Must Read: Miami Herald Uncovers A Dozen Menocal Victims - Page 2
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  1. #11
    Traga Leche
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    Where's my smiley faces you POS?

  2. #12
    Unregistered
    Guest
    😥😥😥😥 I’m so fu*ked

  3. #13
    Unregistered
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    The Story -condensed due to length

    Women and girls said a Hialeah cop sexually assaulted them. The chief gave him a raise

    In 2015, a teenage girl told investigators that Hialeah Police Department Sgt. Jesús “Jesse” Menocal Jr., a decorated patrol officer and SWAT team member, stopped her while she was walking home, told her to get into his police truck and ordered her to perform oral sex.

    She was 14 years old.

    The girl said Menocal threatened her with arrest if she refused and said she would “disappear” if she ever told anyone what happened, according to interviews she gave to Hialeah police and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office. “I did what he wanted,” the sobbing girl said. Shaking as she recounted the assault, the girl was asked why she seemed afraid. “Because he is still out there,” she responded.

    The 14-year-old was among four women and girls who accused Menocal, 31, of sexual abuse, including one woman who said he handcuffed her and sexually assaulted her while masturbating in his police truck, according to hundreds of pages of law enforcement public records obtained by the Miami Herald.

    The veteran cop was found to have brought another eight women and girls into a Hialeah police station without filing any reports, a violation of department procedure.

    Internal affairs investigators gathered evidence that he had committed “unlawful sexual activity” with minors, a second-degree felony, and had broken more than 20 departmental rules and policies. The evidence was handed to Hialeah Police Chief Sergio Velázquez and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office — but neither the police chief nor prosecutors acted to punish him.

    While Menocal was not charged by the state attorney’s office or disciplined by Hialeah’s police chief, he is now under investigation by federal authorities who are building a criminal civil rights case against him.

    “I was arresting everybody,” Menocal said in a sworn statement to internal affairs in 2016. “I was arresting them, stopping them from making income. I was arresting them from getting high, getting drugs, from committing any crimes to make any money off of.”

    On June 14, 2015, hours after a 17-year-old minor told Hialeah police that Menocal had detained her and made her strip in a camera-less room at a police station, he was “relieved of police powers,” removed from the SWAT team and placed on paid administrative assignment at home, according to his personnel file. The 17-year-old, Maley Dacosta, told investigators that Menocal pulled her car over and took her to the police station. Then he asked her if she was a virgin or had any sexually transmitted diseases, made her remove most of her clothing under threat of arrest and demanded sex, she said. She refused and he released her, telling her “I’m a cool cop,” according to her sworn statement.

    Hialeah police records show Menocal was reassigned as a SWAT coordinator while remaining on administrative assignment. His return to SWAT restored a 5 percent pay bump. He was also recommended for a merit raise.

    Velázquez signed off on the 4.5 percent raise weeks after.

    A spokesman for Hialeah police told the Miami Herald that the chief did not sustain the internal affairs findings that Menocal committed unlawful sexual activity with minors — only that he violated departmental rules and policies. The spokesman would not specify which ones nor confirm on what date exactly Menocal returned to active duty.

    FBI agents and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami are gathering evidence that Menocal illegally detained women and underage girls, pressured them for sex and then released them without charges, which would be a violation of their civil rights, sources familiar with the investigation told the Herald.

    A federal grand jury has issued subpoenas for both Hialeah police records and witnesses, including at least two Hialeah police officers familiar with Menocal’s alleged misconduct, the sources said. The federal case was opened in recent years to determine whether Menocal violated the civil rights of his alleged victims by using the authority of his badge “under color of law” to coerce them into sex.


    Months before Dacosta came forward, two male suspects in a case told a Hialeah human trafficking detective named Rosalyn Byrd that Menocal was abusing a sex worker in his district, Suzy Betancourt, 30, according to a sworn statement Byrd gave to internal affairs.

    “[Betancourt] was building ... trying to get the courage to build up a case against him, because he would make her show her breasts and her vagina to him,” Byrd told an internal affairs investigator looking into Menocal.

    Byrd told her sergeant, Manny Colon, in January 2015 but the sergeant said the male suspects had to file a complaint themselves, according to her sworn statement. The men do not appear to have done that — and neither Colon nor anyone else from the department’s command staff seems to have pursued the issue.

    After Dacosta came forward in June 2015, internal affairs detectives Frank Peñate and Hilda Reyes interviewed Betancourt. Byrd was able to locate two other alleged victims, records show, and they were interviewed by internal affairs. Reached by reporters, Byrd and Peñate declined to comment. Reyes could not be reached.

    Betancourt died in November 2015 — five months after being interviewed. She fell out of a moving car, a death that Miami-Dade police ruled an accident but that her family and friends found suspicious. In her sworn statement to investigators before her death, she told them explicitly that Menocal threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone what happened.

    A fourth alleged victim, a young adult woman, told police Menocal pulled her over and pressured her for sex.

    Menocal did not report stopping any of the four female victims.

    Investigators also discovered video footage showing that Menocal brought eight other women and girls into the police station. They were unable to identify and contact those women and girls. Menocal did not file reports on any of the incidents.

    Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernández declined to say much about the case playing out in his city.

    Maria Haberfeld, a professor of policing at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City said that given the nature of the allegations against Menocal, she was “frankly flabbergasted” he was not disciplined.

    “I have studied policing for two decades and I have never heard of anything like this,” Haberfeld said.

    Velázquez’s failure to discipline Menocal, despite sustaining charges against him, sent a message to the rest of the department that “anything goes,” she said

    The Menocal family has deep roots in local law enforcement, including at the highest level. Menocal’s father, Jesús Menocal Sr., became the chief of Sweetwater’s police department twice — first in the 1990s and again in 2013 during an FBI investigation into allegations of police abuse of power and fraud. The Hialeah cop’s uncle, Ignacio, was a Miami police officer who was once investigated, but not charged, in the mid-1980s for suspected ties to drug traffickers. During an internal affairs probe, investigators found that Jesús Menocal Sr., while not yet a police officer, may have also been involved with his twin brother and the traffickers. That discovery put the kibosh on Jesús Menocal Sr.’s application for the Miami force. Ignacio would later join his brother as a cop in Sweetwater.

    One, a woman in her mid-20s, told investigators that she was in a car with a group of friends when Menocal stopped the vehicle. He told her to get into his police vehicle, and then he drove her to a nearby back alley. The two got out of his car and he immediately started kissing her, she told detectives. He then pulled out his penis and forced her to touch it. She pulled her hand away. Then he demanded she perform oral sex, which she declined. The two got back in his vehicle and he dropped her off at a nearby park.

    Another, Suzy Betancourt, told police that Menocal took her aside during a raid of a house party. He asked her if she was a prostitute and began flirting with her before offering to give her a ride home, according to Betancourt’s sworn statement. She was intoxicated and agreed.

    The two were in Menocal’s police truck together, about three to four blocks from her house, when Menocal stopped the car and handcuffed Betancourt, she said. He then tried to removedher pants and pulled down her shirt to expose her breasts. Betancourt said she felt “scared and intimidated.” Menocal then touched her genitals inappropriately while exposing his penis and touching himself, Betancourt said. The encounter ended when Menocal got a call over his radio.

    Betancourt said two other similar incidents took place where Menocal stopped her and abused her.

    On one occasion, she told police, he told her that “if you ever say anything, I will find you and I will kill you.”

    Five months after speaking to Hialeah detectives, the mother of two died after falling out of a moving vehicle on Nov. 21, 2015. The medical examiner determined that she died from blunt force injuries to the head and torso.

    Her brother, Gerardo Betancourt, believes the investigation didn’t go deep enough. Gerardo said a mortician at the funeral home told him Suzy’s body didn’t show signs of the “road rash” typically suffered when someone falls out of a car.

    In the months before her death, Suzy was battling substance abuse issues. Gerardo ran into her late one night at a McDonald’s in Hialeah. She was intoxicated, Gerardo said, and he asked her to leave and come home with him.

    She said she couldn’t leave but told him she was working on “taking down somebody big” who was hurting children.

    “She told me that what she was getting involved with,” Gerardo said, “was going to leave her dead.”

  4. #14
    Unregistered
    Guest
    Key point: Velasquez was aware that Menocal was sexually abusing children. He covered it up and even rewarded him with merit raises.
    The newspaper is right....Velasquez was the enabler of a dangerous pedophile cop and needs to be held accountable. What we know about Menocal and Velasquez is only the tip of the iceberg.

  5. #15
    Unregistered
    Guest

    Velasquez's Press Conference

    In a nutshell: He acts insulted and states "I want the public to know: We do not cover up for officers" then goes on to cover up for his bag man. He states he cannot discipline Menocal until the FBI investigation is completed. That is a lie!

    There are many procedural violations such as not making a report on those 9 females he brought to the sub station. The lack of documentation on numerous interactions with females while on patrol. While he refused to sustain IA's sexual assault findings he did state there were violations of procedures. But no discipline...unless you want to count the 5% merit raise as punishment.

    Velasquez IS covering for a dirty pedophile cop because JM knows way too much about the corruption that runs through the hand picked city council all the way up to the mayor. Again, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned.

  6. #16
    Unregistered
    Guest

    Re: Velasquez's Press Conference

    1) Velasquez: "We take all these allegations very seriously, we have been investigating this for quite a few years."

    Think about that statement for a while. Read it again. I guess it must be tough considering up to 10 victims may have been assaulted at an out of the way location.....like substation 2! It's hard to investigate with those damn video cameras getting in the way.

    2) Velasquez, the corrupt mayor, his hand picked cronies on the city council....not one has expressed any sympathy toward the numerous alleged victims. Councilwoman Perez even went as far as to say she is not familiar with any of the allegations despite the numerous local and national news articles and videos over the years. They won't criticize Menocal because he is one of them. He is an integral part of their dirty business.

    3) One common denominator among the news outlets covering Velasquez's press conference.....none of them are buying his bull crap lies. And neither should you.

    Between the FBI, the plaintiff attorney's discovery motions and the Miami Herald assigning it's Pulitzer prize winning reporters to this case we are going to start to see the layers of the onion get peeled back. Get the popcorn ready and enjoy the show!

  7. #17
    DocJustice
    Guest
    Wow,..this is worse than I ever imagined.
    Everyone who had knowledge, covered up and protected Raja needs to pay.
    Human trafficking is serious stuff...may all the corrupt ones rott in hell.
    Bye bye pension chief.

  8. #18
    Unregistered
    Guest
    Governor DeSantis needs to step in and relieve Velasquez of his duties to protect the public. The chief has given Menocal a license to rape in this city!

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