Theft trial of ex-Miami Dade officers begins

By at 26 August, 2010, 8:57 am

Former Miami-Dade police officers Daniel Fernandez and Joe Losada were both veteran cops and members of the department’s elite Crime Suppression Team. Fernandez was even honored as the 2004 “officer of the year.” But the men were robbing the citizens they were sworn to protect, prosecutors say: drug dealers and others with spotty records, in particular. Those are ideal victims for crooked police officers, Assistant State Attorney Bill Altfield told jurors on Wednesday — the type of victims nobody will believe. “This case is about greed, pure and simple,” Altfield said during opening statements in the officers’ grand theft and official misconduct trial. “Every person — every person — has the same rights.” Fernandez and Losada were arrested in 2006 after an undercover sting that prosecutors say

caught the men pocketing part of $970 in marked bills that were planted as bait at a purported crime scene. Both were fired. About a half-dozen officers attended the trial in the courtroom of Circuit Judge Yvonne Colodny, some wearing shirts emblazoned with “POLICE” on the back as they hugged the defendants. In orchestrating the sting, Internal Affairs investigators enlisted the help of two men from the crime-plagued Northside District who had complained about the officers. Fernandez and Losada worked in a plainclothes unit that targets drug dealers. One of the informants, Pedro Soler, is a convicted drug dealer. The other, Rafael Rodriguez, is Soler’s acquaintance. The ex-officers’ attorneys seized on the informants’ sketchy pasts.

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Theft trial of ex-Miami Dade officers begins

Categories : Miami | State News




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