ok, moving on, Detective Baluja conducts another photo lineup where he's trying to get co defendant Michael Martinez to identify attorney Delaila Estefano's photo out of a lineup of six photos, they consist of the following photos:

1. photo of an unknown woman
2. photo of a coworker named Danny
3. photo of female coworker
4. photo of witnesses fiance
5. photo of at least one other male
6. photo of attorney Delaila Estefano

Now, how hard would it be to pick out the female attorney from this line up?  Let's see, you're asked to identify a female from six photos, at least two of the photos are of males, so now that leaves you with four photos to choose from.  From those four, one of them is a female coworker and the other is your FCUKING FIANCE!  Now you're left with two, an unknown dark skinned woman and lastly the female attorney that the Detective wants you to identify.  Could this be the most flawed photo lineup in the history of the MDPD?!  WTF IS THIS $HIT!?  ANYONE?  There could only be one photo line up that could be worse than this, let's take a stab at it and see if we can find which one is Mr. Bernardo Barrera from this group of six photos...

Hmmm...  That's a tough one isn't it?  Funny isn't it?  Not really when you consider that the photo lineups that Detective Baluja ran were almost as bad as this one or maybe worse?  At least our lineup consists of all males!  The level of incompetence exhibited by Detective Jorge Baluja throughout his career would be hilarious if not for the fact that his piss poor police work destroys the lives of the poor innocent people that he victimizes.  Unfortunately for the people that we've been writing about, Detective Baluja has met his match in the state attorneys office, a person far more incompetent than himself, a person whose actions are far more egregious than his.  We'll discuss him a little later on, trust me on that.

More fun with the MDPD Green fund, aka the Frank Vecin fund and the conclusion of the steaming pile of $hit Detective Jorge Baluja called a case...

It's been a bad few weeks for the command staff over at the MDPD, partly because of the ruckus surrounding the misspending of the federally funded "green fund" set up to investigate environmental crimes.  We discussed how some of that money was spent earlier this month, today the Miami Herald adds more fuel to the fire, take a look at some of the new expenditures that have come to light...

440 shirts purchased in two batches in February and May 2009. The ``Bureau Cubaveras,'' which came in colors from black to khaki, cost $13,150.

Oh really?  I guess the environmental crimes investigators had to blend in to the surroundings right?  No camouflage but Cubaveras instead?  I guess the khaki ones were for investigatory work in "rural remote" locations?

Six flat screen TVs -- three Sharp 52-inch HDTV costing $1,986 apiece and three 32-inch units at $734 each. The TVs were requested to ``provide command personnel with up to date news . . . during any environmentally related emergency operations.'' The larger TVs came with motorized swing-arm mounts costing $1,117 each, allowing viewers to move the units' location by remote control.

TVs!  WTF FOR!?

Uh huh.  That speaks for itself, I couldn't make that $hit up.

More than 125 computers costing $173,296, including 107 Dell desktops and pricey laptops like Panasonic Toughbooks costing nearly $3,000 each. The purchases made in the past two years come after more than $95,000 was spent in 2007 on personal computers.


Miami-Dade police could not say where the computers are or who they were issued to. An internal county police investigation is under way to locate the items.

So the MDPD needs a team of investigators to figure out where the computers the environmental crimes unit had are?

More than $30,000 for 30 banquet tables and 152 chairs, two high pressure 24-inch misting fans ($2,169.93 each), two portable air conditioning units ($2,606 each) and tents. 

Never know when they'll need to pitch a tent...

A Gmax II 5900 Airless Paint Sprayer for $3,802 and a RTX900 Texture Sprayer for $790.50. Both were requested to help with ``cleaning and restoring preserves, monuments and historical sites in Miami-Dade County.''

Sure, you know, ``cleaning and restoring preserves, monuments and historical sites in Miami-Dade County'' while conducting an environmental crimes investigation.  Come on!  You don't think this paint equipment ended up getting used by Mr. Vecin's construction business now do you?


At the end of the day, from what we've learned the millions of dollars spent from this fund had nothing to do with investigating "Environmental Crimes", this fund was used as nothing more than a personal slush fund for certain members of the command staff of the MDPD.  As you know though, Mr. Vecin couldn't have pulled this off on his own, there had to be more than one person in the PD involved in this mess, we find this comment most telling...

Sadly, even Glenn Theobald, the department’s Legal Bureau chief, engaged in fine legal “wordsmithing” to accommodate Vecin’s request. A deed Theobald now surely regrets...

Let's not forget, if not for a memo authorizing the misspending of these funds, this mess may not have happened.  For those of you thinking that the investigation of this mess is going to be left to the MDPD IA and then get swept under the rug, don't fret.  Our sources tell us that the Feds are all over this mess and that if there was criminal misconduct, charges will be brought against those responsible.

So what about the new mortgage fraud case we discussed this week?  What was the conclusion?  The case was put together by the pride and joy of the MDPD Mortgage Fraud Task Force, Jorge Baluja and the subject was arrested on 6/12/2008 then the case was no actioned on 7/9/2008.  Why?  Because once the Detectives case was reviewed by a fair, unbiased, impartial prosecutor, the

prosecutor concluded that the case was either too weak to get a conviction or that the case (at least in our opinion) was nothing more than an unintelligible STEAMING PILE OF $HIT that could not be taken to trial.  After all, we all read Detective Baluja's handy work, was anyone able to understand what the hell the case was about? 

This is how things are supposed to work, unfortunately for the subject, he had to endure getting arrested but once the prosecutor reviewed the case, the charges were dropped.  That's why the prosecutor is supposed to ONLY act as an advocate and is not supposed to have role as an investigator or administrator during the course of building the case.  Makes sense, let the cops do the police work and let the lawyers do the damn lawyering!  That's not what happened in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case though, ASA Bill Kostrzewski was intimately involved in every aspect of the investigation, writing witness statements, typing up arrests affidavits etc, basically stepping outside his role as an advocate and therefore losing the absolute immunity afforded to prosecutors in case there was any wrong doing.  Why do you ask would a veteran prosecutor do such a thing?  We'll answer that question next week.


Have a great weekend!

Has anyone been able to figure out the mortgage fraud case from yesterday? Also, more news on MDPD Chief legal counsel, Glenn Theobald.

Has anyone been able to make sense of the mortgage fraud case that we began discussing this past Tuesday?  You remember, the case where the mortgage broker who denied a loan then got arrested for referring the loan to another broker who was able to get the transaction closed?  Our interpretation of the arrest affidavit left us a bit perplexed, there seemed to be several key players involved in the transaction that weren't mentioned let alone arrested, namely the people simply identified as "co-def's", someone named "PETER" and the buyer for the home the state alleges was involved in the fraudulent transaction.  


Let's give the state the benefit of the doubt and assume that the sellers of the home located at 610 NW 184th Terrace were not involved in the state alleged "fraud" even though the man who was arrested for referring the loan insists that the buyer and sellers were some how related.

According to the property appraisers office, the property is owned by Semone Smith who purchased the home for $280,000 on 11/07...

That would be the same transaction that is mentioned on the arrest affidavit as having occurred at HRH Title on 11/07.  Since the state alleges that this transaction was fraudulent, surely the buyer, Semone Smith who participated in this alleged fraud, must have been arrested right?  WRONG!  Does that make sense?  If indeed this was some sort of "organized scheme to defraud" the victims, why wasn't the buyer arrested?  Let's not lose sight of the fact that over 2 years after the alleged fraud happened, the buyer that was involved in the fraudulent purchase STILL OWNS AND IS STILL LIVING IN THE HOME THAT WAS INVOLVED IN THE ALLEGED FRAUD!


Moving on, how about the principal of HRH Title, Nannette Colon?  Nothing their either.  What about the man simply referred to as "PETER" in the arrest affidavit?  From our brief investigatory work we've deduced that "PETER" must have been Peter Lella, the owner of Syracuse Capital Management, the mortgage brokers who got the loan financed, so was he arrested?  NOPE!  Believe it or not, from what we've been able to see through researching the file, the only person that was arrested in this case was THE POOR MORTGAGE BROKER THAT DENIED THE LOAN THEN REFERRED IT TO ANOTHER MORTGAGE BROKER!  Once again, we defer to our expert mortgage fraud investigator to give an opinion of Detective Baluja's work on this case, his opinion can be found here...


No biggie, just another botched mortgage fraud investigation, another persons life permanently altered, just another day at work for Detective Jorge Baluja.  We'll discuss how this case ended and why tomorrow.  We mentioned earlier this week that the Chief Legal Counsel of the MDPD, Glenn Theobald was in some sort of trouble over the authorization of questionable spending by the MDPD of monies from a federal trust fund set aside for the investigation of environmental crimes.  Somehow the local media has been very quiet about this subject and aside from our sources, we haven't heard anything anywhere regarding this story, that is until last night when we caught this on the evening news...

Revisiting the mortgage fraud case from yesterday and more rumors about the MDPD command staff...

We discussed a mortgage fraud story yesterday that didn't make any sense to either us or the poor guy that got arrested.  The story came to us in the form of an email and got our curiosity going so we went down to the Miami Dade County Criminal courthouse to see what was in the case file in order to get a better understanding of what the case was about.  Unfortunately after reading the arrest affidavit, we got more confused.  See for yourselves, as always, click on the image for a larger view...

Let's break it down...

On the above date, the victims advised that they attended a closing for the sale of their home located at 610 NW 184 Terr at HRH title service.  The victims stated that they contacted the Co-Def in regards to helping them sell their home.  At some point during the sales process, the Co-Def approached the Def and asked if the company he works at was interested in this mortgage transaction.  The def (stated during previous interview) that he could not get the loan approved by his lender so he referred the Co-Def to another Co-Def (mortgage broker) at Syracuse Capital Management.

Ok, the report identifies a Defendant (the man who's email we discussed yesterday) and then identifies two co defendants, one that could possibly be a realtor (who else would help the victims sell their home?) while the other co defendant is identified as being a "mortgage broker". 

The def stated at the previous interview that he was paid $1500.00 by the Co-Def (Syracuse Capital Management) for sending him this fraudulent mortgage transaction.  The interview was stopped and the Def was advised of his Miranda Rights at which time he decided he wanted an attorney. 

There's nothing wrong with a broker getting a commission for referring a loan, it happens all the time.  Why the hell would this trigger the Detective to Mirandize the poor guy?  Why the hell shouldn't he ask for an attorney at this point?!  Oh, I forgot how our favorite mortgage fraud detective responds to people "lawyering up"!

When the victims arrived at the closing on November 15, 2007, also present at the closing was the Def and the Co-Def's, they were presented with paperwork stating that the house was selling for $280,000.  Once the victim questioned the Co-Def in regards to the fraudulently inflated sales price of the home the Co-def stated not to worry because you are getting what you wanted for your house ($160,000). 

This is starting to sound a little hokey right around here.

After the paperwork was signed, the Co-Def instructed the Def and Co-Def to accompany the victim to his bank and to obtain two checks from the fraudulently obtained proceeds.  The Co-Def stated to the Def and Co-Def to make sure that one of the two checks that would be obtained from the victim could not be traced back to "PETER"  The Co-Def then asked who would be taking the second victim to the bank at which time another Co-Def stated that he would be.

Have you all started to cry yet?  Can you understand what the hell is going on here?  If we're reading right, we now have the Defendant, Co-Def who was helping the victims sell their home (perhaps a realtor?), a second co-def (who may have been previously referenced as the "mortgage broker"?), a third Co-Def who is simply referred to as "another Co-Def" and a fourth person simply referred to as "Peter".  Moving along... 

The victims advised that the Def & Co-Def's followed them to their respective banks in order to have them withdraw $50,265.84 that was obtained, via a wire transfer of $109,307.41, from HRH Title Service.  When the Def & Co-Def's arrived at the banks with the victims the funds were available and the victims withdrew the money.  One victim had it split into two different checks.  Both checks were made payable to the Co-Def on in the amount of $28,000 and other for $22,265.84.  Upon receiving the checks from the victim the Def & Co-Def left the bank. 

Ok,  so defendant so far has followed one of the two "victims" to a bank while a Co-Def picked up two checks totaling $50,265.84.

The second victim stated that she provided another Co-Def with one check from her bank for $50,265.84.  That Co-Def then left the bank.  The Co-Def deposited both checks he received into an account at another bank bearing his name.

The victim provides a check for $50,265.84 to ANOTHER Co-Def?!  HUH?!  Now I'm really confused, let's take a quick inventory of the people involved in this report.  Here we go:

1- Victim #1 who was selling their half of their marital home.
2- Victim #2 who was selling their half of their marital home.
3- Defendant, this is the man that was the subject of this arrest affidavit and who emailed us his story.
4- Co-Defendant #1 who was "helping the victims sell their home", perhaps a realtor.
5- Co-Defendant #2 who was identified as being a "mortgage broker"
6- Co-Defendant #3 he's not identified, we have no idea what his role was.
7- A man simply identified as "Peter".
8- Co-Defendant #4 the man who was given a check by the victims for $50,265.84.

One of these Co Defendants (not #8) received two checks totaling $50,265.84.  Ok, is that clear?  Does that make sense?

What in the fcuk is that ?!  Can anyone make any sense of that affidavit?!  We've identified at least six "defendants" in this report, we know one was the man who was the subject of the report, so accoring to that narrative there should be at least five other people labled as Co Defendants on the report right?  Let's take a look...

WHAT?!  Just one other Co Defendant?!  WTF is this $hit?!  Can any of our esteemed readers figure out what the hell is going on in this case?  Does it sound plausable that the "victims" just handed over $100,531.68 just for $hits and grins?  Even worse, from what we've been able to find, the only person arrested in this case was the poor guy who denied the loan and referred it to another mortgage company!

Hey pride and joy of the Mortgage Fraud Task Force, Detective Jorge Baluja, WHAT ABOUT ARRESTING THE BUYER WHO HAD TO BE IN ON THIS "FRAUD"!?  What about the mortgage broker?  How about arresting the guy who deposited the $100,531.68 from the "victims" in his bank account?!  What about investigating a possible link between the buyer and the seller?!  Or even better, if there was a realtor involved (or as you describe him in your report the man who was "helping the victims sell their home") wouldn't they have some explaining to do about why the sales price went from $160,000 to $280,000?  After all, the REALTORS SIGNATURE HAD TO HAVE BEEN ON THE CONTRACT!  WTF?!  

Can you believe this $hit?!  While the leaders of the Mortgage Fraud Task Force are giving their press conferences, holding their meetings and hyping their achievements, who the hell is watching what their underlings are doing?  In this case their detectives arrested a poor guy and permanently altered the course of his life with this arrest affidavit that doesn't even make sense!  How many times do you have to read this incoherent document before you realize that it's author must have been either drunk or stoned when they were writing it?!  Does it seem like the Detective investigating this transaction had any idea what he was doing?  Before we get all carried away and blow a gasket, let's not forget that the author was none other than Detective Jorge Baluja...

Enough of that for now.  Based on our blog comments from the last two days and some anonymous emails we've received, it seems like there is a major shake up going on in the command staff of the MDPD.  We learned last week that Major Bernie Gonzalez from the MDPD Training Bureau abruptly and unexpectedly retired.  The Herald broke the news about the Chief of the Centralized Services Division, Frank Vecin being demoted and our sources (unconfirmed as of yet) have told us that MDPD Chief Legal Counsel Glenn Theobald has also abruptly retired.  Now we're hearing rumors of Assistant Director Oscar Vigoa being shown the door as well and some no nonsense Feds from DC overseeing an investigation into how money in the MDPD has been spent over the last few years.  What's going on at the MDPD?  At the very least it looks like Director James Loftus is cleaning house and is wasting no time doing so.  We're waiting with bated breath for updates on the shake up at the PD and will update the blog accordingly.