Court records in Miami
Beach corruption arrests raise questions about cops
Miami Beach police
want to know more about potential ties between officers and a city fire
inspector accused of running fake cocaine for undercover agents.
Miami Beach police are
concerned that one or more of their own may have provided “protection” for
cocaine drops staged by undercover federal agents.
Recorded statements
and details laid out by the FBI in a criminal complaint against Miami Beach
fire inspector Henry Bryant allude to illicit relationships between Bryant and
Miami Beach officers, and raise questions about whether department officers
escorted Bryant through city limits while he carried kilograms of “sham”
cocaine.
“I’m concerned of any
allegation or impression that a Miami Beach police officer would do that,”
Police Chief Raymond Martinez said Thursday. “We’re certainly going to be
working with the FBI to follow up on any information they may have.”
Martinez and federal
agents have talked about meeting early next week.
The FBI and local
authorities arrested Bryant, a second Miami Beach fire inspector and five city
code compliance officers Wednesday.
The FBI and U.S.
Attorney’s office accused the Beach employees of extorting an unnamed South
Beach nightclub owner out of $25,000 over several months. In return, agents
said the employees allowed the club to avoid inspections and stay open despite
hefty tax debts.
Authorities also
arrested Miami-Dade Police Officer Daniel Mack and said he and Bryant were paid
$25,000 to transport duffel bags of fake cocaine for undercover agents posing
in the club as drug dealers.
No Miami Beach
officers have been arrested.
Bryant allegedly
boasted about his contacts with as many as four Miami Beach officers and four
Miami-Dade County officers, court records show. He also told agents he would
transport cocaine with unmarked Miami Beach police escorts within city limits —
he said department cruisers were marked with GPS — and Miami-Dade County police
escorts through the rest of the county, according to court records.
Sgt. Alejandro Bello,
president of the city’s police union, said the details in Bryant’s criminal
complaint raise a number of questions.
“Was he being
truthful?” Bello said. “Should we be concerned? Are they looking at other
police officers? Or were they just friends who didn’t know what was going on?”
An FBI spokesman said
he could not elaborate on details in the criminal complaint.
According to court
records, Bryant transported a duffel bag stuffed with kilograms of fake cocaine
from South Beach to North Dade on Dec. 21 and on Jan 14.
During the first run,
court records say an unmarked, gold four-door sedan “appeared to be following
Bryant” in Miami Beach before Mack picked up the escort outside city limits.
During the second run,
agents say Bryant met them at the club and introduced them to an “identified
police officer” after they asked about the whereabouts of his “other
associate.”
Court records don’t
name the officer or his department, but say he escorted Bryant in his personal
black Chevrolet Impala from South Beach to the 62nd Street exit of Interstate
95, where Mack began tailing the fire inspector.
“That’s part of what
we’ll be meeting with the FBI and working on follow-up information about,”
Martinez said. “I don’t know if from that complaint that police officer is a
Miami Beach police officer or from another department.”
The investigation
remains open.
Said Martinez: “We
have a lot of questions.”