News: Velazquez under investigation by FDLE for criminal activity

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He’s going to know what is coming’: Hialeah chief was investigated over torching of truck
from Miami Herald 4/23/21 (lengthy article)
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/loc...250832884.html

Around midnight, a man pulled up just past the driveway of Hector Rodriguez’s home in Hialeah, got out of his van and poured a can of gasoline on Rodriguez’s pickup truck, leaving a trail-like fuse of accelerant on the pavement.

At a safe distance, the man then lit the liquid trail. Seconds later flames engulfed the driver’s side, hood and engine of Rodriguez’s black Chevrolet Silverado.

As the arsonist fled in the van with the help of a getaway driver, Rodriguez heard the Chevy’s alarm going off. He rushed outside with a fire extinguisher. His girlfriend grabbed a garden hose. Both tried to put out the blaze while standing behind a chain-link fence. Desperate, Rodriguez opened the gate and sprayed the extinguisher at close range, but it was too late.
When Rodriguez, the owner of a marine repair business, later watched video footage from his home security system of the Jan. 25, 2015, arson attack on his truck, it showed a “heavy-set male” starting the fire, according to a Hialeah police report. Only one person could have been responsible, Rodriguez thought: Hialeah Police Chief Sergio Velázquez, who at the time was dating Rodriguez’s former girlfriend. She was also the mother of Rodriguez’s daughter.

Rodriguez went to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement with his arson claim a few days later, saying the chief had been harassing him in court during a custody battle over the daughter and sending Hialeah police to interfere with his business.
FDLE agents seemed to take the accusations seriously, investigating Velázquez for a year and a half over allegations that he had “engaged in a pattern of criminal misconduct” and abused his power as police chief by “perpetuating a harassment campaign” against Rodriguez’s marine business and home. Included in the probe was the 2015 fire and a similar arson assault on another vehicle, a Mercedes Benz, at Rodriguez’s home the previous year.

An FDLE investigative report shows that the agents believed Velázquez had a motive for targeting Rodriguez but ultimately found “there was not enough evidence” to prove the allegations against the chief, closing out the investigation on July 15, 2016. The Miami Herald obtained the report through a public records request.


It wasn’t the first time the chief faced a criminal investigation.

In 2002, Velázquez, then a sergeant, was suspected of destroying records in a DUI case in which he became romantically involved with the female defendant. Miami-Dade prosecutors opened an investigation, but they could not determine whether Velázquez or anyone else tampered with the evidence.
More recently, Velázquez, as chief, faced questions over not disciplining Hialeah police Sgt. Jesús Menocal Jr. after four women and girls told investigators that the sergeant had sexually assaulted them on the job. Velázquez did not fire Menocal, who kept his gun and badge for much of that time, even receiving a raise, a Herald investigation found. After the Herald’s reporting, Menocal was arrested by the FBI.

In the FDLE arson case, investigators did not gather enough evidence against Velázquez to make a case.

Neither FDLE’s forensic team nor the FBI could enhance the security camera video enough to identify the suspect or the license plate of the van he came and left in the dark. The van, parked down the street from Rodriguez’s home during the arson attack, was only partially captured by exterior security cameras. The vehicle was believed to be a Ford Freestar, made between 2004 and 2007, but FDLE investigators were unable to identify the actual owner after chasing numerous leads. Besides Rodriguez, no other witnesses or evidence could tie Velázquez to the arson. The report lists more than 20 Freestars that FDLE checked out for any connections to the chief.
FDLE agents William Saladrigas and Gaylon White concluded “the case has been thoroughly investigated but not resolved.”
Velázquez did not respond to questions from the Miami Herald.

‘IN THE EVENING I’M THE DEVIL’S’
The Hialeah police chief began dating the mother of Rodriguez’s daughter after she and the father had split up several years earlier. At first, Rodriguez told FDLE investigators he was happy for his ex-girlfriend that she was seeing someone as successful as Velázquez.

But Rodriguez’s amicable relationship with his ex-girlfriend turned sour after she left Hialeah with the daughter and moved in with Velázquez in Homestead, according to FDLE’s investigative report.
he report reflects escalating friction between Rodriguez and his ex, as well as Velázquez, over not only the custody of the daughter but also religious and cultural issues. The report reveals Rodriguez’s anger over his daughter’s exposure in the Velázquez home to Santeria, the Afro-Caribbean religion developed in Cuba in the late 19th century.

Rodriguez also claimed that the police chief was a practicing “palero,” a priest with “black magic” powers, the report says. (Palo is a distinct African diasporic religion from Santeria, although the report does not distinguish between the two.) At one point, the daughter, who was enrolled in a Catholic school in Hialeah, told Rodriguez: “Daddy, in the mornings I am God’s; in the evening I am the devil’s,” according to the report.
But what upset Rodriguez most of all was that his ex transferred their daughter from the Catholic school in Hialeah to a school closer to her Homestead residence without consulting with him, the report says.

An ensuing custody battle over the daughter, including visitation rights and vacation trips to Cuba, turned nasty as Velázquez inserted himself into the dispute at Miami-Dade family court, Rodriguez told FDLE. “Velázquez was frequently in the courtroom during these hearings and, on occasion, outside the courtroom in full [police] uniform,” according to an interview agents conducted with Rodriguez. “He seemed to be the person directing the attorney’s actions during these hearings.”
t a final hearing, Rodriguez told FDLE that the police chief was in the company of two private investigators whom he recognized as the same men who he said had been tailing him for some time. When the hearing ended in his favor, Rodriguez said he overheard Velázquez speaking to the two private investigators.

“He does not know the problem he is getting into,” Velázquez was overheard saying. “He is going to know what is coming.”

Rodriguez believed the chief was retaliating against him.

He told FDLE that Velázquez had sent “an army” of police officers and city code inspectors to his marine business to harass him. He also said the chief may also have been responsible for his Mercedes going up in flames in August 2014, prompting him to install the security camera that captured his truck being attacked by an arsonist the following January.

He also said marked police cars would drive by his Hialeah house at all hours.
According to the FDLE report, Rodriguez’s lawyer in the custody case was similarly rattled, saying she “became very uncomfortable” with Velázquez’s conduct. The lawyer, Annalie Alvarez, told investigators that she checked under her car every time she left a court hearing that Velázquez attended. She also said she had been followed by a strange van; found a dead rat she believed was planted outside her car; and even spotted the chief waiting outside her law office for no apparent reason.

“Alvarez took the dead rat as a sign/threat from Velázquez to scare her,” according to the FDLE report.

She said Velázquez’s role in the custody dispute was unusual because he was not the biological father. His role as a witness was to discredit Rodriguez’s character and support his girlfriend, she said.

Alvarez also told FDLE investigators that the police chief sent a Hialeah officer over to the daughter’s school to obtain student records. She said the school, feeling “uncomfortable about that situation,” called Rodriguez to inform him, the FDLE report says.
Alvarez sent an email to the lawyer of Rodriguez’s ex-girlfriend, telling him that the chief’s actions were “getting dangerous,” according to the FDLE report. Alvarez gave a copy of the email to one of the FDLE investigators because she was “scared for her client, herself and her husband.”

She did not respond to Herald requests for comment.

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Soon he will be 39 and the news will be spread all over the world

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After the November election when Hernandez is term limited out nobody will have Velazquez's back. Both will be investigated. And when it's all said and done I'll bet Zogby on the council will turn out to be dirty too.