In case you missed this Miami Herald story, Martin County commissioner arrested as part of widening public records scandal,  the opening paragraph serves as a reminder that the cover-up is usually worse than the crime.

“In a move that should send a chill down the spines of thousands of elected officials in Florida, former Martin County Commissioner Anne Scott, a retired judge originally from Chicago, and current Commissioner Ed Fielding were booked Tuesday night into the county jail after being indicted in a public records scandal that already cost taxpayers upward of $25 million.”

The two city officials, ages 69 and 73, respectively, are facing potential jail time of up to a year for “failure to permit inspection and copying of public records.”

This ongoing scandal has already cost Martin County taxpayers $500,000.00 in a civil lawsuit.  The county will also potentially cough up $25 million to settle another.

The two public employees who messed with public records are most likely less concerned with the spending of public funds than they are with spending twelve months in the hoosegow.

Public officials over in North Miami, however, may have missed the memo that public records belong to the public.

Worse, those officials in the police department, whose job it is to enforce the laws – not break them, apparently haven’t learned that hiding and/or destroying public records – especially from this blogger – is a very bad idea.

Will they ever learn?

Not surprisingly, the North Miami Police Department’s latest round of public records tampering is the direct responsibility of Assistant Chief Larry Juriga – the man who wants to be Police Chief.

How scary is that?

When Public Records go Missing

On December 1, 2017, we made the following public records request:

With respect to Sergeant Joseph Kissel, I am requesting copies of all internal affairs files, whether open or closed, past or present, any notes, memos, findings of criminal and/or administrative investigations and/or any documents pertaining to corrective discipline that may be stored anywhere in the police department or personnel department.  I am also requesting proof of any college degrees, specifically associates and/or bachelor degrees.

Please DO NOT INCLUDE documents I have already requested and received with respect to complaints filed by:  Natacha Jean-Francios, Kathleen Ruggiero and Stacina Jones.

In our four part series on Sergeant Kissel, NMPD’s “toxic environment,”, NMPD Sgt. Joey Kissel, Serial Offender, The Kissel Chronicles: How NMPD cops protect and serve … each other,  and The Kissel Chronicles: No one is safe. NO ONE!, we documented how one corrupt cop got away with murder (figuratively speaking, of course) with the help of Larry Juriga and a handful of cronies who refer to themselves as the “Illuminati.”

Joey Kissel was fortunate enough to have been born white, which was an original requirement of “Illuminati” membership back in the day.

It was also a stroke of good luck that his Uncle Jon was an NMPD cop when Joey was hired.

And as we all know from Larry Juriga’s own personal history, in the North Miami Police Department, family name is everything!

Needless to say, we never received the records we requested.

What we did receive on December 18, 2017 was an “NMPD INTERNAL AFFAIRS CASE LOG,” listing two old cases filed against Joseph Kissel.  The first was a complaint dated September 25, 2000 filed by Joey’s ex-wife for allegations of “Child Abuse,” and the second dated July 7, 2003 filed by former Police Chief Gwen Boyd for allegations of “Improper Affiliation.”  (We can only guess what that  means.)

Both investigations were conducted by now retired North Miami Police Officer (and loyal “Illuminati” member) Joseph A. LaPorte, and both were deemed to be “Unfounded.”

That was all the information we received.  No attachments, no copies of the complaints, no case summaries, no interviews, no disposition panel findings … nothing.  Zip, zilch, nada!

After a series of emails back and forth with the clerk’s office, we were eventually given the explanation that “the documentation of the IA investigations presented on the attached log no longer exist due to State Retention Schedules. IA investigations fall into the category of “Disciplinary Case Files: Employees, Item #98″ for which the retention schedule is 5 anniversary years after final action. Both IA investigations presented on the attached log are from the early 2000s.”

OH, REALLY?

Most people would probably have dropped the issue based on what appeared to be an “official” explanation why Internal Affairs investigation files “no longer exist.”

We here at VotersOpinion are not “most people.”

We immediately responded with, “Please clarify what you mean by the Internal Affairs files regarding Sergeant Joseph Kissel “no longer exist.” Are they archived? Have they been destroyed? Are they stored in another location, such as city hall or an offsite storage facility?  Please revisit my request, locate the files, and have them made available per the Freedom of Information Act and the City of North Miami’s public records policy.”

While we patiently waited for a response, on December 21, 2017 we contacted the Florida Department of State’s Division of Library and Information Services, to inquire about the retention of public records, and especially for internal affairs investigations.

Thirty minutes later we received an email from Ms. Amber Pepe, the Records Management Trainer in the Bureau of Archives and Records Management, advising us to refer to Florida Statutes Section 257.36.

She also invited us to review the State Department’s General Records Schedule GS1-SL for State and Local Government Agencies, as well as General Records Schedule G2 for Law Enforcement, Correctional Facilities and District Medical Examiners, which specifically “covers records specific to their work, including internal investigation records.”

In addition, Ms. Amber provided a screenshot of the specific retention requirements for internal affairs records which, according to Florida law, must be retained between one and five years depending on the outcome of the investigation.

Contrary to the information we received from the North Miami clerk’s office, as provided to him by NMPD Major Franzia Brea, Joey Kissel’s IA files are NOT subject to retention under under General Records Schedule G1, “Disciplinary Case Files: Employees, Item #98,” which affects all employees of government agencies, but has nothing to do with records specific to internal affairs investigations of law enforcement officers.

Joey’s IA records, on the other hand, ARE subject to General Records Schedule G2, “Internal Investigation Records: Final Action Summary, Item #59,” which mandates that these records be retained as long as the employee’s Personnel File exists.

Then again, this would not be the first time Major Brea has outright lied to us.  We are not surprised.

We forwarded all of this information to the North Miami clerk’s office, again asking for the FINAL ACTION SUMMARIES for each of the two IA investigations of Sergeant Joseph Kissel.  We were told, “I have copied the corresponding departments that oversee IA investigations as well as employees’ personnel files. However, I have checked numerous times with both Personnel and the NMPD and what we have provided so far is everything we have in our possession related to this records request. The attached log is the only document the NMPD Internal Affairs Office found associated to IA investigation of Sgt. Joseph Kissel. Also, I double checked Sgt. Kissel’s personnel file and there are no copies of any Final Action Summaries from the years 2000 and 2003.”

OH, REALLY?

Again, most people would have probably given up by now.

And, again, we are not “most people.”

Here’s the thing.

We have documented proof that the North Miami Police Department has not destroyed all of its “unfounded” Internal Affairs records … only the ones the “Illuminati” didn’t want the public to see.

Including, and especially, the Internal Affairs records of one Sergeant Joseph Kissel.

When Aliases Attack

In a public records request made on August 7, 2016 from an individual using the the pseudonym “Gerard Brown,” the requester asked for “copies of all internal affairs files, whether open or closed, past or present, any notes, memos, findings of criminal and/or administrative investigations and/or any documents pertaining to corrective discipline that may be stored anywhere in the police department or personnel department”  for a law enforcement officer in the North Miami Police Department who is not and never has been a member of Team Juriga’s “Illuminati.”

Once “Gerard Brown” received those requested records, they were then sent by email on December 22, 2016 from an individual using the pseudonym “Timothy Garak” to city officials and a wide range of city and police department employees.  These exact same records were again sent in yet another email on June 29, 2017 from an individual using the pseudonym “Arty Amor.”

One of those records included the complaint, narrative and and results of an Internal Affairs investigation of said non-“Illuminati” officer from the year 1994 – a full six years before Joey Kissel’s first Internal Affairs investigation file was allegedly  destroyed.

It should be noted that the allegations made in the complaint against this officer were unfounded, and the file was supposed to have been expunged.

Yet, somehow, “Gerard Brown” was able to have the expunged file miraculously recovered via a public records request.

It should also be noted, as we have previously mentioned, we have circumstantial evidence that “Gerard Brown,” “Timothy Garak,” and “Arty Amor” are all aliases of the same “Illuminati” cop recruited by Team Juriga to anonymously cyber-stalk us via email and Twitter.  (Note:  Until the investigation is completed, we will refrain from revealing the identity of that cop.)

The Do-Nothing Sergeant

In any event, it’s a well known fact that Sergeant Joseph P. Kissel is one of the protected members of Juriga’s “Illuminati.”  All evidence of bad behavior, incompetence, criminal activity, and even sloth, are covered up and destroyed by Team Juriga in order to maintain the blue wall of silence.

Joey was hired by the North Miami Police Department on October 14, 1983.  For over 34 years, he’s been collecting a paycheck for doing the bare minimum of police work, as evidenced by the fact that it took him 28 years to be promoted to Sergeant.

Since his promotion, he’s continued his “illustrious” career of harassing female employees, destroying the lives of North Miami residents, and very little else.

We know this because, in yet another public records request made on December 13, 2017, when we asked for “all memos, police reports, incident reports, evaluations, and/or all other official police documents, whether signed or unsigned, prepared and submitted by Sergeant Joseph Kissel from May 13, 2012 to the present,” we were supplied with a grand total of three documents.

Seriously.

In his five and one-half years as a Sergeant, Joey Kissel prepared and submitted only three official police documents for the NMPD.

Talk about a slacker!

Then again, it took him 28 years to get his first promotion.  So there’s that.

Per our public records request, we received:

1. A Police Report dated September 9, 2016 – four years after he made Sergeant – in which he “responded to the scene of a shooting where an officer was involved” and then “took command of the investigative portion of the shooting.”
2. An Incident Report dated August 2, 2017 in which he responded to a routine call of an unspecified nature.
3. The third document – and this is so adorable – was a homework assignment Memorandum dated November 7, 2017 from Sergeant Joseph Kissel to “Chief” Laurence Juriga, per his “request to research the use of Naloxone (Narcan) by this agency,” in which he plagiarized without giving credit to cut and paste information from the National Training and Technical Assistant Center, a May 23, 2017 article published by Channel 10, the Fort Lauderdale Police Department’s Policy 513 regarding the Administration of Naloxone HCI, pages 103 and 125 of the 2017 Emergency Medical Services Common Protocols from the Miami Beach Fire Department.

Gee, that last one must have been a tough project for Joey to tackle.

Then again, anyone with a working knowledge of “The Google” (like this blogger, for example) could have dug up that information and prepared that Memorandum in about 15 minutes or less.

But as one of the “Illuminati’s” protected class, Sergeant Joey Kissel has somehow managed to keep justifying his paycheck by coasting along on his membership status.

As usual, none of this could have been made possible were it not for the fact that, except for a very brief period, Assistant Chief/Wannabe Chief Larry Juriga has been the head of the Investigations Unit of the North Miami Police Department since 2003.

Under Juriga’s watch, Joey Kissel made Sergeant, was transferred to the Investigative Unit’s Detective Bureau, reinstated back to the DB despite harassment complaints filed against him by three female employees, and most importantly, all documentation regarding Joey’s two Internal Affairs investigations seem to have mysteriously disappeared from the face of the planet.

Or, so we’re told.

It’s Good to be “Illuminati”

We find it curious indeed that a two decade old IA file of a non-Illuminati officer is still available for perusal by the public, but when it comes to the investigation of Larry Juriga’s crony, “there are no copies of any Final Action Summaries from the years 2000 and 2003.”

At least, none that the North Miami Police Department wants us to see.

In the meantime, however, the City of North Miami and the North Miami Police Department should be aware that the the preservation and retention of public records is a serious matter.  The deliberate withholding or destruction of public records is a violation of Florida Statute 119.  As described in F.S. 119.10, any public officer who violates the provisions of F.S. 119.07(1) “is subject to suspension and removal or impeachment and, in addition, commits a misdemeanor of the first degree,” which is punishable “by a definite term of imprisonment not exceeding 1 year” (see F.S. 775.082).

Which is exactly what led to the indictment of two public officials in Martin County, Florida.

Hopefully, the Miami State Attorney’s Office will take this crime as seriously as does its counterpart in Martin County.

Just saying.

We strongly suggest that Larry Juriga & Co. do everything in their power to locate and provide those files to us before the authorities come calling.

Stay tuned…

Stephanie