For nearly a month, Miami Police Chief John Timoney has ignored the rules of the city where he’s the top cop. Though first a Miami citizens’ panel, soon after a state court judge ordered him to fork by hundreds of pages of records related to a city probe into his free use of a Lexus SUV, he hasn’t complied.

“Chief Timoney accepted a free Lexus from Lexus of Kendall,” says Armando Aguilar, president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police (FOP). “He drove that car for approximately 15 months. that is a clear violation of his own agency orders…The Chief of Police should be an example for others to follow.”

The Miami Civilian Investigative Panel, a group that investigates complaints about police, first subpoenaed Timoney to seem before them that past November 30. The chief backed out of a hearing a week later on December 6, the day before he was set to seem.

They issued a moment subpoena on December 10. that moment, Timoney responded with a letter saying he was “perplexed” by the demand for documents relating to his mileage, cell phone and fuel card use. Despite his confusion, he showed up at a December 21 CIP assembly.

Click on the button below to listen to Timoney’s December 21 assembly with the civilian investigative panel.

On an audio recording of that assembly, Charles Mays, the panel’s independent

counsel, introduces himself and the group to the chief. “We really appreciate you being here,” he says.

Timoney interrupts Mays by clearing his throat. “Before you go [any further], that may not be essential considering I’m here of my own volition, not as a aftereffect of a subpoena…it is my contention that that board, the Civilian Investigative Panel, has no jurisdiction by me,” Timoney says. “Even whether you had the ability that you think you have, which I may think you don’t, you’ve gone about that the entirely wrong manner.”

“What you’re doing is the political dirty work for the FOP,” he adds, referring to the Fraternal Order of Police, . You’re being used, it looks to me.”

He “refused to testify or produce the documents identified in the subpoena,” court records show.

Six days later, on December 27, the panel asked the court to enforce their subpoenas. On January 4 Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Victoria Sigler agreed and ordered the chief records to produce the records “forthwith.” So far, he hasn’t complied. The CIP invited him to testify that Friday.

Timoney didn’t reply to a phone letter and newsletter left with the Miami police office.

Aguilar contends the chief “betrayed the public’s trust” while sending a info to officers that “you can violate our rules and regulations and the law as faraway as you have the right connections.” — Janine Zeitlin