Lying to a Grand Jury is OK and our friend Al Crespo unearths even more corruption in the City of Miami...

Back in late May we discovered disturbing inaccuracies in the grand jury testimony that eventually led to the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud indictment.  From what we were able to find, the government misrepresented several important facts to the grand jury which made an already bad situation for the defendants even worse by including incorrect inflammatory statements like these...

With respect to this particular Indictment, we’re talking about the first count, which is a conspiracy count. It’s a conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, and filing of false statement with a Government agency, the Department of Housing & Urban Development.

Counts 2 through 12 are the mail fraud counts.  Counts 13 through 25 are the wire fraud counts.  Counts 26 through 33 are the 1001 counts, which is the filing of a false statement with a federal agency.

Q. And the department or agency to which the HUD-1 is submitted is the Department of Housing & Urban Development?

A. Yes.

We now know that these statements were false and misleading, the paperwork in question is in fact not submitted to the Department of Housing and Urban Development or any other federal agency.  The government responded to the defenses motion to dismiss these charges by basically saying fuck it, let the jury decide...

II. ANY PURPORTED ERROR IS RENDERED HARMLESS BY THE PETIT JURY  Any purported errors claimed by the Defendant are rendered harmless if the petit jury convicts the defendant. See United States v. Mechanik, 475 U.S. 66, 72-73 (1986).  Based on the aforementioned argument and facts, the counts in the Indictment should stand and the defendant can be tried on the merits. "An indictment returned by a legally constituted and unbiased grand jury, . . . if valid on its face, is enough to call for trial of the charge on the merits." Costello, 350 U.S. at 363.

I was really hoping that Judge Cohn would recognize how serious these "errors" were and would then dismiss the charges in question.  Wishful thinking I guess... 

Steven Stoll Joe Guaracino Motion to Dismiss Denied

According to the judge the defendants "suffered no prejudice from the United States’ alleged misconduct and his constitutional protections were not jeopardized."  Wonderful, I'm sure the defendants feel the same way.

Now, back to the City of Miami mess for a moment, our friend Al Crepso broke another story yesterday regarding an alleged bribe that Mayor Regalado offered to embattled police chief Miguel Exposito to resign.  According to Mr. Crespo, Regalado offered the Chief $400k to leave, an offer the chief turned down because according to the chief "they couldn’t buy me or my reputation".  That's all well and good, but for those who've been paying attention to the rumors surrounding the feud between the mayor and police chief, this $400k buyout thing isn't exactly anything new.  Rumors of this alleged buyout have been circulating since early January 2011, from what we've heard the chief turned down the buyout because it would have created too much of a tax liability for him.  Regardless of the tax liability or when this "buyout" actually became public knowledge, the question that we're left with is how the hell did the mayor unilaterally decide to give the Chief this offer?  Doesn't something like this (especially of this magnitude) require the a vote by the commissioners?  Worse still, with the city tetering on the verge of bankruptcy, how can they afford to keep giving away massive severance packages like this?  How many murals and led billboards does the city have to put up in order to generate $400K?

The city is on fire folks, the mayor and the police chief publicly feuding, city buildings becoming public billboards, employees showing up part time and taking home over $300k per year, etc.  It's going to be interesting to see what's left when this is all over.
 

No deal for Michelle Spence-Jones...

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At least not today. If you believe the rumors circulating regarding her case, today was the day the state was to drop the charges against former city of Miami commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones, needless to say, it didn't happen. Her attorney, Peter Raben, was overheard telling the judge at sidebar that he was "no where near ready to go to trial". The judge then proceeded to give another status date for August 28, 2011. 

Based on what we saw today, there doesn't seem to be any "deal" on the horizon and the case seems to be headed for trial. More later.

Why are Mayoral candidate Julio Robaina's properties worth so little? Taking a closer look at Mr. Robaina's campaign qualifying documents...

I know the Miami Dade county mayoral race isn't our standard fare, bare with me though as I think what I've found may be of interest to our readers that are going to vote on Tuesday for former mayor Carlos Avarez's replacement.  I was bored the last couple of days so I decided to go through mayoral candidate Julio Robaina's qualifying documents.  Here they are in their entirety...

Julio Robaina Mayoral Candidate Qualifying Documents

At first glance there seems to be nothing out of the ordinary, that is until I came across the list of real property that Mr. Robaina owns, here it is appears on his financial disclosures, as always, click on the image to enlarge...

For the moment, let's take a look at the property identified by the first arrow which is located at 499 West 33rd street and the one just below it which is located at 455 West 33rd street.  These two addresses refer to the same shopping center, the same shopping center that our friend Frank Alvarado of the Miami New Times wrote about back in April (here's a link to that article).  From the article...

While Miami-Dade County residents paid higher property taxes last year, Hialeah Mayor and Miami-Dade County mayoral candidate Julio Robaina did not pay property taxes on a shopping center he owns in his city. In fact, it appears Robaina has avoided paying taxes on the building since 2006, when he and a business partner finished it.

Ok, so according to the article for some reason or another the Property Appraisers office only calculated the property taxes based on the land value and not the value of the complete shopping center.  Worse still, the property appraisers office takes the blame for the "miscalculation"...

"...it was the property appraiser's office's fault Robaina's building value was not recalculated."

Sounds like bullshit to me, but for the sake of our argument, let's accept that the property appraisers office screwed up and failed to collect tens of thousands of dollars from Mr. Robaina.  We've also learned from the New Times article that Mr. Robaina had borrowed in excess of one million three hundred thousand dollars against this property, with that in mind, how can you explain these numbers on his campaign qualifying documents...

According to Mr. Robaina, his shopping center is worth a total of  $75,325!  WTF?  I wonder what the bank who lent Mr. Robaina 1.3 million dollars would think of that?  Now I understand that the first screw up could have been blamed on the property appraiser not reevaluating the property after the shopping center after it was built (pffffft!) but how can we explain this miscalculation on his campaign qualifying documents?  Based on what's listed in the qualifying documents it looks like Mr. Robaina's wife prepared these documents, so is it possible she wasn't aware of what her husbands assets were worth?  

Let's move on to the property identified by the second arrow in the list of real properties owned by Mr. Robaina that we posted at the beginning of today's post, the property located at 5590 West 16th Avenue which appears to be a prosperous Chevron gas station.  From Google maps...

From the looks of it this Chevron has six gas pumps (two dispensers per pump) as well as a convenience store.  The station seems to be sitting on a prime corner and based on what a few of my friends who own gas stations have told me, the station, convenience store and business is worth upwards of 1.5 million dollars, the property alone has got to be worth in excess of a million dollars.  Based on the $610,000 mortgage Mr. Robaina obtained when he purchased the property back in 1995 the property had to be worth at least that much if not much more, so then why would he list it's value at $192,071 on his campaign qualifying documents?

I don't get it?  Once again from the campaign qualifying documents and the mortgage for the gas station, we learn that the tenant who occupies the station is a corporation that's also owned by Mr. Robaina...

Just the convenience store and it's lease for the gas station and store is worth more than what Mr. Robaina claims the whole station is worth!  What gives here folks? 

I wouldn't want to suggest some sort of impropriety on Mr. Robaina's part regarding the gross undervaluing of these two properties that we've discussed.  Maybe it's something that's easily explainable?  Perhaps an oversight by his wife who handles the day to day affairs while Mr. Robaina was busy governing Hialeah?  Really, why would anyone want to undervalue their assets in a financial disclosure anyway?

This brings us to this final detail regarding Mr. Robaina's campaign qualifying documents...

By signing these documents, Mr. Robaina swears "...that the information disclosed on this form and any attachments hereto is true, accurate and complete."  As we sit here on the eve of our mayoral election how are we to interpret the fact that Mr. Robaina swore that the facts regarding his own personal finances contained in his campaign qualifying documents are correct when it's blatantly obvious that they're not?  If Mr. Robaina isn't intimately familiar with his own finances then how can we expect him to handle the job of managing the multi billion dollar Miami Dade county government?

Putting things in perspective...

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By now you all know I have a beef with prosecutors going after low level mortgage fraudsters rather than nailing the people at the top of the food chain, the bankers and Wall Street executives that brought down our economy.  The feds recently convicted former CEO of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp. Paul R. Allen of billions of dollars worth of financial fraud.  The sentence for his crimes?  Three years.  On the other hand we have a homeless man name Roy Brown who robbed a bank of a single hundred dollar bill so he could get something to eat.  His sentence?  See for yourselves...

 

Steal three billion, get three years.  Steal a hundred bucks and get 15 years behind bars.  WTF!?

CORRECTION! City of Miami assistant fire chief Veldora Arthur is on paid administrative leave!

Yesterday one of our readers stated that City of Miami assistant fire chief Veldora Arthur was on administrative leave since she was federally indicted for mortgage fraud and was using her accumulated vacation time while on leave.  Turns out we were wrong, our contact from the fire department sent us this correction...

Veldora has been on Paid Leave for most of the past 3 months. She has in fact traveled for personal reasons during her absence but from the records i have seen; she was charged vacation time for those VACATION absences. But it is an absolute fact that aside from the few short personal trips she has taken, all of her absences over the past 3 months has been billed to the taxpayers through "Paid Administrative Leave" absences while she has been at home getting paid to watch TV, surf the web, do chores, working on her defense case,. and probably engaging in some form of 'work from home' outside employment that she has already shown a propensity for!

SHAZAM!  While the city is reported to have anywhere between a forty to eighty million dollar budget deficit this year, Veldora is sitting home collecting over $300,000 per year from the city's taxpayers!  Our contact goes on to comment on the allegation that most people in the upper echelons of the FD have gone home by 1:30 in the afternoon...

Very exaggerated. The real heroes in the fire rescue department are definitely the firefighter/paramedics out on the street saving lives and definitely not the 20 or so behind desks shuffling papers, except for Veldora, the 1:30 part is an exaggeration. Most probably work longer days that they get paid for. Veldora on the other hand has engaged in a criminal neglect of her duty to the taxpayers.

That last bit makes me wonder, "criminal neglect of her duty to the taxpayers".  Could there be an angle here?  Could this not showing up for work and now this paid administrative leave situation rise to the level of criminality?  Think about that for a moment...

Even before the federal mortgage fraud indictment, if Veldora was only showing up for work half the time while getting paid by the city to work full time, isn't that just straight up theft?  Anyone from the State Attorneys office paying attention here?  On the other hand, how about the bogus severance packages former City Manager Tony Crap and former City of Miami CFO Larry Spring gave themselves?  Doesn't that sound like Grand Theft and Organized Scheme to defraud?

It's time for someone to take action, whether from the City or the State Attorneys Office.  Enough is enough. 

It's about time. The Miami Herald finally gives credit to one of our friends and local bloggers, Al Crespo, for breaking a story.

As the title of today's post states, Chuck Rabin of the Miami Herald has finally decided to give credit to our friend and local blogger Al Crespo of the Crespo Gram report for breaking the story of former City of Miami CFO Larry Spring's illegal severance package. It's nice to finally see mainstream media like the Herald giving credit to the people who work tirelessly and for free for doing the research and breaking these kind of stories that they usually wont report on. From the Herald article...

The payout to Spring—first reported on Al Crespo’s blog, thecrespogramreportcom — has created a furor in the local blogosphere, confusion at City Hall, and anger among some city commissioners and the mayor.

So it took "furor in the local blogosphere" before the Herald finally decided to acknowledge the corruption and outright theft that's been going on in the City? After being asleep at the switch ever since Regalado was elected mayor, the Herald has finally woken up. Great.

In my opinion the Herald giving credit to Mr. Crespo for breaking the story is a milestone, Mr. Crespo says it best in the comments section of the Herald article...

To Chuck Rabin and the Miami Herald, thanks for the credit. The times are changing, and I think that you all need to not only start crediting bloggers more, but more importantly piggybacking off our of initial efforts. You can't do what we do, but we can't do what you do either.

Correct, I've always given credit to the Herald or whoever else I get a story or information from, it's about time the Herald does the same. Which leads us to Mr. Rabin's Herald article regarding City of Miami Assistant Fire Chief Veldora Arthur's federal mortgage fraud indictment story we broke a few months back. As you all remember, our blog post was published on February 21, 2011...

The very next day Mr. Rabin of the Herald writes his story about Veldora's indictment...

No big deal right? What Mr. Rabin doesn't know is that I was watching him read our blog at 9:32 in the morning on the 22nd of February hours before he wrote his story. How do I know? Take a look at our blog tracking software report for that morning (click on image to enlarge)...

Our blog analytic software tells us that the folks at the Herald were perusing through our Veldora blog post from 9:32 am through 11:37 am ripping off our story without giving us credit. No big deal Mr. Rabin, like Mr. Crespo said...

The times are changing, and I think that you all need to not only start crediting bloggers more, but more importantly piggybacking off our of initial efforts. You can't do what we do, but we can't do what you do either.

Now, let's turn to a disturbing comment we received yesterday regarding City of Miami employees Veldora Arthur and Thomas Thelusma's employment status with the City since their federal mortgage fraud indictments...

Anonymous said...

FIRE CHIEF TOOK TOM THELUSMA I.D AND BADGE AWAY BUT COCK SUCKING VELDORA ARTHUR STILL HAS HERS. VELDORA HAS NOT BE SEEN IN 2 MONTH OR LONGER. I GUESS SHE IS IN THE BAHAMAS ON TAXPAYERS PAID LEAVE ! AND YES THE BLACK THING DOES HAVE SOME MEANING , JUST GO TO THE AMINISTRATION AND SPECIALLY SUPPORT STAFF AND YOU WILL SEE HOW DARK IT IS AROUND THERE . MFD AT AN ALL TIME LOW MORALE AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE TILL THEY CLEAN HOUSE. . IF YOU THINK VELDORA IS THE ONLY ONE NOT IN THE OFFICE , JUST GO BY HQ AND PEEP IN , YOU WILL FIND NO ONE THERE PAST 1:30 PM.

June 22, 2011 10:54 AM

I wasn't sure whether or not this comment was accurate, so I reached out to one of our sources in the fire department who clarified things for us, his responses are in blue..

"FIRE CHIEF TOOK TOM THELUSMA I.D AND BADGE AWAY BUT COCK SUCKING VELDORA ARTHUR STILL HAS HERS.
I believe this was true during their respective periods of "Paid Administrative Leave" but Thelusma was only on leave for less than 2 weeks

VELDORA HAS NOT BE SEEN IN 2 MONTH OR LONGER.

True, longer

I GUESS SHE IS IN THE BAHAMAS ON TAXPAYERS PAID LEAVE !

She has in fact traveled for personal reasons during her absence but from the records i have seen; she was charged vacation time for those absences

AND YES THE BLACK THING DOES HAVE SOME MEANING , JUST GO TO THE ADMINISTRATION AND SPECIALLY SUPPORT STAFF AND YOU WILL SEE HOW DARK IT IS AROUND THERE .

Thelusma and Arthur are both black. If he means "How dark it is" = alot of blacks; there are in fact alot more blacks in the fire administrative upper ranks than there was 10 years ago, but alot of it began under the previous anglo chief not chief kemp, so Im not sure what this guys point is but its out of context.

(1)MFD AT AN ALL TIME LOW MORALE (2)AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE TILL THEY CLEAN HOUSE.
1. This is true but mostly because Fire Rescue personnel were singled out by the Mayor and received 20-30% pay cuts last year. 2-3 times as much percent as other city employees. This has nothing to do with veldora, thelusma or anything like that. 2. not true , it has nothing to do with cleaning house of veldora, thelusma or anybody else for that matter

IF YOU THINK VELDORA IS THE ONLY ONE NOT IN THE OFFICE , JUST GO BY HQ AND PEEP IN , YOU WILL FIND NO ONE THERE PAST 1:30 PM.

Very exaggerated. The real heroes in the fire rescue department are definitely the firefighter/paramedics out on the street saving lives and definitely not the 20 or so behind desks shuffling papers, but the 1:30 part is an exaggeration. Most probably work longer days that they get paid for.

I'm glad we were able to get that cleared up. As our friend says, if Ms. Arthur isn't coming to work and being charged vacation time for her absence then it's not really "paid administrative leave" like our commenters have been suggesting.

Now, regardless of how the story of the City of Miami's former CFO Larry Spring questionable and perhaps illegal severance package became public, let's see what the folks over the City are going to do about it. Once again, congrats to our friends over at the Crespo-Gram report and Investigation Miami blog for the countless hours they put in to bring these stories to light.

Indicted City of Miami assistant fire chief Veldora Arthur and firefighter Thomas Thelusma on paid leave?! And "Operation Cop out", what's in a name?

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Could this be true? Several sources as well as several of our commenters tell us that both Veldora Arthur and Thomas Thelusma have been on paid administrative leave since they were federally indicted for mortgage fraud! From our comments section...

Anonymous said...

Where the F*^k are the Cops!Veldora Arthur has been on PAID LEAVE since March! Now Thomas Thelusma has the same special 'LEAVE' Plan!! WTF I total agree that all are innocent until proving guilty BUT that doesn't mean you CANT WORK. But then again we DON'T Get IT.....because its a 'Black Thing'.

May 19, 2011 10:09 AM

While I don't agree with the "black thing" comment, the rest is very troubling if true. As we've said time and time again, we believe in the presumption of innocence, innocent till proven guilty, but this business of getting federally indicted and then being put on paid administrative leave is a bit much, isn't it?


What's even more troubling is the fact that the cops indicted in operation "Cop out" aka the Plantation cops mortgage fraud case were put on "leave" without pay after they were indicted. Why did the cops get sent home with no money while having to prove their innocence while the City of Miami fire department employees get to stay home while still raking in six figures? Worse still, with the City of Miami teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, how the hell can they justify paying these federally indicted employees while they're sitting at home? Can we really afford to have anyone sitting at home while getting paid as if they were at work?


Now, going back to the Plantation Cops mortgage fraud case, aka "Operation Cop out", we learned yesterday that the decision to go after the cops was made by FDLE special agent Dennis Roadruck...

In the spoilation hearing before this court Lead Agent Dennis Roadruck testified that he in his sole disgression limited this investigation to the cops.

I wonder what it was about the cops that caused agent Roadruck to focus his attention on them and them alone? We've been told time and time again throughout the course of this investigation and subsequent trial that the mortgage brokers involved, Rene Rodriguez and Matt Gulla, had committed hundreds if not thousands of similar frauds. Even worse, the government was not only aware of these other cases of fraud but they also had the mortgage brokers records and hard drives which contained proof of these frauds, so why did this investigation only zero in on the cops that were indicted?

You guys hash it out and we'll discuss further next time.