The Miami-Dade Police sergeant who got caught racking up questionable overtime has not been fired and is not on the list of officers to get canned by Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s
plan to balance the budget by firing 255 cops. He’s not even getting bumped down a notch.
In fact, he was recently transferred to a better post.
Sgt. Kelly Sullivan, one of several former public corruption investigators who made $58,288 by racking up 934 overtime hours snooping on employees at Amelia Earhart Park in Hialeah last year, is going from a platoon squad to the Crime Suppression Team at the general investigations unit. He starts the new job today.
Ladra is not sure yet if there’s a bump in his salary, and may not be considered a promotion per se, but other cops see it as such. It’s considered a good transfer and a better post because it is a specialized undercover division at the distict level.
And he goes from having Wednesdays and weekends off, to getting three-day weekends with Mondays off every week.
El Nuevo Herald broke the original story last year about the investigators who caught four employees stealing $3,100 in entrance fees and how the investigation cost almost 20 times as much as the graft. While there were more than two dozen officers 
who worked the apparently priority case from February to May of 2013, Sullivan and lead detective Eddy Torga racked up 277 hours all by themselves.
Ladra wonders what kind of choice job Torga got. Nada. Not yet, anyway. Torga is still assigned to what is left of a skeleton public corruption unit.
See? This overtime abuse investigation is allegedly what prompted Police Director J.D. Patterson to move shut down the public corruption unit in July and make it part of internal affairs. He did that with the support of Mayor Giménez, he told reporters.
Related post: Miami-Dade corruption cops are transferred out
Yeah, riiiight. It’s more like the mayor — who was entangled in an investigation of absentee ballot fraud the year before — was jumping for joy when they found an opportunity to blame someone for dismantling the public corruption unit.
After all, why else would Sullivan gets a sweet, choice transfer while other hard-working, mostly rookie cops patrolling the street are threatened with pink slips? If he and the investigators he supervised abused OT so much that it would cause for the entire bureau to be dismantled — with officers “detached” to the FBI and the State Attorney’s Office — then why wouldn’t Sullivan and the others be disciplined somehow?
Or does he know more about the absentee ballot investigation than the brass would like?
How is this law and order?
OT abusing Sgt. gets choice post while other cops get fired added by Ladra on
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If you think this is bad, investigate the Coral Gables Police Department. The Chief of Police is stealing money, getting suede left and right by his own officers and he has officers suspended on pay for more than two years bc he messed up so bad that they’re gonna sue him as soon as they’re back on duty. the chief is delaying the inevitable bc he doesn’t know how to fix his major mess up. did I mention he keeps these secrets from the city commission?
Why in the world the PBA allowed the absentee ballot fraud issue to die boggles my mind. You would think that common sense dictates to resurface this story, especially now, but niet. Putting this aside, great story. It is not the first nor the last time you will hear this, but cops are their own worst enemies. The factions seen among us is sad. When an officer has to think twice about pulling the trigger, it’s a clear signal that the dept. prioritizes image and lawsuits over the officer. Not to go off on another tangent, but why don’t we have our own budget? Like fire. But that is common sense and way too late to entertain that now. Fire are light years ahead of us. After all. Their Union has a national presence. We? Fire Union are in the top ten super pac. I’ll leave it there and say no more.
I totally agree with this investigation by Ladra. Cops should be held to a higher standard since they are the one suppose to be providing the protection, but above the Sergeant is where we should be looking, because every time overtime is worked, it is approved up the line. The Police Unions are tired of giving concessions, maybe concessions wouldn’t be necessary if some of the internal problems are solved and kept less costly.
Yes – Absentee Ballot – Totally true – Why else would they catch Daisy Cabrera outside of his Campaign Office? She was not the only one. They use the Voter list provided by Elections. They target absentee ballot voters first. Cold calling them and then offering to p/u ballot. There is a list made with those that want their ballot p/u. They are p/u by ballot person such as Daisy Cabrera and mailed for the elderly. This is why these people win with the AB.
The campaign people target elderly in the government housing. They pick up their ballots and deliver these.
Not only this campaign but the prior. They can deny all they want the fact of the matter is “GUILTY” as charged.
Thank you for uncovering this miscarriage of justice! Sullivan was hidden in uniform patrol by Deputy Juan Perez. He probably thought it was “safe” to reassign his buddy again to an investigative unit so he can raid the Law Enforcement Trust fund once again. Check out the history on Sullivan’s boss, Major Ignacio Alvarez. He was part of the group of MDPD officers who were caught double dipping while on county time in Panama. Major Alvarez is an attorney (huge conflic) but he is allowed to spend time in his private office while on county time! Double dipping again! MDPD is a sewer and the rats are winning!