Legal Commentary

Two Miami Cops Charged With Aiding Cocaine Traffickers in FBI Sting

By Jeralyn

Two veteran Miami police officers have been charged in an FBI undercover operation:

Two veteran police officers were charged Friday with providing protection for purported shipments of cocaine and stolen goods in what was actually an undercover FBI operation.

Officer Geovani Nunez and Detective Jorge Hernandez are accused in court documents of helping protect shipments of what they thought were stolen televisions and computers and at least 12 kilograms of cocaine — sometimes by using their police cars to escort trucks.

The officers have been fired. This isn't the first time cops have gone bad in Florida.

The case is similar to a recent FBI sting that led to guilty pleas from five officers in Hollywood, Fla. Four received lengthy prison sentences.

More...

It happened in Arizona too where 11 cops pleaded guilty.

It happened in one of my cases in Fort Lauderdale ten years ago. As I wrote then:

I had a reverse sting case in Fort Lauderdale some years ago where the agents pretended to be sellers and took $200k of my client's money. By the end of the case, a Customs agent and three members of the Hallendale police department went to jail for several years, and my client, whom they had tricked into buying drugs, was released after serving a year in the county jail without bond awaiting trial. Unlike the Arizona case, these agents got caught not for assisting the drug dealers, but for robbing them. But then, what did they do with the drugs they stole except turn around and re-sell them. In other words, they put them back on the street.

From the Miami Herald, 10/29/97 (available on Lexis.com):

Three former Hallandale police officers and an ex-Customs inspector who admitted to a grand scheme to overlook smuggled drugs then rob the traffickers were sentenced Monday in Miami. U.S. District Judge Lenore C. Nesbitt gave out sentences that ranged from six to 7-1/2 years. All four defendants pleaded guilty in May to federal conspiracy and extortion charges after a nine-month joint sting operation by U.S. Customs and the FBI.

The admissions were part of a plea agreement arranged by federal prosecutors, which helped the former officers avoid 25-year maximum sentences, if convicted. The arrests of Officers Gilberto Hernandez and Thomas Murphy and Sgt. John Salazar sent tremors through Hallandale's police ranks. With only 88 sworn personnel, the scandal left deep scars in morale.

Hernandez, a seven-year veteran of the force, confessed that he and a friend, Customs Supervisor Edwin Perez, masterminded the operation. Hernandez received the most severe sentence, 7-1/2 years, and Perez got 6-1/2. Prosecutors said the pair used Perez's knowledge of trafficking routes and airport security to pull profitable heists.

Cops are like everyone else. There are good ones and bad ones. And sometimes, just like other people, good cops do bad things. It's why it makes no sense that juries seem so ready to believe the word of a police officer over other witnesses.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 30, 2008 (boomark / email).