Raimundo atesiano
Source: Biscayne Park Police Department
Source: Screenshot, Village of Biscayne Park
“I made some very, very bad decisions.”
Ex-Florida police chief Raimundo Atesiano has been sentenced to three years in prison by a federal judge for framing black people for crimes they didn’t commit.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore sentenced Atesiano, 53, for “conspiracy to deprive individuals of their civil rights.”
According to a report in the Miami Herald, the former chief of Biscayne Park Police Department in Miami-Dade County told the judge, “When I took the job, I was not prepared... I made some very, very bad decisions.”
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Atesiano directed his officers to frame innocent black people for a series of burglaries, admitting that he wanted to appease community leaders and scrub the area's property crimes record.
One of the people falsely accused and arrested was 16 years old.
“Putting an arrest statistic above the rights of an innocent man instead of working to protect all our citizens undermines the safety goals of every Miami-Dade police department,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement on Tuesday. “Miami-Dade’s residents deserve honesty and integrity, qualities that Raimundo Atesiano deliberately failed to deliver.”
Last month, three other ex-Biscayne Park officers — Guillermo Ravelo, Charlie Dayoub and Raul Fernandez — were each sentenced to one year in prison for their participation in the scheme.
Source: Miami Herald
