3 June 12-18, 2025 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | MONTHXX–MONTHXX,2008 miaminewtimes.com MIAMI NEW TIMES | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | ▼ HIALEAH UH-OH, SERGIO EX-POLICE CHIEF BUSTED FOR FRAUD AND THEFT. BY THEO KARANTSALIS A fter years of skating past scan- dal, former Hialeah Police Chief Sergio Velazquez faces charges of structuring trans- actions to evade reporting or registration requirements, organized fraud, and grand theft — all first-degree felonies. The Florida Department of Law Enforce- ment (FDLE) arrested Velazquez on Monday. Velazquez, 61, was the police chief for the City of Hialeah Police Department from 2012 until 2021. “Officers of the law are held to a higher standard of character and integrity. They are expected to uphold the trust that the public has placed in them. FDLE Miami special agent in charge John Vecchio said in a public media release. “This case revealed that Velazquez violated the trust and integrity ex- pected of him as police chief.” Vecchio and State Attorney Katherine Fer- nandez Rundle held a press conference about Valazquez’s arrest on Monday. FDLE launched its investigation into Velazquez in November 2021, after FDLE agents received a tip from Hialeah Police De- partment officials regarding potentially mis- allocated department funds. According to the FDLE release, the inves- tigation found that between May and October 2021, around $560,000 in Hialeah Police De- partment petty cash and seized funds had gone missing. FDLE agents and analysts re- viewed bank accounts linked to Velazquez and identified 62 cash deposits totaling over $140,000. None of the deposits exceeded $10,000 in any of the accounts examined. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office released to New Times a redacted copy of Velazquez’s 44-page arrest warrant. The doc- ument describes his three first-degree felony charges in detail, including $1 million in “petty cash” mysteriously missing from nar- cotics-related seizures and subsequent civil forfeitures between 2016 and 2021. Between 2015 and 2021, roughly 100 “petty cash” checks totaling more than $2.8 million were cashed to fund investigations by the Hialeah Police Department and the Office of Statewide Investigative Services (OSIS). Only about $209,000 — just 7.3 percent — was documented as legitimate OSIS spending, leaving nearly $2.6 million unaccounted for. “All told,” the warrant reads, “over $1.1 million in currency is missing and/or unac- counted for from HPD in 2021 alone.” Records obtained by New Times from the State Attorney’s Office (SAO) reveal that the State of Florida charged Velazquez with money laundering and structuring financial transactions to evade reporting requirements involving more than $100,000; organized fraud for allegedly orchestrating a scheme to defraud the City of Hialeah and the Hialeah Police Department out of $50,000; and grand theft for stealing or attempting to steal at least $100,000. According to FDLE special agent Christo- pher Vastine, Velazquez allegedly misused funds and engaged in a scheme to conceal fi- nancial transactions, defrauding the city and taxpayers in the process. “When any serving police officer violates the law, he betrays the community whom he was sworn to serve,” Fernandez Rundle said in the media release. “But when a police chief is alleged to have stolen from the city and de- partment he has led, this unique betrayal deeply damages the very soul of the commu- nity. I congratulate the FDLE agents and ana- lysts, who working together with my Public Corruption prosecutors on this complex in- vestigation, have worked to bring this matter before our criminal courts.” Velazquez is no stranger to controversy. He was accused of becoming romantically in- volved with a woman brought to the station for driving under the influence and took heat for reinstating officer Jesus Menocal Jr., who later pleaded guilty to coercing women into sex while on duty. At least one of Menocal’s alleged victims was underage. Velazquez also survived an 18-month FDLE investigation into alleged criminal mis- conduct, including accusations that he set fire to a car owned by a man dating his ex-girl- friend. No charges were filed. Hialeah Mayor Jacqueline Garcia-Roves did not return a message from New Times seeking comment. Since leaving the chief gig, Velazquez re- portedly worked as an electrician — because naturally, when you’re done overseeing a po- lice force, rewiring light fixtures is the next logical move. On Monday, FDLE transported the former police chief, whose bond is set at $30,000, to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. The SAO, Eleventh Judicial Circuit, is prosecuting the case. [email protected] | RIPTIDE | GET MORE NEWS & COMMENTARY AT MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/NEWS FDLE arrested former Hialeah Police Chief Sergio Velazquez on felony charges including fraud, grand theft, and structuring financial transactions. Photo by WPLG Local 10 via YouTube ▼ DOWNTOWN LOCKED AND LOADED MIAMI’S FEDERAL PRISON IS QUIETLY DETAINING HUNDREDS OF IMMIGRANTS. BY ALEX DELUCA M iami’s federal prison is quietly doubling as an immigration detention center, housing hundreds of detainees in a fa- cility designed for criminal defendants awaiting trial. As part of a broader Trump-era policy to con- vert federal prisons into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) confirms to New Times that the Federal Detention Center (FDC) Miami is now detaining immigrants — many of whom are accused only of civil immi- gration violations. While a Bureau of Prisons (BOP) spokesper- son declined to disclose the number of immi- grant detainees currently held at the facility, citing concerns over “safety” and “security,” an employee at Miami’s Federal Detention Center (FDC), who spoke with New Times on the condi- tion of anonymity, estimated the number to be around 500. This contrasts with ICE’s reporting, which has claimed it has detained just 139 de- tainees at the facility. Recent data from The Journalist’s Resource, a project of Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media Politics and Public Policy, also corroborates a figure noticeably higher than the one ICE reports, indicating that FDC Miami is housing 325 detainees. “The Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) can confirm we are assisting the United States Immi- gration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by housing detainees and will continue to support our law enforcement partners to fulfill the ad- ministration’s policy objectives,” the BOP wrote in a statement to New Times. The Miami federal prison joins a handful of fa- cilities nationwide, including FCI Atlanta, FCI Leavenworth, FDC Philadelphia, and FCI Berlin, that are currently housing immigrant detainees, the BOP says. FDC Miami holds the immigrant detain- ees on the 10th and 11th floors, separate from the rest of the prison population, ac- cording to the FDC employee. Reports of sexual abuse, poor conditions, and staffing and infrastructure issues have long plagued the BOP system. As recently as last year, an FDC Miami officer was charged with sexually abusing an incarcerated person. According to The Guardian, immigrant de- tainees at some of these prisons, including FDC Miami, have recently reported inhumane condi- tions, such as being cut off from their attorneys, lacking basic necessities like food and toilet pa- per, and being forced to live in dirty, over- crowded cells. One incarcerated woman told The Guardian that the arrival of immigration detainees at FDC Miami has worsened conditions for existing pris- oners. “Everything is worse. There’s more scarcity,” she said. To accommodate the influx, women have been crammed into overcrowded housing units, she said, with some placed in areas with broken toilets and leaks. “It’s as if we’re animals,” she told the Guard- ian. “This prison already wasn’t livable and now they’re adding more people into a place that’s so unsafe and inhumane.” [email protected] “THIS PRISON ALREADY WASN’T LIVABLE AND NOW THEY’RE ADDING MORE PEOPLE.”
