Towing was unjustified but lucrative business for some Sweetwater POLICE OFFICERS.

[WE THE PEOPLE]

Miami-Dade County DECEMBER 28, 2013
Towing was unjustified but lucrative in Sweetwater

BY MELISSA SANCHEZ AND BRENDA MEDINA

It was not an explicit directive nor was it written in any official documents.

However, Sweetwater police officers knew what was expected of them when they patrolled the streets of this small city in west Miami-Dade.

They were to arrest the highest number possible of suspects in order to tow their vehicles, even if the towing had no connection to the alleged crime.

Towing represented a lucrative business for the city.

Sweetwater depended on the $500 administrative fine it collected from people recovering their vehicles. In fact, the city had set a yearly goal of $168,000 of these fines under the category of “miscellaneous revenue” in its police budget.

And the company, Southland The Towing Company, was partly owned by former Mayor Manuel “Manny” Maroño for quite awhile — although many officers apparently had no knowledge of that.

Arresting, then towing became the norm in Sweetwater, according to several officers who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Figures show 37 percent of all arrests in Sweetwater last year resulted in towing.

The Trends

An analysis by El Nuevo Herald of the more than 460 arrests involving towing in 2012 found several trends. Among them:

• Two-thirds of the arrests were for traffic violations, including driving with a suspended license or without a license. In cases of criminal charges, 77 percent ended up dismissed by the state attorney’s office or a judge. Some 11 percent led to criminal convictions.
• One in four arrests with towing took place at the Dolphin Mall, a shopping center annexed into Sweetwater in 2010. That same year, Southland obtained the monopoly to operate in the city. Although the majority of the Dolphin Mall arrests occurred in the parking lot, the arresting officers did not allow subjects to leave their vehicles there. Even in the cases of shoplifting inside the stores, officers apparently went outside to the parking lot to search for the subjects’ vehicles to tow.
• The suspects usually had limited incomes and could not afford the $500 fine the city charged, in addition to the storage fee they had to pay Southland to get their vehicle back. Nearly one-third of the arrests were unemployed people, while 35 percent said they were workers or students. Many drove popular cars, like Nissan Altimas and Honda Civics, which were a majority of the cars towed by Southland.

• In 40 percent of the cases — most of which were for driving without a license or for possession of marijuana — officers released the suspects with a "promise to appear in court." Typically, charges were dropped before a public defender was assigned to the case.
“This is how things lead to so many unjustified arrests for misdemeanors that avoid an examination by a lawyer,” said Carlos Martínez, Miami-Dade’s public defender. “These people had no defense.”

The Towing Business

Over the past few months, federal authorities have intensified an investigation of the relationship between Maroño, Southland and Sweetwater Police, as well as the abusive behavior of some officers against residents.

Maroño had been one of the owners of the company until the middle of 2009, according to state records, though sources familiar with the case have said that he remained as a silent partner in the business.

Despite its link to Maroño, Southland began to operate in Sweetwater on a rotation, months before its name ceased to appear in state registers. The agreement between the city and Southland was never formalized into an official contract.

No one has been charged in the case so far. The feds arrested Maroño in August in an unrelated case of public corruption. And Police Chief Roberto Fulgueira retired two months later.

The city’s new leadership has severed the links with Southland and is in the process of creating a public bidding system for the towing contract business.

Fulgueira did not respond messages from El Nuevo Herald this week. Armando Rosquete, Maroño’s attorney, said that he could not comment about his client’s role in the towing business.

Sweetwater’s new police chief, Jesús Menocal took over on Oct. 24. He has already instructed officers on when towing is justified in an arrest. Since he assumed his post, there have been only seven arrests in which towing was justified.

This number represents less than 10 percent of what was previously considered normal in the city.

“I cannot justify what happened in the previous administration, but I want to make clear that we are not in the towing business,” Menocal said. “And we don’t want to steal vehicles from people, confiscate their titles or receive money from that company.”

The Documents

Over the past several months, El Nuevo Herald and CBS-4 have obtained hundreds of documents from Sweetwater during the past decade on arrest reports, towing activity and receipts for the $500 administrative fine.

El Nuevo Herald created a database with the 2012 documents and combined that with information from court cases to make its analysis of how things were run in the city.

The records are incomplete. Sweetwater’s police department could not find nearly a quarter of the arrest reports linked to towing. A few cases, such as the confiscation of a Porsche Panamera that ended up becoming the property of Southland, have disappeared from city records.

However, cases with complete records show a clear and disturbing pattern. In many cases, police called the towing company even when the vehicles were legally parked or when passengers had valid licenses.

The Cases

“I could not understand why this happened,” said Christopher Lam, whose 2000 Mercury Cougar was towed after his arrest in the parking lot of an apartment complex in his neighborhood for having a marijuana cigarette in the car — though he says that it didn’t belong to him.

“They told me I had to take my belongings out of the trunk and that, instead of going to jail, I could sign a paper and walk home, but that they would take the car.”

Instead of allowing him to park the car, or have his passenger drive it away, police insisted on calling Southland.

Lam, 23, had to walk home and ended up paying more than $2,000 to Southland to recover his car a few weeks later. He had to borrow the money.

In another case, the police arrested a woman who had just parked in front of her parents’ home in a trailer park. She was accused of driving with a suspended license.

“It seems that they could have taken me and leave the car there,” said Mirtha, who did not want her last name used. “My car was legally parked in front of the house.”

That was also the case of Moisés Robaina, arrested while having coffee in his Nissan Rogue in the parking lot of the cafeteria where his former girlfriend worked. Officers accused him of threatening and harassing the woman.

“I begged them several times to let my father drive the car and he lived only two blocks from there,” he said. “But the officer yelled at me, saying no, that the car could not be touched.”

The case against Robaina was dismissed, but he had to pay nearly $1,700 to Southland and the city to recover his vehicle.

Procedures in Miami

Sweetwater’s unwritten towing rules would not be considered justified in other cities where there are clear directives about towing during an arrest.

In Miami, towing could only be called when the vehicle can be considered evidence, as in a case of vehicle manslaughter, said Juancarlo Erigoyen, the officer in charge of towing cases. In the rest of the cases, police allowed suspects to leave the car with a passenger — if that person has a valid driver’s license — or park it in a safe place.

“If we have to arrest someone and there is a place where the car can be parked, then we ask the suspect to sign a document agreeing to leave the car there,” Erigoyen said.

Not everyone whose car was towed after an arrest in Sweetwater paid the fine to recover it.

In dozens of cases — particularly when a woman came to recover her car or the car of one of her children or her husband — the fine was annulled. Deputy chief Roberto Ochoa, who approved some of those cancellations, said that he made that decision when he happened to hear someone complaining and he had the opportunity to review the case.

An Absurd Arrest

In at least one case, then Chief Fulgueira himself refunded the $500 when a person threatened to file a lawsuit.

Christopher Aymerich was arrested for not having the telephone number on his pickup truck of the company that cleaned home sewers. He spent a night in jail. On the following day, he paid the $500 fine to the city and another $420 to Southland. Aymerich said he thought the arrest was absurd, but did not want to complain to police.

However, his wife was furious and wrote a long letter of complaint to Fulgueira.

“She wrote him that the arrest didn’t make any sense, that they were stealing money from working people,”Aymerich said. “And three days later, the police chief himself called me saying he was sorry, that there had been a mistake and that the $500 would be returned.”

Making good on his promise, Fulgueira personally returned the money, in cash , Aymerich said.

The chief apologized and asked Aymerich to“forget everything,” Aymerich said. “It seemed that he was afraid.

[Unregistered]

MANNY MAROÑO (in jail), ROBERTO MURIEDA (in jail), ORLANDO LÓPEZ (waiting in line).
MANNY MAROÑO (in jail), ROBERTO MURIEDA (in jail), ORLANDO LÓPEZ (waiting in line)

ROBERTO MURIEDA
"NEGOTIATION OF CHARGES"

HE NEGOTIATED WITH THE FEDERAL AUTHORITIES IN THE MIAMI CASE OF ILEGAL TOWINGS.

ORLANDO DID YOU KNOW IF YOUR FRIEND AND POLITICAL SUPPORTED ROBERTO MURIEDA IS NEGOTIATING WITH THE SAME AUTHORITIES IN THE CITY OF SWEETWATER CASE OF ILEGAL TOWINGS?.

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MIAMI HERALD TODAY SEPTEMBER 4th 2015.
"The FBI agents began to centre the investigation last year on Roberto Muriedas, who had acquired a towing company called Southland The Towing Company in 2009 from Manuel "Manny" Maroño, mayor at that time of the City of Sweetwater, and he was his partner in other business.

In a not related case, the ex Mayor of Sweetwater Manuel "Manny" Maroño he declared himself guilty of receiving bribes in a Federal case of a governmental contract in 2013 and it he is fulfilling a judgment of almost three years and a half in a Federal Prison.

In his "negotiation of charges", Roberto Muriedas admitted to have paid thousands of dollars in bribes to two Public Service Aids from the City of Miami Police Department in return to their business referrals to his towing company, which they benefited to Southland the Towing Company."
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ORLANDO LOPEZ YOU ARE GOING TO BE THE NEXTONE IN LINE
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[Unregistered]

Future arrests in the City of Sweetwater.
Based on the investigations beginning in 2013, there are rumors among city employees that authorities of the federal and state government will begin to arrest some of the ex-policemen of the City like ex-commander Mario Miranda, the ex-policeman and ex-commissioner Catalino Rodríguez, and the active lieutenant Roberto Ochoa,
as well the ex-chief of Police Roberto Fulgueiras.

[Unregistered]

Florida Supreme Court ratified that Gimenez negotiating with malicious intentions
The Supreme Court of Florida ratified that Mayor Gimenez negotiating in a bad faith with malicious intentions exceeding the powers of the Mayor.

MIAMI-DADE SEPTEMBER 9 2015.
MIAMI NEWS- DADE COUNTY.

The Supreme Court of the State of Florida ratified last Tuesday the decision of the Court of Appeals of the First District in favour of the Miami Dade County Police Benevolent Association (PBA) lawsuit against Mayor Carlos Giménez for overstepping the mark in his functions and exceeding the powers of the Mayor of Miami Dade County.

The demand or lawsuit took place when Giménez refused to return to the employees of the County 5 % of their benefits of health insurance and he veto the decision or agreement of the Commission of the County in order that the funds were returned.

After the voting of eight commissioners in favor to return and three against, the mayor Giménez could not impose his idea of not returning to the employees of the Miami Dade County a few concessions that, according to the unions, were done on condition of that they were reverted when the economic conditions were improving.

At that moment, Mayor Giménez threatened with dismissals or fired employees and of reduction of the police force because, according to the councillor, the voting of the commissioners was deepening the fiscal deficit. For this reason, Giménez veto the decision of the commissioners who, in turn, raised the above mentioned veto in an intense session in February, 2014.

The PBA (Police Benevolent Association of Miami-Dade) has been one of the organizations that has been faced in a radical way the Mayor Giménez. In the moment in which he veto the decision of the Miami Dade County Commission, the union decided to complain before the Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC) for his unjust practices against the employees.

" PERC decided that the mayor was negotiating in a bad faith with malicious intentions . Later, the case went to the Court of Appeals of the First District and this one passed that the mayor did not have the legal authority of veto the decisions of the commissioners in a hearing mediation. It was illegal and was exceeding the powers of the mayor ", affirmed Blanca Torrents Greenwood, executive director(principal) of the PBA.

[Unregistered]

Mayor Lopez you make a big mistake when you copy and paste Mayor Gimenez policy.
Mayor Lopez you make a big mistake when you copy and paste Mayor Gimenez.

Like Mayor Orlando López, Mayor Giménez threatened with dismissals or fired employees and of reduction of the police force, because according to the Mayor, the voting of the commissioners was deepening the fiscal deficit. For that reason, Mayor Giménez like Mayor Lopez veto the decision of the commissioners who, in turn, raised the above mentioned veto in an intense session in February, 2014.

The PBA (Police Benevolent Association of Miami-Dade) has been one of the organizations that has been faced in a radical way the Mayor Giménez. In the moment in which he veto the decision of the Miami Dade County Commission, the union decided to complain before the Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC) for his unjust practices against the employees.

" PERC decided that the mayor was negotiating in a bad faith with malicious intentions . Later, the case went to the Court of Appeals of the First District and this one passed that the mayor did not have the legal authority of veto the decisions of the commissioners in a hearing mediation. It was illegal and was exceeding the powers of the mayor ", affirmed Blanca Torrents Greenwood, executive director(principal) of the PBA

[Unregistered]

(RICO) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
(RICO) Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.

Racketeering is when organized groups run illegal businesses, known as “rackets,” or when an organized crime ring uses legitimate organizations to embezzle funds. Such activities can have devastating consequences for both public and private institutions.

Consequently, the federal government and numerous state governments have created systems of laws designed to prosecute these criminals.

Typical Rackets and Their Consequences

Using RICO to Prosecute Racketeers

Before Congress enacted laws that specifically combat organized crime, prosecutors found it very difficult to end these rackets. Prosecutors could often convict the lower ranked members of the organizations, because they were the ones who actually performed the illegal activities. However, the masterminds behind the organized crime rings were often much harder to prosecute because they couldn’t be directly connected to any of the crimes.

In 1978, Congress enacted the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, providing prosecutors with the tool they needed to fight organized crime. Many states have enacted similar laws. In order to convict someone under RICO or a state equivalent, it’s no longer necessary to prove the suspect personally committed an illegal activity. Instead, prosecutors must prove:
The defendant owns and/or manages an organization

[Unregistered]

You are losing the battle Mr. Lopez, little by little the truth will go out.
You are losing the battle Mr. Lopez, little by little the truth will go out to the light and you will stay and remembered as a liar and a manipulator politician.

The advices of your chief of staff Ralph Ventura and of your political extratega Shasha Tirador will make you do the biggest ridiculous of your entire life and it will be a shameful end for your political career.

Mr. López, you was elected by the residents of the City of Sweetwater as " STRONG MAYOR " or adminitrador, but always continuing fulfilling with the Bylaws of the city or the "CITY CHAPTER". STRONG MAYOR position does not give you any dictatorial power.

You are receiving "legal advices" how to ignore the CITY CHAPTER & THE DECISION OF THE CITY COMMISSIONERS from your chief of staff "Attorney" Ralph Ventura, with the objective to put you in total control of the goverment.
Mr. Ventura has very little experience in a private sector, since it he came to this state he, worked for his friend and bos ex City Mayor & SOUTHLAND the Towing company's owner convict Manuel "Manny" Maroño.

Maroño created one of the biggest corruption network in the political and private sector ( City of Sweetwater & his towing Company) in the Miami Dade Count, and this gentleman was employed by Maroño as a City Attorney and in his Towing business ( SOUTHLAND THE TOWING Co.).

Mayor López your days as a STRONG MAYOR and very possible as a free man are comming to and end

[Unregistered]

THE PUMPKINEERS CAUGHT ON CAMERA. Soon on TV. NEWS by ERICKA CARRILLO.
THE PUMKINEERS CAUGHT ON CAMERA. Soon on TV. NEWS by ERICKA CARRILLO.
Lieutenants celebrating mass layoffs !!!

RAFAEL CASTRO
ALEJANDRO RAMOS
LUIS DELMONTE
GEORGE ALVAREZ

Regardless of how old the picture is !
It was still after they were made brass AND after lay offs !!!
Look like that **** you guys are sucking is paying off...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
RAFAEL CASTRO a guy who was fired and convicted for perjury and continues to lie on reports.

He was terminated from Surfside PD for False Statements and Perjury. But, he continues to do the same thing in Sweetwater PD and no one is doing anything about it.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ALEJANDRO RAMOS a guy who was fired for crashing too many times and continues to crash (and lie to Highway Patrol about it).

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LUIS DELMONTE the midget on the left was caught with narcotics in a jail and last but not least. (SEE REPORT).

Luis Delmonte
Sex: Male
Race: NA / Other
Age: 34

Employment History

Department Of Corrections. Region IV.
Class: Correctional Officer.
Type: Full-Time.
Start Date: 4/18/2008.
Separation: 3/31/2011.
Resigned/Retired While Being Investigated for Violation of Moral Character Standards.

Department Of Corrections. Region III.
Class: Correctional Officer.
Type: Full-Time.
Start Date: 7/13/2007.
Separation: 4/18/2008.
Transfer Within Agency (No break in service).

Complaints: Marijuana-Possession.
Source: Internal Investigation.
Category: Discharged.
Status: Recommended Order Pending.
Opened Date: 8/11/2011.
No Discipline action
Imposed.

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GEORGE ALVAREZ the midget on the right was arrested and indicted for the beating (police brutality & violation of civil rights) to Peter Daniels !!!

Great choice of leaders pumpkin fag