2012 starts off well for Veldora Arthur and once again, the tax payers get screwed!

As most of you already know, convicted fraudster and ex City of Miami assistant fire chief Veldora Arthur got to keep her pension.  We sat through an hour long hearing last week at the City of Miami Fire Fighter and Police Officer Retirement Trust, let's just say that the hearing was a farce.  Our sources tell us that there was a bunch of back room dealing that went on before the hearing virtually guaranteeing that Veldora got to keep her pension despite the crimes that she committed while on the job, we'll cover that in detail later this week, in the mean time, check out our friend Melissa Sanchez's coverage of the hearing at the from the Miami Herald here.


While I expected Ms. Arthur to get to keep her pension, what I didn't expect was this...

Veldora Arthur Restitution Order

That's right, in case you missed it, here's the part that left me FLOORED!

What was that?

HUH?

That's the icing on the cake, isn't it?  It's bad enough that Ms. Arthur got to collect her full pay and benefits while sitting at home awaiting trial, now she's sitting in prison STILL COLLECTING HER $167,000 PENSION and as a parting gift, the federal government has decided that despite the fact she cost the banks millions of dollars worth of losses as a result of her nefarious schemes, she now doesn't have to repay them a single red cent!


So there you have it, the tax payer takes it up the ass not once, but TWICE!  We'll done!

Nearly four years later, case #F-08-036522-D comes to an end.

In an anticlimactic hearing yesterday morning at 9 am, the state announced that it's dropping the charges against the final remaining defendant in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case.  Just like that, in less than 15 seconds, the state attorneys office told Judge Thomas Rebull that they weren't going to proceed with the case against the "D" defendant that prosecutor William Kostrzewski railroaded nearly a year after the original arrests were made bringing to an end what could be described as one of the most botched mortgage fraud investigations on record.  What's really disgraceful about this last defendant even being charged was that by prosecutor Kostrzewski's own admission, he knew he was innocent but was only charged so he could then testify against the other defendants.  In other words, hey, fuck you, I've gone ahead and thrown your ass in jail even though I knew you had nothing to do with the crimes I'm charging you with so that you could come on in and spill the beans against the other defendants.  Some moral code prosecutor  Kostrzewski abides by, right?

Bernardo Barrera

Basically what did the states case in against this defendant was the insurmountable mountain of evidence against the man that Prosecutor Kostrzewski identified as the victim of this fraud, Bernardo Barrera.  Early on in our blog we identified several problems with Mr. Barrera's assertion of not being involved with the fraud that was at the center of the case but the icing on the cake came when we decided to go ahead and submit all the documents pertaining to the fraud to a handwriting expert.  I gathered up samples of Mr. Barrera's signatures from his divorce paperwork and the documents relating to the purchase of his primary residence, these samples along with signature samples from the purchase and loan documents from the mortgage that he alleged he was not involved with were all bundled together and sent off to a handwriting expert, check out the results of the handwriting experts analysis for yourselves...

Notice that this handwriting analysis was done on December 10, 2010, almost a year and half before the charges were dropped.  So there you have it, according to the handwriting expert, Mr. Barrera signed all the documents pertaining to the purchase and subsequent mortgage of the house that was at the center of the states case, the same house and mortgage that he vehemently denied, under oath I may add, that he had absolutely nothing to do with.  I spent roughly $1,300 on expert that the state should have used before they charged anyone in this case.  

Ultimately it was this handwriting analysis that ended up getting the case dropped against this last remaining defendant.  What's really a shame about this case, that is aside from innocent people's lives being unnecessarily destroyed is the fact that the biggest fraud perpetrated throughout this story was the fraud that Bernardo Barrera committed against the court by lying about his involvement in this fraudulent home purchase and subsequent fraudulent mortgage used in the commission of this fraud.  What's worse?  The fact that prosecutor Kostrzewski's bungling of this case ended up embarrassing the state attorney's office and the then newly formed Mortgage Fraud Task Force.  Luckily the state attorneys office removed this inept jackass and replaced him with prosecutors that were able to rectify the mistakes he made.

Eric Padron

I have to wonder, now that the state is well aware of Bernardo Barrera's involvement in this fraud are they going to hold him responsible and charge him not only for mortgage fraud but for perjuring himself throughout this case?  Think about what this case has cost the state as well as the defendants who were eventually exonerated, shouldn't he be made to pay?  Only time will tell.  In the mean time, congratulations are in order for Attorney Eric Padron who worked diligently and earned this hard fought victory for his client as well as the head of the state attorneys mortgage fraud unit, David Sherman, who rectified the errors that were made by prosecutor Kostrzewski.

So what now to the two assclowns that put this case together?  What say you Mr. Kostrzewski?  How about you Detective, sorry Officer Baluja?  How do you feel about your victim now or this steaming pile of shit you called a case?  And what about you Mr. Barrera?  I know you read this blog from your hideout in Panama, remember what I told you a few years back, I'm not gonna stop till your ass is behind bars.  Take that shit to the bank.

Major development expected in the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case today...

Amazingly enough, over four years later, the state is still dealing with the first mortgage fraud case that we wrote about, the Bernardo Barrera mortgage fraud case.  For those of you who aren't familiar with this case, go back and type in "Bernardo Barrera" in the search box on the upper left corner of the page and enjoy.  In a nutshell this case was hastily thrown together in the middle of the night by a morally, ethically and mentally deficient prosecutor named Bill Kostrzewski who used an even dumber cop named Jorge Baluja to do his bidding.  Of the three people originally charged back in October 3, 2008, one immediately cut a deal and got several years probation (essentially his attorney sold him out and didn't defend him), the other eventually after several plea negotiations ended up doing several years in prison while the third defendant, despite the prosecutors best efforts, ended up getting all the charges dropped against her.


What I neglected to tell you guys was that there was a fourth defendant, one that wasn't charged until nearly a year after the original arrests.  Once the prosecutor on the case realized that he had royally fucked up and saw the case falling apart around him, he decided to bring in a fourth defendant almost exactly a year to the day of the first arrests.  I never mentioned anything about this fourth defendant because I didn't wan't to jeopardize his defense, needless to say, there was no case against this fourth defendant yet somehow it's taken the state almost three years to come to that conclusion.  From what I've been told, it looks like the state will drop the charges against this poor guy today.  I'm headed to court this morning to see what happens.  We'll report tomorrow...

Our friend Al Crespo gives us a shout out and we have to ask, why isn't anyone in the mainstream media covering the Airways Auto Tag scandal?

Our friend and collegue Al Crespo of the Crespo-Gram report gave us a shout out last week regarding our coverage of the Airways Auto Tag story.  You can read his article here.  Al brings up a great question regarding the story in his article...

In years past, this is a story that the Herald would have featured above the fold on it’s front page, because by any criteria, this is a major story about how 3 women were falsely setup, and how a Miami-Dade police detective and a Miami-Dade Assistant State’s Attorney should be considered co-conspirators in this scheme.
But, because a “blogger” is the one that uncovered it, chances are you’ll never see a mention of it on the Herald’s pages, because not only has the Miami Herald squandered it’s journalistic integrity when it comes to acting like a big city newspaper, but, when it comes to “bloggers,” they might cite us once in a while in passing, but what they won’t do is build off of the work and efforts of someone like Mike, and let the whole community know about this nasty deal.

So where is the Herald?  How about any of the local news stations? Is the story of three hardworking innocent women who were wrongly arrested by an incompetent cop not worth covering?  Perhaps the people watching what they try to pawn off as local news are more interested in hearing about Whitney Houston dying again and again rather than hearing a story about one of their own?  Where are all the investigative reporters?  Jim DeFede?  Hank Tester?  Jeff Weinsier?  Anyone?  I guess they're too busy working on breaking news...

Taking a closer look at the those close out sheets from the Airways Auto Tag Agency mess...

Yesterday we went over the "closeout sheets" that are at the center of the Airways Auto Tag Agency case.  These closeout sheets are used by the tellers to account for the money they turn in at the end of the day, the sheets allow the tellers and bookkeepers to break down what's in the tellers drawer by denomination, once all the money is accounted for, everything is totaled up for review then the sheet is signed by the teller and the bookkeeper.

 
The owner of the tag agency tells the state that the tellers entered erroneous information on these handwritten closeout sheets to cover up their alleged theft of tens of thousands of dollars.  Let's take another look at the closeout sheet from December 23, 2010, the date that the owner claims there was thousands of dollars missing, as always, click on the image to enlarge...

Ok, here we have a form that's filled out by hand simply inventorying what was in the tellers drawer for the day broken down by denomination and by check.  Simple enough.  According to the owner of the tag agency, Ileana Martinez de Castro, the agency checks these "close out" sheets for accuracy, scans them then destroys the originals.  Ok, so far so good.  The first problem that jumps out after a quick glance at the sheet is that the numbers don't make sense, IE eight quarters don't equal one dollar and four twenty dollar bills don't equal two hundred dollars.  Strange.  What's even stranger is that no one on the bookkeeping side of equation picked up on these simple mistakes that a second grader should have been able to recognize?  Even worse, whoever reviewed these closeout sheets didn't see this mistake till several months later when they realized there was all kinds of money missing?  That's hard to believe at the very least.

What set me off yesterday was Ms Castro's rambling testimony and her mention of something about lines on the sheet being distorted as a result of the scanning, that caused me to take a closer look.  I reexamined the closeout sheet again and found several issues, issues that I suppose Ms. Castro attributes to scanning.  Here is a another look at the closeout sheet with the anomalies pointed out by the red arrows...

Let's start with the item labeled "A", here's a closeup...

What we're looking at is the number "1" in the box that accounts for quarters.  Look at the top of the one where it meets the horizontal line, see anything strange?  See how the line on the top gets thinner just to the left and right of the one?  Now look to the left of the one and follow down, see what I see?  I've outlined it in red here...

See what I'm saying?  You can clearly see handwriting underneath what looks to be a cut and pasted image of the number "1".  Here are the two images side by side for comparison...

When you look at the two images side by side, it's clear that there's been some sort of alteration to this document.  Let's move on, now we're going to look at item "B"...

Now, what's bizarre about this item is that the number "2" we see here doesn't match the number "2" that we see anywhere else on the sheet.  For comparisons sake, I've collected all the number 2's from this sheet and put them side by side...

Does that number two look like it was written by the same hand?  Hardly.  Moving along to item "C"...

Once again we see a number that looks like it had something else underneath it.  Another anomaly attributed to scanning?  I don't know about that.  Now let's look at item "D"...

What happened to the line under the number two?  Another issue created by the scanning process or was there some sort of alteration here that obscured the line?  Oddly enough this is in the twenty dollar row where the math is screwed up as well.  Somehow this number two doesn't exactly match the other number two's that we know were written by the teller in question.  On to item "E"...

Now here we have two issues, first we have a handwritten number "3" that doesn't match the other number 3's on the closeout sheet...

...as well as a handwritten number "2" that doesn't match any other number 2's anywhere else on the sheet...

How did that happen?  Last but not least is this strange area towards the bottom of the sheet that I've circled in red and labeled  "noise"...

Could that simply have been "noise" generated by the scanning process or was there something written there that was poorly blocked out or altered leaving this mess on the scanned copy of the closeout sheet?  I don't know, perhaps this question is best left to a forensic document examiner.  What I can tell you is that something is definitely not kosher here, whether you look at each individual anomaly or all of them together, there is something wrong with this closeout sheet.  If the teller wanted to make up a bogus closeout sheet, she could have simply grabbed a blank one and put in the bogus numbers then turned it in.  


What we seem to have here is a closeout sheet that appears to be either digitally altered or whited out and altered by someone other than the tellers that were charged for stealing the money.  Why do I say so?  The difference in handwriting suggests that the person who originally filled out the closeout sheet was not the same one that went back in and put in the new numbers as evidenced by the different handwriting style.  These anomalies coupled  with the simple arithmetic errors that we're to believe went unnoticed till months later suggest that there is something nefarious going on here.  Like our old Italian painting from yesterday, when you look closely at this closeout sheet, someone is definitely getting fucked and it isn't a dog that's doing the fucking...

Details, details, details...

Almost all of the cases that we've written about since the inception of our blog are paperwork intensive.  There seems to be mountains and mountains of documents in each case, either documents and exhibits that the state turns over as part of the discovery process or voluminous deposition transcripts that easily exceed several hundred pages.  In these instances it seems utterly impossible to get a proper handle on whats going on in these cases considering the seemingly insurmountable pile of paperwork that accompanies each case.  Yet to fully understand these cases, you have to go through these documents over and over and over again. 


There's been several instances to date where I've looked at a specific document dozens if not hundreds of times and have noticed nothing then somehow miraculously after looking at the document for months on end, something literally just jumps off the page is if it was outlined in neon lights.  This seventeenth century painting of an Italian piazza is a perfect example, at first glance there's nothing unusual about the painting...

Nothing strange going on there, just an old painting with some buildings and some people, you could walk by this painting a thousand times and never notice anything, that is till you take a closer look...

The minute you focus in on the painting, you realize there's something in the middle of the painting just in front of the tower so you squint and take another look then BAM...

There it is, right in the middle of the damn painting, TWO DOGS HAVING SEX!  Once you see the two dogs having sex, you realize that there's a crowd of people in the painting all watching what the dogs are doing.  Now when I see the painting, the dogs are the first thing I see and to think I've seen this painting for years and never noticed the dogs!


So what's two dogs having sex in the middle of a several centuries old Italian painting have to do with our blog?  Luckily for us, the Airways Auto Tag case has very little in the way of documents in the states case file, what little I've been able to find on my own outside of the criminal case file consists mostly of transcripts of an unemployment compensation hearings where the tellers that were accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars and subsequently fired from their jobs at the tag agency were simply looking to collect their unemployment benefits.  Luckily for us, the owner of the tag agency, Ileana Martinez de Castro, fought vehemently to deny these girls their unemployment benefits, her testimony during these hearings has turned into a treasure trove of information that I believe will ultimately be used against her if this case ever goes to trial.


According to the state and the allegations made against the tellers by the owner of the tag agency, the three tellers that were charged were accused of stealing money from the tag agency by accepting cash from the customers then after the clients left with their tags, the state alleges that the tellers would go ahead and void the transactions and pocket the money.  As I've mentioned before, the tellers have cameras and supervisors constantly monitoring them as well as keeping track of every dollar that the tellers take in.  At the end of every day, the tellers are required to fill out "closing sheets" which are basically an itemized inventory of every dollar that the tellers have at the end of the day when they close out their drawers.  Here is an example of a blank closeout sheet from the tag agency...

Simple enough and easy to understand, it's nothing more than a way for the teller to inventory the money in their drawer, itemize the various denominations, total everything up, sign and date it.  Then I suppose who ever does the bookkeeping then checks for inaccuracies then signs and dates it themselves.  


Now, lets move on to the tag agency owner's testimony regarding these closing sheets during the unemployment hearing specifically the close out sheet from the day the alleged thefts occurred, December 23, 2010...

Ms. DeCastro:  Okay, the paper that she turned in is on Page 11.  Page 11 is in her own handwriting.  And, she says that she put the wrong amount of the bill because, obviously, four $20 bills do not add to $200.  But the amount of money that she put on the right hand side add up to $14, 835.82; her handwriting which she signed and date, herself.  All we do is scan it.  The reason it has those lines on it is because we were making copies of copies, in order to do a closeout sheet; therefore, it looks like that.  But, we scan everything exactly the way they turn it in, their page. 

Huh?  What?  This excerpt of Ms. DeCastro's testimony shows a weird trait that she exhibits throughout all the unemployment hearing transcripts, she seems to ramble on at the slightest provocation.  I didn't think anything of the closeout sheet in question, till I read her her testimony for the third time.  Anyone who's every been to a deposition or a hearing of this nature is told by counsel again and again, simply answer the questions with a yes or a no, don't volunteer anything, keep your answers short and simple.  In this case all this talk about the scanning of these closeout sheets and "those lines" that she mentions that appear on the closeout sheets as a result of the scanning really got me wondering so I picked up the closeout sheet from December 23, 2010 and took a closer look to try to figure out what Ms. DeCastro was talking about.  Take a look for yourselves, as always, click on the image to enlarge...

First off, we notice at the top of the page, the fax header is from Duane Morris, LLP which we've learned is the law firm that represents the tag agency therefore authenticating the document as being a genuine close out sheet from the tag agency.  Now, as we just read, the owner of the tag agency mentions something about lines "looking like that", I can only assume that what Ms. DeCastro is referring to is the slight distortion in the lines because ostensibly as a result of the scanning process.  Once we blow up the closeout sheet, it's easy to spot the distortions Ms. DeCastro is talking about...

I went ahead and pointed out some of these distortions in in red in case you weren't able to spot them.  


After reading the transcripts, I was startled by Ms. DeCastro's willingness to ramble on, almost unprovoked.  I've learned over the years that no matter what the situation, if you give someone that's got something to hide enough rope, they're eventually going to hang themselves and in this instance Ms DeCastro didn't disappoint. Take a really good look at that closeout sheet from December 23, 2010 again and see if you see anything strange, for the astute among you it should be clear as day.  We'll discuss tomorrow...

The State Attorney's Office weighs in on the Sarnoff/Welch matter...

The post title speaks for itself, we're all too familiar with Grove gadfly Reid Welch and his recent encounter with City of Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff that ended with some sort of scuffle in front of Sarnoff's home.  

Based on eyewitness testimony from two unbiased witnesses, Commissioner Sarnoff ran up behind Welch, sucker punched him then wrestled him to the ground.  As our friend Frank Alvarado from the Miami New Times said...

​Call us crazy. But if two people saw Banana Republican approach someone, sucker punch him or her, and then pin our victim to the ground, chances are we'd be taking a ride down to Miami-Dade County jail. In fact, any Joe Schmo would have been arrested for assault or battery. But Marc Sarnoff is no regular citizen. He is a Miami city commissioner who has apparently gotten away with beating up his former pal and current nemesis, Reid Welch. 

Exactly.  What's even more disturbing is State Attorney's close out memo regarding this alleged assault...


Marc Sarnoff Reid Welch Assault Close Out Memo


According to the close out memo, the police and the state attorney's give more credibility to the testimony of a Sarnoff friend and campaign worker, Sue McConnell's testimony rather than the testimony of two unbiased witnesses who clearly witnessed the commissioner run up and attack Welch.  Let's not forget that the detectives who first investigated this alleged assault said this about Ms. McConnell's testimony...


"...conveniently she could not recall how they ended up on the ground."


Meanwhile you have two witnesses who clearly witnessed that Welch was on the ground because Sarnoff jumped him from behind.  Even a quick glance of the close out memo reveals some glaring inconsistencies, perfect example, did Ms McConnell have a phone or not while she was watching the alleged assault?  From the close out memo...

"The Woman, subsequently identified as Sue McConnell, was on her telephone at the time"

Ok, so Ms. McConnell was telling Welch he couldn't remove the campaign signs while she was on the phone.  Next the memo goes on to say...

"Ms. McConnell then yelled for someone to call 911.  She said she did not have her cell phone at the time."

Huh?  Did she or didn't she have her phone?  Which is it?  Does anyone proof read these damn things?  


Here's the final backhanded insult...

"While credibility is not a factor for any of those involved..."

Ok, that sounds reasonable but then they follow up with...

"Note:  The subject had also expressed concern because the Complainant inhales ("huffs") propane...The effects of huffing propane are unknown..."

So what happened to "credibility not being a factor"?  If credibility doesn't factor into anything, than why mention the huffing whose effects by the author's own admission are "unknown"?  And what about this bit about "the conflicting nature of the statements prevents proving a criminal charge beyond a reasonable doubt"?  What conflicting statements?  Two unbiased witnesses who don't know either Welch or Sarnoff clearly saw Sarnoff run up from behind Welch, sucker punch him then wrestle him to the ground.  Just because a Sarnoff friend, ally and campaign worker gives a sketchy recollection of what went on, a recollection that even the investigating officers don't buy, now we have "conflicting statements"?  WTF?


With all that said, I have to admit, I don't like Mr Welch.  Frankly I think the guy is off his rocker and he's got some unhealthy obsession with Sarnoff (duh).  And Sarnoff?  Despite what a lot of people think of the guy, I find it hard to dislike him.  For the most part, he's done good for the community and even though there's all sorts of allegations of wrong doing and dirty under handed schemes that he's allegedly involved in, no ones proven any of the allegations and even if true, he's no worse than any of his other colleagues.  Did Welch deserve to get beat down?  In my opinion, for sure, but not the way that Sarnoff did it.  As a sitting City of Miami Commissioner and a prominent local lawyer, Mr. Sarnoff should have handled himself differently, at the end of the day what he did, at least in my eyes, was clearly an act of assault that would have landed anyone else in jail.


Tomorrow, we dust off our document authentication and handwriting skills again, in the mean time, go back and check out some other instances where we've had fun with handwriting in the past...