Pubdate: Sat, 20 Oct 2001
Source: Naples Daily News (FL)
Copyright: 2001 Naples Daily News.
Contact:  http://www.naplesnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/284
Author: Catherine Wilson, Associated Press

TWO CURRENT, RETIRED HIALEAH OFFICERS CHARGED IN ROBBERY SPREE

MIAMI - Two current and former Hialeah police officers were charged Friday 
with setting up three robberies, serving as lookouts and providing a police 
badge, handcuffs and pepper spray to help pull them off.

The retired officer also offered his services to protect cocaine in Hialeah 
and suggested deliveries be wrapped as gifts so whoever was holding the 
drugs could deny knowing what was inside, an investigator said.

The investigation, nicknamed "Bad Apple," was organized by a task force of 
federal and state agents targeting corrupt officers. The Hialeah department 
cooperated with the investigation.

Former Officer Orestes DeSoto and Officer Cecilio Nunez were arrested 
Friday and face court appearances next week on federal robbery, narcotics 
and gun charges. The robberies were committed in a little more than a month 
early last year.

In the most extreme case, a restaurant manager was abducted, beaten and 
threatened with a gun by DeSoto, who thought the man doubled as a cocaine 
dealer, according to a court affidavit filed by an investigator.

The victim was stopped by Nunez in a marked car and handcuffed before a 
hood was placed over his head, according to Thomas Chittum, an agent with 
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

The man was taken to a warehouse, where DeSoto punched and kicked him and 
put a gun in his mouth to get him to say where he kept cocaine, Chittum 
wrote in the report supporting the charges.

The owner denied having any drugs, was robbed of his cash and jewelry and 
was dropped off near a hospital, still blindfolded and cuffed, Chittum said.

In other robberies, DeSoto set up a 7-Eleven store manager to be robbed of 
$10,100 and provided the pepper spray needed to overpower the man, 
Chittum's affidavit said.

A store videotape showed DeSoto in the convenience store just before the 
robbery, and he allegedly made a cell phone call to accomplices to alert 
them that it was time to move in.

In the third holdup, both DeSoto and Nunez served as lookouts when a bakery 
owner was robbed of $2,000 while getting out of her car when she arrived 
home from work.

The investigation was based on the word of two informants who participated 
in the robberies and were not identified in Chittum's report.

In another police corruption case in the Miami suburb, seven-year patrolman 
Peter Davila was charged in June with laundering money for a cocaine dealer 
through a security business he operated on the side.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens