In his new book Making Jack Falcone retired FBI agent Joaquin "Jack" Garcia has some choice words for the police department in Hollywood, Florida:
"The corruption is systemic throughout the whole [Hollywood] police department. We've heard from numerous sources just how corrupt these guys are."
Although Garcia is best known for infiltrating the Gambino crime family as Jack Falcone and bringing down capo Greg DePalma, Garcia posed undercover in more than 100 cases in his 26 years with the FBI. The case which angered Garcia the most was a corruption investigation into Hollywood's police force in which he posed as a Gambino capo:
"What was amazing to me is that it was so easy to get cops to look the other way, to guard trucks for us, no questions asked. I'd never seen anything like it."
As a result of evidence secured by Garcia four Hollywood policemen -- Sgt. Kevin Companion, Sgt. Jeff Courtney, Detective Thomas Simcox and Officer Stephen Harris -- were arrested on heroin trafficking charges in February 2007, and subsequently convicted and sentenced to lengthy jail terms.
Apparently the corruption wounds still are festering over at the Hollywood Police Department, and when Lt. Manny Marino was asked to comment on Garcia's book the bitterness in his otherwise predictable response was palpable:
"There are more than 300 police officers who go to work every day doing their job, and they have to keep hearing about this more than a year later," Marino said. "Anyone can say what they want in a book, and we're going to have to deal with this a long time. But all we can do is keep moving forward."
My question is where were the internal controls within the Hollywood Police Department both to prevent and detect corruption? It's hard for a cop to be dirty if he's being watched. And why was Garcia's undercover ruse as a Gambino capo so readily swallowed by the four convicted officers? Apparently they did not find it so odd to discover a gangster hanging out in Hollywood. Indeed, surely at least one strip joint in that seedy little town must have some hidden underworld interests.
Of course, Hollywood is not the only Florida town which has had a problem with dirty cops on the force. Earlier this year Garcia arrested Broward County Sheriff's deputies Richard Tauber and Kevin D. Frankel on drug trafficking charges after another one of his undercover stings in which he posed as "Big Tony." Tauber and Frankel have pleaded not guilty, and are awaiting trial.
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