Fairfax County Police Watch: Miami Springs cop resigns after fraud arrest

BY THEO KARANTSALIS

A veteran Miami Springs police officer who once served as union representative has quietly resigned from the force after authorities accused him of fraudulently billing his city-issued medical insurance.

While on active duty, Oscar Garcia, 43, was arrested last year and charged with two counts of insurance fraud and one count of grand theft. He submitted his resignation to the city last month.

Garcia’s case is expected to be resolved once he pays back restitution.

During a court hearing Tuesday, Garcia declined to comment. His lawyer did not return repeated calls for comment.

“I have enjoyed 17 years as an employee with this great city and will always cherish,” he wrote in his resignation letter. “I will continue to have lifelong friendships with all of you, however, this time, I have goals and plans that no longer allow me to continue my journey and I must move on.”

His arrest was unusual for a department of 40 sworn officers in the the small city just north of Miami International Airport. Garcia had been a representative for the Police Benevolent Association and was particularly vocal during contract negotiations in 2012.

His legal troubles stem from paperwork he filled out in October 2010.

According to an arrest warrant, Garcia filled out an Aetna health insurance form, listing a woman named Rosario Noa as his wife, and her daughter as his stepdaughter.

“Wife kept maiden name,” he wrote on the form, according to authorities.

Noa later gave birth to Garcia's son — a pregnancy for which Aetna paid $14,313.54 in medical bills. The company also paid out several hundred dollars in other claims.

But according to North Miami police, which investigated, Garcia was actually still married to another woman: Olga Garcia, whom he had never divorced because of disagreements over child custody.

Noa, Garcia admitted the city, was his live-in girlfriend and he mistakenly believed he could list her and her daughter as dependents.

Miami Springs later determined that it had wrongfully paid over $6,500 for Noa and her daughter because they were never eligible for coverage through the city.

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.