Fairfax County Police Watch: Corruption probe targets Miami undercover cops

An officer who faced prison implicates his boss, as the FBI probes alleged drug-dealing and corruption by undercover cops.

BY JAY WEAVER

jweaver@MiamiHerald.com

When FBI agents questioned Miami undercover cop Roberto Asanza on May 25, 2010, they found a dozen bags of cocaine and marijuana stashed in a CD box in the cab of his truck.

Asanza, an ex-Marine, admitted he kept the drugs after seizing them from a dealer he and his boss had busted at a window-tinting shop in Allapattah weeks earlier.

Rather than arrest Asanza for not turning in and reporting the evidence, the agents flipped him. He agreed to wear a wire to help them go after a much bigger fish — the boss, Miami Police Sgt. Raul Iglesias — in a rare instance of cop turning on fellow cop.

The recorded meeting that same day between a half-hearted Asanza and his veteran supervisor produced nothing of real value. A year later, the feds finally popped Asanza on felony drug-trafficking charges.

Flash forward to last week: Facing trial, Asanza, 32, pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to a much-less serious misdemeanor charge of possessing small amounts of cocaine, heroin and marijuana. The Coral Park High graduate, who had served six years on the force, has to resign, turn over all police certifications and faces up to one year in prison.

But he is expected to serve limited time because he has again agreed to cooperate with the FBI and U.S. attorney’s office in the investigation of 39-year-old Iglesias, according to his plea agreement.

The sergeant, an 18-year Miami police veteran who ran the Central District’s Crime Suppression Unit targeting drug-trafficking, was suspended with pay in 2010. Iglesias, like Asanza, is suspected of confiscating drugs and money from street dealers, and using some of those illegal proceeds to pay off confidential informants. They also are suspected of selling the drugs.

Iglesias’ attorney William Matthewman called the allegations “ludicrous,” pointing out that the sergeant and his undercover unit worked part of the time on a joint task force with FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration undercover agents.

“In fact, his day-to-day partner in this undercover investigation was an FBI agent who rode in the same car with him,” Matthewman said. “It would make no sense to allege that Raul Iglesias committed any wrongdoing while he was partnered with the FBI agent.”

He added: “He has done absolutely nothing wrong and welcomes any fair investigation because it will exonerate him.”

Details of the FBI’s investigation into Iglesias, who also is the target of a Miami Police Internal Affairs probe, surfaced in the parallel federal case against Asanza.

After Asanza’s arrest in early June of last year, the officer was at first defiant toward the FBI and seemingly loyal to his former boss, Iglesias, court documents show.

“You guys are only arresting me because you couldn’t do your job right and get enough on Sarge,” according to a summary of Asanza’s statement to the FBI on June 2, 2011. “You tried to flip me, and I wouldn’t. That’s the only reason you’re arresting me.”

The one-time undercover cop recently changed his tune, however, because if convicted at trial later this month he would have faced up to 20 years in prison. He cut his plea deal on Wednesday. His attorney, Brandine Powell, declined to comment.

Just days before that decision, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ricardo Del Toro issued a not-so-subtle warning to Asanza and his lawyer about his plans for trial: “The government intends to introduce evidence of various allegations of police corruption against Sgt. Raul Iglesias to provide a context for the FBI’s initiation of the investigation of this case, including an anonymous letter to Miami Police Department’s Internal Affairs,” he said in a court document.

The anonymous letter cited by Del Toro was written by other undercover Miami police officers who worked in Iglesias’ unit and complained about him, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

Miami police officials declined to comment about the internal investigation, which is still open.

The first public hint of scandal in Iglesias’ Crime Suppression Unit, an undercover squad that targets drug dealers and other violent criminals, surfaced when Asanza was arrested in June 2011 — a full year after he had been stopped by FBI agents.

According to a criminal complaint and affidavit, Asanza and another police officer identified only as “R.I.” had recruited a confidential informant to work with the squad in January 2010. R.I is Raul Iglesias.

The confidential informant tipped off R.I. and Asanza about a dealer who sold drugs at the window-tinting shop at 3233 NW Seventh Ave. in Allapattah.

On May 5, 2010, R.I., Asanza and other undercover officers arrested a man identified as “L.R.” at the tint shop and confiscated cocaine and marijuana along with cash. Court records show his name is Luis Roman.

Almost three weeks later, FBI agents questioned Asanza. On May 25, 2010, Asanza let them search his truck, where agents found 10 bags of cocaine and two bags of marijuana. Asanza admitted to the agents that the drugs were taken from the tint shop dealer.

Separately, Asanza also admitted he had two bags of heroin seized from another suspect whom he had stopped but not arrested.

In October 2010, Asanza admitted to FBI agents that both he and R.I. “took custody of the drugs and money” from the tint-shop dealer, according to the affidavit. Asanza also admitted that on the day of the dealer’s arrest, he “paid” the informant with one or two bags of cocaine seized from the suspect. Asanza said the payoff went down in his truck, with him in the driver’s seat, R.I. in the passenger seat and the informant in the back seat.

“Asanza admitted that he knew it was wrong to give drugs to the CI, but that he was trying to build a rapport with the CI,” FBI special agent Ivonne Alduende wrote in the affidavit.

In a sworn statement last year, the informant told Miami police investigators that after the arrest of the tint-shop dealer, both Asanza and R.I. gave him the two bags of cocaine and $80 cash.

As part of his cooperation deal with the feds, Asanza is expected to testify about Iglesias’ alleged involvement in that illegal payoff to the informant.

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.