South Florida Criminal Attorneys Blog

Florida Man Acquitted of First Degree Murder Charges

September 1, 2014 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

Cesar Limas made his living by selling cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana. Yet he became the prosecutor’s key witness in a first degree murder trial that led to fourteen months of jail time for Carlos Hiracheta Perez, 29, of Dade City pending trial.

Limas told police that he and another man wrestled a Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol away from Perez outside an abandoned house in Dade City after two shots were fired inside the house.

Within the residence lay the motionless body of Arturo Escamilla. Limas told Sheriff’s deputies that after he grabbed the gun away from Perez, the suspect ran from the scene. Perez was apprehended afterward, and detained by Dade City police officers. He was later charged with attempted first degree murder and held without bail at the Pasco County Jail. The charges were elevated to first degree murder when Escamilla died the following day at Bayonet Point Hospital as a result of his injuries that took place in mid-May of last year.

Based on the arrest affidavit, Perez got into an argument with Escamilla inside the house leading prosecutors to contend that Perez was the person who gravely injured Escamilla when he shot him twice in the head.

However, at trial, the advocate for Perez placed doubt on Mr. Limas’s testimony pointing out contradictions in his original statement to police, as well as a lack of any evidence directly attributing Perez to being the shooter.

The assistant public defender argued that at the time of the shooting there were five men inside the abandoned house including Perez and Limas. Perez maintained that he was sleeping on a couch and ran when two gunshots rang out, believing he was running for his life. After Perez sprinted out of the house first, four more men followed and hopped into a vehicle and raced away. This was corroborated by neighbors who witnessed the events unfold. This contradicted Limas’s original statement to police that he and another man disarmed Perez.

A photograph of Limas was also revealed in possession of a .45-caliber handgun that was taken a few days prior to the shooting which more than likely could have been the gun that killed Escamilla. Additionally, members of Escamilla’s family stated that he never had any problems with Perez, but often had battles and heated disagreements with all of the other men in the group who all rushed out of the previously vacated dwelling after the shots were fired, including the prosecution’s central witness.

Perez’s court appointed attorney described to jurors that based on the presentation of the prosecution’s case it appeared they had more evidence against their star witness than they did against his client, and placed doubt in their minds by establishing that any of the other four men could have been the actual trigger-man.
The jury’s deliberations took a little more than an hour when they returned to their seats with a unanimous verdict. Judge Pat Siracusa cautioned Perez and his family to remain passive and quiet regardless of what the results were prior to the reading of the verdict. And they did as instructed, because the silence was deafening when it was revealed that the finding of all jury members was not guilty.

When the outcome of the verdict became apparent to Perez’s mother, with the speaker of her cellphone activated she was overheard excitedly repeating the word “libre”. Translated from Spanish, the word libre simply means “free”.

She next saw her son walking down the corridor that led out of the courthouse, exiting through the sliding glass doors into the lobby where she, his sister and niece came together around him in a mutual hug ending Carlos’s fourteen month ordeal this past July.

In Pasco County, a not guilty outcome in a first degree murder case is uncommon. It had been almost four years since it previously occurred when Anthony Harris was exonerated for the first degree murder charge of killing a drug dealer in 2010.<!–

Jessie Lee Miller Freed After 15-Year First Degree Murder Acquittal

August 1, 2014 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

Otto Wright’s first trial for felony first-degree murder ended in a mistrial when a jury couldn’t come to a unanimous decision. But his second trial ended with a guilty verdict when the previously self-proclaimed “look out” admitted that he participated in the robbery of a West Palm Beach Chick-Fil-A restaurant.

Nicholas Megrath, the 18-year old manager of the restaurant that was located at the now non-operational West Palm Beach Mall was shot and killed by one of the other culprits. But Wright’s taped confession stated that although he watched the robbery unfold and was a part of it he didn’t fire the fatal gunshot. There was no physical evidence placing him at the scene but after a seven hour interrogation by police Wright confessed to the robbery naming two of his accomplices as Terrance Watson and Darrell Howard. Watson and Howard were never accused by police or charged with the crime. A little more than five-hundred dollars in total was stolen from the store.

Wright’s lawyer argued that the confession obtained by police was given under duress and they manipulated his client by lying to him when they told him that they had physical evidence implicating him which was found at the crime scene. They also played a good cop, bad cop routine by utilizing the help of an officer who knew Wright for many years and had previously assumed the role of a father figure to him in order to a coerce Wright into confessing to his role in the robbery.

Boynton Beach Man Beats Prior Manslaughter Charge Walks Free Again

July 8, 2014 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

David Muringer appears to live a charmed life.

The Boynton Beach man was acquitted last month of misdemeanor battery and felony false imprisonment charges just short of a year and a half after he virtually walked away from manslaughter charges that could have cost him fifteen years in prison.

In this latest case against him his girlfriend, Robin Green, 26, told police that Muringer began to strangle her after the two of them had an argument and she tried to leave his apartment. She was able to get away from him and called 911. In this new case if convicted of both charges he would have faced to up to six years behind bars.

Although Muringer’s records show him to be a habitual offender based on Florida criminal records with over 80 arrests and eighteen felony convictions since the late twentieth century, the jury returned not guilty verdicts for both new charges after just a few hours of deliberations.

In October of 2010, patrons of a Delray Beach mall called police when they noticed a car parked behind a pizzeria leaking fluids and emanating an exceedingly bad odor. When police arrived at the scene they found the body of a woman crammed in a cardboard barrel in the back seat of the vehicle. Upon searching the car, a sales receipt for the purchase of a cell phone was found that was traced back to Muringer.

Muringer who worked as a carpenter was picked up by police and when questioned by them changed his story on a variety of occasions during his interviews regarding his girlfriend Doris Lopez who was the woman identified as the deceased.

He first told investigators that a man named Chile gave his girlfriend a half kilo of cocaine that the two of them were going to process and sell. He went on to tell them that the processed drugs were eventually determined to be of unsaleable quality causing Ms. Lopez to dump it. He supposedly remembered that later that week an unidentified man stopped by their apartment asking for her car keys.

However, investigators had little regard for his account and ultimately found the story to be false. He later admitted that the story he told them was indeed fictitious.

During further course of the investigation, Muringer then told detectives that Lopez went on a four-day bender, ingesting booze, coke and prescription drugs. After leaving her at the apartment and returning after approximately an hour he found her dead. He then told the investigators that he panicked because of all the drugs present in the apartment. He went on to tell them that after leaving her in bed for two days he placed her in the cardboard barrel and dumped her remains in Delray Beach, taking a bus back home after the deed was done.
As the investigation continued, detectives debunked his latest tale as well, and Muringer came up with a final alternative scenario, telling them that she was killed during an episode of rough sex.

This time he admitted to choking her during a sexual episode until she was out cold. He went on to say that he then went out for a while, only to return to find her lifeless body. He maintained that the part of his previous tale, when he told them that he left her in her bed for two days was true; before moving the body to where it was found by police.

But during the week-long trial, testifying on his own behalf Muringer said that it was another man that was responsible for his girlfriend’s death. He admitted to disposing of and the removal of the body but blamed the actual killing on a man named Thomas Byrd who he said was a friend of his.

During closing arguments, Muringer’s court appointed assistant public defender pointed suspicion on Byrd, who testified that his friend originally asked him to dispose of Lopez’s body. The defense lawyer also said the discovery of Lopez’s body alone wasn’t enough for them to convict his client of manslaughter. He was quoted as saying “To convict a man of manslaughter, you have got to bring more than this. Because this is how innocent people get convicted.”

After deliberations were concluded the jury told Circuit Judge Charles Burton that they were divided on the prosecution’s appeal for a conviction for manslaughter. But they did find Muringer guilty of the two misdemeanor counts of unlawful disposal of human remains as well as the charge of culpable negligence. Those convictions are punishable by up to sixty days in jail which literally let him walk out of court a free man as he spent more than that amount of time in jail awaiting trial. As previously pointed out, a conviction for manslaughter carries a sentence of up to fifteen years in prison as a second-degree felony.

The two prosecutors in the case told the judge that Muringer could still possibly face other charges before his release but the judge let Muringer know that if the prosecution does not bring forth any other charges deputies would be setting him free shortly with his only punishment being time served.

Deported Gay Honduran Man Fights to Return to the US to Gain Asylum

July 1, 2014 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

Italo Morales had lived in Hollywood, Florida for nearly ten years after he fled his native Honduras in 2005. Morales, now 27 years old is gay. He left Honduras nearly ten years ago, following his partner who also bolted from the country due to the violence against the small gay community that survives there on a daily basis.

As a country, Honduras can boast to being the murder capital of the world. The homicide rate is an alarmingly high ratio of almost one individual per every one thousand annually; earning this reprehensible label and nearly doubling its closest rival in this tragic classification, according to the United Nations. Venezuela stands at number two with a murder rate which is still at a chilling 0.5 persons per thousand. To put the above statistics into perspective, the United States has approximately one twentieth the total amount of annual homicides compared to Honduras, according to the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report.

Over the past five years, nearly one hundred gay persons have been murdered in the Central American Country. But nobody knows exactly how many actual murders of LGBT individuals have been committed, as being openly gay only adds to the possibility of a death sentence causing most of those with that sexual orientation to live there in the shadows.

When Morales entered the United States ten years ago it was shortly after the US changed policy in 1994 to allow people to seek asylum based on their sexual orientation. Morales took advantage of the change in policy leaving his homeland and entering the U.S. He has been seeking legal asylum ever since and was allowed to remain here under the condition that he wore an ankle bracelet.

After his arrival he found work at a Colombian restaurant in the neighboring area and had no work-related problems reported. Over the past ten years he lived a quiet life as explained by his partner Santos Quintilla.

Quintilla reportedly told the New Times “Basically what his life consisted of was going to work and coming back home and maybe the occasional weekend outing.” He also told the publication that when Honduras constitutionally barred same-sex marriage as well as adoptions by same-sex couples that was personally enough to make him leave the country.

Italo left soon after he did seeking asylum and a better life. He also mentioned during the interview, which was given in Spanish that “People like Italo don’t do well in places like Honduras. They get beat up and sometimes killed.”

Violence against gays specifically has accelerated since a coup d’état in 2009 which led to the ouster and exile of then-president Zelaya. The coup directed a suspension of many civil liberties as well as the imposition of curfews. The torture and killing of persons living in Honduras, within the LGBT community vastly increased since the change in regime. It has been alleged that some of the murders have even been committed by the nation’s police.

Morales’s wearing of an ankle bracelet was the effect of a federal pilot program that was initiated in 2003 to diminish the ongoing problem of the nationwide overcrowding of prisons and the cost to taxpayers that went into the millions while ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was holding undocumented immigrants who were awaiting asylum cases to be heard. The program continued and is still active today.

In Morales’s case, he was living what’s been termed “a regular life” when he was summoned to appear in Immigration Court this past March. The reason for the call was to check his ankle bracelet that appeared to be malfunctioning due to its battery running low. After his appearance in court, he was deported to his native country within a few days. News reports were sketchy at best for the reasons he was sent back to Honduras.

Right now, Morales is said to be in Mexico after journeying north in an attempt to re-enter the United States. He is trying to gather enough funds to acquire assistance for finding a way to get across the border, according to informed sources. Latest reports establish that at the time of the writing of this article, he could be found just south of El Paso, Texas.

But even if he does make it across, with or without help, he intends to continue his journey until he reaches his ultimate destination of Hollywood, Florida. However, when also interviewed by the New Times his lawyer explained that as an officer of the court, he’d have no choice but to hand him over to immigration officials if he came to his office.

But, the attorney believes that his client has a solid case. He was quoted as saying “It’s a very good case, according to case law,” and believes that if he can prove that it’s likely his client could face injury or death if again sent back to Honduras, there’s a good chance asylum may be granted. He also stated that proving those facts shouldn’t be too difficult.

To find out more about this topic, and read more about it, click here to go to the Immigration page on my Website.

Owner/Operator of South Florida Home Health Firm Pleads Guilty to Paying Health Care Kickbacks

June 24, 2014 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

Nestor’s Health Services, Inc. is now non-operational. This seems to be the story with most articles I’ve featured on my blog dealing with Health Care Fraud that’s taken place in the South Florida area over the past year. The word “defunct” seems to come up a lot.

With this latest article, the total amount of money I’ve reported which has been reimbursed by Medicare for fraudulent billing is fast approaching the $100 million dollar mark. But in all fairness, one of the stories posted here involved a reimbursement of $33 million by itself. So when Cruz Sonia Collado, the owner/operator of Nestor’s admitted to swindling Medicare out of $6.5 Million it seemed to be a small portion of the overall pot.

And that’s just a minuscule cut of the more than $100 billion (with a B) dollars in fraudulent claims paid out by Medicare to the dark side of the health care industry on an annual basis. And those in the know say that the actual total may be three times that amount.

But even looking at the big picture, the government still doesn’t take kindly to instances of finding owners of Home Health Care Companies ripping off the federal health insurance program.

This particular case handed down justice rather quickly. It was only three months ago when federal authorities, in a nation-wide sting charged fifty residents of the Sunshine State for various Medicare fraud swindles. The total amount of persons charged across the country added up to ninety, of which sixteen were doctors, leaving South Florida Health Care Executives and associated workers as the area with the most, accounting for more than half of the suspects that were rounded up in May.

Tallying it up, twenty-six individual criminal cases were files with a total of close to seventy- million dollars in fraudulent Medicare claims involved. Cruz Sonia Collado was one of the many caught in the widespread net.

Yesterday, Collado pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to offer and pay health care kickbacks and offering and paying health care kickbacks in front of U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola in Florida Federal Court. The sum of the submissions to Medicare by Collado’s company totaled $6.5 million of which $6.1 million was paid out over a five year period between 2009 and this current year.

The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in tandem with the Office of Inspector General, Department of Health & Human Services (HHS-OIG) and was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force. Locally, it was under the direction of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section as well as the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.

Since the Medicare Fraud Strike Force was sanctioned seven years ago, it has charged more than 1,800 suspects who have as a group fraudulently billed Medicare for over $6 billion.

To find out more about this topic, and read more about it, click here to go to the general Fraud Cases page on my Website.

To read about my qualifications and what you should do if you are arrested and charged with this or any other crime, click here.

There are a myriad of fraud cases which can be bought in both the State and federal Courts for instance, fraud can be charged as a simple third degree felony in Florida for which a defendant can face up to five years maximum in jail or the fraudulent conduct involved may be charged as an organized scheme to defraud and depending on the amount involved may result in a statutory maximum punishment of 15 or 30 years in jail

In the federal courts fraud can be brought under the mail fraud, wire fraud securities fraud or bank, mortgage or housing fraud statutes. The elements of such crimes can be based upon a scheme to defraud where the wires (i.e. telephone computers and the like) are used or mail fraud (where the mail is used to perpetuate the fraud). Securities fraud charges can result from pump and dump schemes where based on false information an individual may circulate fraudulent news on the internet about a stock to “pump” up its value and then dump it after he has purchased the inflated stock at a discounted value well before the majority of investors are hurt while the fraudulent actor makes out “like a bandit” with the profit from the grossly inflated stock price.

To read other articles on this topic posted on my blog, click here
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South Miami Man Sentence to 20 Years for DUI Vehicular Homicide

June 15, 2014 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

A Coral Gables man who worked as a physical therapy assistant was sentenced to twenty years in prison after a week-long trial when a jury found him guilty of all three charges against him. His blood alcohol level was more than triple the legal limit when his car crashed into a 2002 Chrysler Town and Country minivan killing a thirteen year old girl as well as injuring her father and sister.

According to police, Kaely Camacho, 13, was killed when Sandor Guillen’s 2010 Range Rover slammed into the minivan she occupied while he was speeding southbound at more than 80 miles per hour near the intersection of SW 184 St. and South Dixie Highway. His car was tearing down the bus lane (Busway), where the posted speed limit is 40 mph and is not open to typical vehicular traffic. The impact virtually carved the minivan in half. Kaely’s father: Kirk, 47, who was driving the minivan and sister: Bree Ann, 16, were also injured which non-life threatening injuries in the crash which occurred on April 13th, 2012. All family members were taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital where Kaely was pronounced dead at the Ryder Trauma Center a short after arrival.

A spokesperson for the Miami-Dade Police said “You can see from the damage of the actual mini-van, it’s missing the second half; the impact was very severe,” and went on to observe that in his opinion, the tragedy was unquestionably Guillen’s fault.

According to witnesses, upon impact, Guillen’s SUV ran into a tree, gyrated five times and finally came to a stop almost fifty yards away from the van. He made no attempt to alert 911 and then staggered away from the scene, discarding his identification in a thicket of underbrush. He was spotted by a Miami-Dade Police Officer that was informed to the accident in an adjacent area, apparently listening to music from his cellphone.

When questioned, his actions and responses seemed guarded according to the officer and told the investigator that he had been at a get-together with some friends where he had a few drinks just before getting into the wreck.

He was arrested shortly after being questioned by police and taken to a hospital to have his own injuries addressed. He was then booked and held pending trial after a judge set his bond at one million dollars. The arrest report specified that he reeked powerfully of alcohol and was acting intoxicated when the arrest took place. The charges against him were DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide in addition to leaving the scene of an accident.

The ensuing investigation showed that Guillen’s DNA was a perfect match to the blood found on the airbag of the Range Rover that collided with the Camacho family’s vehicle leaving minimal doubt that he was the driver according to forensic experts.

He remained locked up until the amount of his bond was lowered to just over $200,000 which is still substantially higher than the $45,000 which is the norm for the type of charges Guillen would face.

At trial, Guillen asserted that he’d been “jumped” by nameless attackers as reason for him being covered with blood. But the prosecutor explained to the jury that the DNA evidence found on his vehicle’s airbag isolated Guillen as the only possible driver of the SUV; shooting down that claim.

After acknowledging that his client was in fact the driver his defense attorney claimed that Mr. Camacho was at fault because it was he who went through the red light at the intersection and asserted that the chief detective destroyed vital evidence in the course of his investigation. But both of those claims were dispelled by witnesses including the leading detective when called by the prosecution.

First, Hiram Hernandez, a traffic engineer for Miami-Dade testified that the sensors located on the Busway will not offer a bus or any other vehicle traveling on it a green light if it’s moving at a speed of more than fifteen miles per hour. He continued by saying that doing so would cause a fifty five-second delay before the light will turn green. “The reason was to force the bus drivers down before they get the green,” he said. He went on to say that the once collision-plagued Busway system was redesigned to diminish the incidence of accidents. Additionally, when the prosecutor asked him “are civilian vehicles allowed to use the Busway?” Hernandez replied “No they are not.”

When Detective Oscar Perez was put on the stand and responded to the defense attorney’s claim of him destroying important evidence at the scene of the accident he argued the allegation, admonishing the accusation by explaining that he merely transformed his original notes to that of a diagram format which was drawn to scale, to demonstrate a much more precise appearance than the rough sketches that were written by hand at the scene of the crash.

The detective’s believability appeared to be taken at its word by the jurors and the challenge to his testimony by the defense attorney only seemed to visibly annoy the assemblage.

But most importantly, Dr. Lisa Reidy, an expert in the field of Toxicologist affirmed that the defendant’s blood alcohol level was in excess of three times the legal limit at a staggering 0.26. The legal limit in most states including Florida is 0.08.

In early March of this year, after a scant three hours of deliberations, the jury found him guilty of all charges alleged. In early June he was sentenced to twenty years behind bars.

Upon delivering the sentence, Miami-Dade County Judge Ellen Sue Venzer admonished Guillen by declaring that “The fact is, Mr. Guillen, when you chose to get drunk that night and get behind the wheel of that car, you set off a chain of events that led us all here today.”

Former Miami Dolphin Cecil Collins Freed After More Than a Decade in Prison

May 25, 2014 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

After a scare back in January when the Louisiana Supreme Court gave clearance for prosecutors to again give it their best shot to try to encourage a Louisiana state judge to revoke his probation, former Miami Dolphin Cecil “The Diesel” Collins finally won his freedom.

Collins had already served over thirteen years in prison after being convicted for a felony burglary charge that took place in Davie Florida on March 27, 2001 at the Palm Trace Landings apartment complex where he also lived.

Collins pleaded guilty to breaking into the apartment of Ronald and Tina Nolte, a married couple who lived in the gated community by climbing through their bedroom window at five o’clock in the morning. Before the incident occurred he apparently persistently stalked Mrs. Nolte, frequently asking her out on dates even though he knew she was married.

As his defense for the break-in, Collins was quoted as saying he only “wanted to watch her sleep.” After being arrested shortly after the incident occurred he told reporters “I just made a mistake.” He was released on $10,000 bond pending trial.

At trial, it didn’t take long. After being convicted of the crime he was sentenced to the maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. The sentence was handed down less than two hours after the jury completed deliberations and convicted him of the crime. He spent most of his sentence at South Bay Correctional Institute, a two story building surrounded by the everglades.

In an interview with the Associated Press which he reluctantly agreed to, Collins said he granted it because he craved it to be known that “the Diesel is still alive.” He apparently had adjusted as well as possible during his stay at the prison. He showed up for daily therapy sessions, lifts weights, views many sporting events on TV and is involved in competitions in the recreation yard with other inmates. His overall appearance has drastically changed from the cornrowed hairstyle he sported during his trial to a crew cut and well-groomed goatee. He blames his criminal past on “bad choices” triggered mostly by his bad temper and substantial abuse of alcohol.

Collins has been free on $25,000 bond since July, 2013 when Louisiana State District Judge Mike Caldwell wouldn’t go along with a prosecutorial appeal to revoke Collins’ probation in Baton Rouge which originated from a similar but separate case that occurred in Louisiana in April 1999.

In that case, Collins was charged with forcing his way into the apartments of two women who lived in a local housing complex. He pleaded guilty to two counts of unauthorized entry of an inhabited dwelling, both felonies as well as two counts of simple battery which are misdemeanors. The women both accused Collins of fondling them.

At sentencing for those two cases, Judge Caldwell handed down a suspended five-year prison term and basically a slap on the wrist by placing Collins on probation for a term of four years. The case concluded in 1998 but when he violated his probation in South Florida within the designated period he became subject to an additional five years of imprisonment based on the terms of his probationary sentence.

After thirteen and a half years of incarceration he was released from DeSoto Correctional Annex in Arcadia, Florida but immediately extradited to Baton Rouge to face the probation violation charge. But Judge Caldwell declined to revoke his probation apparently agreeing with Collins’ lawyer that his client had already been “significantly punished,” as Collins stood by listening with tears in his eyes. He was placed on three years’ probation and told that he could move freely back to the South Florida area if he chose to do so. He will also be subject to random drug testing and must regularly check in with an assigned parole officer.

Broward County Detectives Implicated in the Rothstein Case Surrender

April 29, 2014 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

A five year investigation bore fruit when former police lieutenant David Benjamin and former Detective Jeff Poole of the Broward County Sheriff’s Department surrendered at the Fort Lauderdale federal courthouse. Both detectives faced criminal conspiracy charges for abuse of power in their capacity as representatives of law enforcement. Both defendants were previously released on $250,000 bond.

The investigation tied the two deputies with a close affiliation with convicted Ponzi swindler Scott Rothstein. The allegations indicated that both of the men accepted cash payments and merchandise for help given to Rothstein before his massive Ponzi scheme was uncovered and ultimately collapsed. Rothstein has been serving a fifty year prison sentence after surrendering to federal authorities for his crimes and conviction of five federal offenses in January, 2010.

According to prosecutors, Benjamin received close to $200,000 in cash payments as well as assorted gifts and other benefits including sporting event tickets, free meals, and assorted jewelry in exchange for aiding and protecting the convicted felon by use of his authority in law enforcement. He is further accused of sending Poole, his “then” friend, subordinate and apparent lackey to fulfill the requests that Rothstein asked of him, according to court documentation.

Benjamin was the senior supervisor at the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, as well as being the head of Internal Affairs investigations and one of former Sheriff Al Lamberti’s top aides at the time the activities allegedly took place. Poole worked in the strategic investigations division as a detective. Benjamin, 48, lives in Boca Raton, and Poole, 47, is a resident of Weston.

The two detectives worked with each other in law enforcement since the late 1980’s, beginning their careers at the Pompano Beach police department under the command of Lamberti. They moved onto the Broward Sheriff’s Office when it was integrated into that division. Directly after prosecutors filed charges, Broward Sheriff Scott Israel fired the two within hours of the announcement. Israel replaced Lamberti after defeating the incumbent Sheriff in the previous year’s November election.

After letting the two deputies go, Israel was quoted as saying “The allegations as you know were very serious; the implications were grave… I could not allow these deputies to continue serving, interacting with Broward Sheriff’s deputies and the citizenry, until this case came to fruition.”

Some of the allegations laid out in the Information and other court documents are as follows:

Chiefly, Benjamin is accused of helping Rothstein when the scammer originally faced prosecution when his illegal activities were coming under intense scrutiny. He assisted him by providing protection when Rothstein grew apprehensive of airport security, according to IRS and FBI agents. Departing from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, Benjamin went as far as to personally assist Rothstein in filling a private jet with a half million dollars in cash as well as millions of dollars’ worth of valuables when Rothstein fled to Morocco, a country with no extradition treaty with the U.S.

Benjamin also allegedly organized “force and threats of force” subsequent to his law enforcement authority to be delivered against an individual identified as the boyfriend of an escort who allegedly had a sexual relationship with Stuart Rosenfeldt, one of the law partners of Rothstein’s law firm; Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler, when he threatened to expose his girlfriend’s relationship with Rosenfeldt. According to court records, Benjamin purportedly ordered Poole, and two other unidentified officers to unlawfully use intimidation and force to enter the escort’s dwelling.

According to prosecutors, the three officers searched the house, took the woman’s cell phone and removed any evidence associated to Rosenfeldt after handcuffing her boyfriend. The woman was allegedly also told to “leave Florida or she would be arrested,” by one of the officers. The following day, two police officers arrived at her home and drove her to the airport telling her to return to Pennsylvania, according to court documents.

Based on testimony by investigators Benjamin again used Detective Poole to place Marcy Romeo, the ex-wife of Douglas Bates under arrest on a bogus prescription drug charge. Bates, was an attorney who had previously confessed to helping Rothstein perpetrate the immense $1.4 billion investment fraud. According to Ms. Romeo, the false arrest was illustrated to assist Bates in a child custody fight.

In 2009, Romero filed a federal law suit against her ex-husband and Benjamin, in what she labeled her wrongful arrest after a traffic stop initiated by Poole. Both Benjamin and Poole are accused of abusing their law enforcement influence and authority although Poole’s lawyer said that his client received no monetary compensation for the traffic stop and believed he had legal validation to arrest the woman and was only following orders from his superior officer.

When Poole’s lawyer was asked if he thought his client was betrayed, he responded by saying, “I think he was… He didn’t know what he was getting into or the extent of it.” The attorney also said that his client now regrets his actions and believes that Benjamin will most likely face a longer sentence in federal prison than his client when judgment for their respective actions are considered by use of the sentencing guidelines. “He gets what essentially is a command from his superior officer and he follows it… It’s unfortunate that a distinguished law enforcement career is going to end because of one aberrant incident like this,” said the attorney.

Additionally, Bates is now cooperating with the government and is slated to be sentenced in the near future for his role in the Ponzi scheme.

Despite Poole’s attorney’s comments, Benjamin’s charges of conspiring to commit extortion and violate civil rights has him facing a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison. If convicted, Poole faces up to ten years of incarceration for conspiring to violate civil rights.

To read a previous blog post regarding others implicated and convicted in the Scott Rothstein Ponzi Scheme case click here.
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Florida Police Officer Arrested After Baiting Youths on Facebook

March 26, 2014 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

Throughout his career, thirty year old Michael Gerard Stavris II worked in the company of children. Since he was sixteen years old, beginning in the year 2000, Stavris worked for the school system in Flagler County. He was an instructor of activities and safety for kids in grade eight and lower. He remained at that position through 2006. He also worked for the Duval County school system in Jacksonville during 2009 and 2010 as a patrol officer with responsibilities of reacting to calls on a city-wide basis after regular school hours had ended. He joined the Bunnell Police Department in 2011 and held the rank of corporal.

The Palm Coast police officer was arrested this week and charged with one count of criminal use of personal identification information stemming from the theft of the identity of a 16-year-old girl. He was also charged with two counts of child exploitation and computer pornography violations under the child exploitation prevention act according to Gretl Plessinger a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). All charges are third-degree felonies. A conviction for these offenses carries a sentence of five years in prison.

The arrest was made by the FDLE at the Bunnell City Hall and took place after the conclusion of a three month investigation which was initiated when a teenaged boy complained to a police officer about Stavris’ interaction with him late last year.

Part of the complaint points out that Stavris utilized the social media site Facebook to lure unsuspecting teenage boys into sexual conversations beginning in November of 2012. He did so by becoming their Facebook friends, posing as a teenage girl. After interaction with one of the new friends began, he went as far as sending a picture of a young girl’s breasts, asking the boy to send him pictures of his genitalia in return and saying “maybe” we could meet. The young boy responded by saying “Later when you show me your stuff,” but did not send back a picture. Currently, it is unknown if that meeting ever occurred between the two

Also uncovered through the investigation was another instance when Stavris asked another youth if he could send him a picture of himself getting oral sex through Facebook’s messaging system. The boy’s reply was “*IDK (*I don’t know) if I can get a girl that would let me take a pic doin that to me lol but your bi?” to which Stavris answered “Ya and I know u got pics in your phone of other giels (**sic)” There were additional references about meeting underage male students behind the school to participate in oral sex, and pictures requested of student’s genitals and those of them masturbating.

Stavris purportedly admitted to the FDLE that he did set up the bogus Facebook account and made contact with boys between the ages of 14 and 16 who attended Flagler Palm Coast High School and Buddy Taylor Middle School.

The arrest of the eight year veteran of law enforcement took place on the evening of March twenty-fifth.

After being processed he was released on $125,000 bail and let go from the Flagler County Detention Facility. Stavris is a big man at 6’3″ and weighing in at about 400 pounds. After his release, he couldn’t be reached for comment relating to the allegations, but has been placed on leave from the Department without pay.

By observing his Facebook account, the investigation uncovered that Stavris had more than 40 students under the age of eighteen listed as Facebook friends. A group of them were from Flagler Palm Coast High School, the same school he graduated from in 2002.

At least six students from Flagler County were mentioned in the affidavit as being targets or victims of Stavris and the FDLE made a public plea for anyone having any further information about any other persons that may have been victimized by him to get in touch with them by telephone.

Dennis Bustle, of the law enforcement agency’s Jacksonville office was quoted as saying “We will do everything in our power to see that all potential victims are identified and this person is charged with each crime that’s committed.”

Tom Foster, 57, who is Stavris’ boss and the Police Chief of the Bunnell Police Department, said that he was disappointed to find out about the alleged actions of one of his officers. But he went on to state that no single officer’s actions is a reflection on the entire department. Foster has only served as chief since early February. He was previously a veteran of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office where he served for over thirty years. Bunnell County is the governmental center or county seat of Flagler County.

Although the evidence and allegations may seem overwhelming, Stavris does have at least one person who believes in his innocence. Sherry Blevins, who may soon be his mother-in-law, asserted that Stavris is being framed. Presently, he is engaged to marry her daughter. Ms. Blevins was quoted as saying “I tell you this was all prompted when him and the ex-girlfriend broke up and he wouldn’t take her back.” She maintains his innocence proposing that he is being set up by a rejected ex-girlfriend.

To view the redacted arrest report, click here.

**sic: the quotation has been transcribed exactly as found in the original source, complete with any erroneous or archaic spelling or other nonstandard presentation.
Source: Wikipedia.org
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South Florida Attorney Found Guilty of Three Counts of Wire Fraud

February 23, 2014 | Michael B. Cohen, P.A.

After more than six hours of compelling testimony by convicted and jailed Ponzi swindler Scott Rothstein, a West Palm Beach, Florida federal jury took one third the time of his testimony to find his associate Christina Kitterman, 39, guilty of all three counts of wire fraud brought against her by the U.S. Attorney.

Kitterman, of Deerfield Beach, also an attorney, as was Rothstein, still operates her practice in Boca Raton. She was arrested in August of last year along with Douglas L. Bates, 54, of Parkland, another attorney that had dealings with Rothstein’s firm.

At her arraignment in September, Kitterman pleaded not guilty to the three counts in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge James M. Hopkins. Each of the charges carried a maximum of twenty-years in prison and fines of $250,000.00.

Based on the indictment, in April 2009, Kitterman read a pre-scripted document in the course of a telephone conference with victims of Rothstein’s scam while she was an employee of Rothstein, Rosenfeldt and Adler P.A. (RRA) a law firm with offices in Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, West Palm Beach, Tallahassee, Florida, New York and Caracas, Venezuela. During its heyday, RRA boasted a staff of 150 and 70 lawyers in their employ.

In the course of the conversation, she informed the edgy individuals that a number of the company’s bank accounts had been frozen because Rothstein faced disciplinary action pending a Bar investigation of his firm. She did so under the ruse that she was the head of the Florida Bar’s Fort Lauderdale office, creating the falsehood in explanation of why certain payments due to the listening investors had not yet been paid out.

According to her testimony, Kitterman indicated that she was under the impression that she was speaking with individuals who had refused to make payments of settlements. She also later testified that she was a victim of sexual harassment by Rothstein on several occasions during her employment with his firm.

Rothstein had a dissimilar story to articulate.

During court testimony he contradicted her suggestion by alleging that he had a consensual sexual relationship with her while she was in his employ. Further, while being questioned, Rothstein stated that he wished he didn’t have to testify about Ms. Kitterman and said “I am not happy about being here,” adding that he considered her a “close, trusted friend,” apparently in addition to the indicated sexual exploits. But he accentuated the sexual component by saying “We were two friends who fooled around from time to time,” Once at Runway 84 in Fort Lauderdale she “pulled me into a bathroom stall to make out with me.” He continued by saying that “I loved her and cared about her and I believe she loved and cared about me.”

But additional testimony provided by Rothstein which was heard by the jury was more incriminatory.

Dressed casually and much slimmer than his last public appearance, Rothstein delivered a rambling soliloquy of the Ponzi scheme he engineered and organized while on the witness stand. He voiced to a packed courtroom about his connections with corrupt law enforcement officials and politicians, sexual escapades including stories about cheating on his wife, and involvement with the Mafia.

Called as a witness for the defense in this case, his testimony apparently only aided the prosecution. The handcuffed clad convict took the witness stand with his customary loose lips recounting stories of his dealings and connections with Ms. Kitterman. Rothstein became well-known for “singing like a canary”, implicating everyone from his partners in the scheme as well as bankers lawyers, a company CEO and even an owner of a car dealership during criminal proceedings against him which ultimately led to his conviction of Florida’s largest Ponzi scheme and the fourth largest in US history ever to be executed.
In this latest testimony Rothstein portrayed Kitterman as a “team player” who had no reservations about assisting him with the offenses she’d been charged with. He went on to accuse her of committing a number of additional crimes. “I did for her, she did for me,” he explained. He further stated that their association was one of each having the other’s back and doing whatever needed to be done whether it was above-board or not. He further stated “I did not tell her we were going to cheat anyone, I just told her to lie.”

Kitterman’s defense attorney angrily charged that Rothstein was lying in a selfish attempt to get his sentenced reduced by cooperating with the prosecution in his client’s case.

But Rothstein contended that it would be “self-destructive” for him to lie about matters that could easily be disproved by documented evidence. He also noted that he believed doing so would extinguish any remaining hope he has of ever being freed from prison.

The now jailed, disgraced, and disbarred attorney is in the midst of serving a 50-year prison sentence for his conviction of being the mastermind of the $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme. During his own trial, he apologized to all that were hurt by his actions and also implicated many, if not all of his associates that were connected to the scheme. To date, fourteen individuals have been convicted and sent to federal prison for crimes linked to him and Kitterman is the eighteenth individual who’s faced charges associated to his exploits.
U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley didn’t fix a sentencing date based on reasoning that he would review trial transcripts to first determine if Kitterman perjured herself during her testimony. That possibility, if deemed to be valid by the judge could have weight on the overall span of her sentence.

To read more on the topic of wire fraud visit my website or click here to go directly to the page that explains the crime in detail.