Code enforcement crackdown: One officer arrested, others fired

Derrick Erwin had been an Opa-locka code enforcement officer for over a decade before his career came crashing down last week. At around 1 a.m. last Friday, police took him into custody at his home less than half a mile from city hall, saying he committed fraud and theft by imposing thousands of dollars in fines on a property, then buying it himself before deleting the fines from the city’s computer system.

Erwin, police said in an arrest report, “abused his power as a city of Opa-locka code enforcement officer and used it for his personal gain.”

Erwin, 65, faces a misdemeanor charge of falsifying public records, plus four felony charges: official misconduct, computer-related crimes, third-degree grand theft, and an organized scheme to defraud the city. The police report says Erwin initially waived his right to an attorney and “confessed to the facts” during an interview, but he has since entered a not-guilty plea in Miami-Dade criminal court.

Between 2009 and 2013, police said, Erwin imposed a series of fines ranging from $100 to $2,000 on the single-family home he now owns on Sharazad Boulevard. He bought the home in September 2014. Then, on two dates in 2016 and 2017, he allegedly went into the system and deleted over $5,000 worth of fines and liens on the property.

Erwin’s arrest came four days after he and two other Opa-locka code officials were fired, though it wasn’t clear exactly what role Erwin’s impending arrest played in the firings. The reason cited by City Manager John Pate in termination letters was unrelated: The three employees, he said, had worked together to place an improper running fine worth more than $36,000 on the property of Opa-locka’s assistant city manager, George Ellis.

That amount was calculated based on a single citation issued at Ellis’ home over a decade ago, plus a running fine of $10 per day starting after 30 days of non-payment in 2010.

But Pate said code officials didn’t have the proper documentation to justify that entry in the computer system. In his letters terminating the employees, he said they entered the fine “with malice and ill intent” in order to discredit Ellis and the integrity of an internal audit Pate was conducting into the entire code enforcement department.

That was a fireable offense on its own, Pate told the Miami Herald, but he said the termination letters didn’t include any information about Erwin’s alleged crimes because the criminal investigation wasn’t complete. The employees were terminated Sept. 28, the same day police met with a code enforcement supervisor to review documents that would lead to Erwin’s arrest a few days later.

The investigation by Opa-locka Police and the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office is ongoing, Pate said Thursday, but he declined to discuss it or say whether the two other fired officials could face charges.

Rooting out corruption or playing politics?

City leaders say the arrest and the firings are all part of a crackdown on corruption in the northwest Miami-Dade city, which has long been tainted by political scandals and has been under state financial oversight for four years. A new crop of leaders, including Pate and Mayor Matthew Pigatt, have pledged to cleanse the city’s reputation in the wake of seven convictions for extortion after the FBI raided city hall in 2016.

“The efforts we have put in place will hold individuals like Mr. Erwin accountable for their actions,” Pate told the Herald in a statement, adding that Opa-locka “will root out these wrongdoers one by one until the city is rid of these unethical and self-serving individuals.”

But the fired code enforcement officials say this latest incident reflects the city’s old way of doing business, not a new, more ethical approach.

Randolph Aikens, a supervisor who spent more than 40 years with the city and is running for city commission in November, said he believes his firing was in retaliation for his alleged involvement in placing the fine on Ellis’ home. He also denied that he ever imposed the fine and said the city doesn’t have documents to back it up.

“I know they’re lying,” Aikens said. “It’s just another ploy to ruin me or stop me from winning the election.”

Aikens says this is déjà vu. In 2016 he was suspended with pay for 30 days, one month after he wrote two code enforcement citations on a crumbling building that belonged to the family of then-Mayor Myra Taylor. He got his job back after contesting the suspension, then sued the city for over $2 million. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount.

His attorney back then, Michael Pizzi, is now representing him again. Pizzi is also representing Erwin and the third fired code official, administrative assistant Sharon Marquez. Pate said in his termination letter to Marquez that she admitted Aikens and Erwin had directed her to enter the $36,000 fine on Ellis’ property using Erwin’s log-in credentials, even though they didn’t have the necessary “certificate of non-compliance” to do so.

But Pizzi said he’s not buying it. The three officials will ask for their jobs back, he said, and then consider filing a lawsuit if they’re denied.

“They fired almost the whole code enforcement division in retaliation for the fact that the deputy manager was cited for code violations,” Pizzi told the Herald. “There was no real investigation, there was no due process. The deputy manager was mad because he had to pay for his offenses. They fired first and investigated later.”

He added: “It’s disappointing that the new mayor and manager promised change, and it’s the same old retaliation for people who blow the whistle.”

Resistance to change?

But Pate and Ellis say this is different. Ellis told the Herald that, since he began working for the city last year, he has pushed employees to improve city operations that were seriously lacking. He said he asked Aikens, for example, to start sending written memos, but that Aikens didn’t seem interested in doing things differently.

“It wasn’t personal,” Ellis said. “Some people are rebellious against change.”

Pate suggested Aikens’ resentment toward Ellis led Aikens to impose the running fine on the assistant city manager’s property.

“Mr. Aikens directed his staff to put this on file because of issues he has with Mr. Ellis,” Pate said, declining to discuss those issues in more detail.

Aikens denied giving that directive, and he said the situation with Ellis was the other way around: Ellis, he said, seemed to have a problem with him. On one recent occasion, Aikens said, Ellis told Aikens he couldn’t run for office while serving as a code enforcement supervisor based on Florida’s resign-to-run law.

Ellis said Aikens was misrepresenting the conversation. He was simply relaying information to Aikens, he said, and wasn’t sure exactly what the law said, nor trying to discourage Aikens from running for office.

“I don’t make that decision. The clerk makes that decision,” Ellis said.

Exactly what happened at Ellis’ property is hard to pin down, in part because of the city’s history of shoddy record-keeping. Ellis said he remembers getting a citation for painting over his house number in 2009, and that he responded by ensuring the number was visible again. But he said he doesn’t recall getting notice of a special magistrate hearing to determine what he owed.

Regardless, Pate said, code officers are required to go back to a property to confirm a problem was never fixed before they enter a running fine in the system for non-payment. That wasn’t done in this case, he said.

Pate’s termination letters say the computer system showed Ellis’ fine was settled in 2016 for around $200, but Ellis said he recently requested a new magistrate hearing to make sure the issue is fully resolved.

Signs of progress, but trouble lingers

City officials say they’re determined to move Opa-locka forward, even as allegations of corruption and misconduct continue to crop up. On Sept. 29, one day after the code officials were fired, Florida’s chief inspector general approved the city’s five-year plan, a long-awaited step toward financial stability in a city where about 47% of residents live in poverty.

Then, this week brought another troubling revelation: The family of an Opa-locka teenager claimed that, when they called police for help last month after the teen suffered a mental breakdown, police instead beat him, dragged him down porch steps while he was shackled, and shot him with a Taser.

Lt. Sergio Perez, who the family says dragged the teen down the steps, denied mistreating him and said the teen “was removed from a slippery living room to be controlled.”

In mid-August, the city fired Police Chief James Dobson after a report found low morale and major operational flaws in the department. Dobson claimed that he was fired, in part, because he supported an officer who had recently issued a traffic ticket to the mayor’s cousin.

When Dobson was removed, Perez was promoted to lieutenant and temporarily placed in charge of the department’s administrative division. Perez has his own troubled past: He was fired, but later rehired, for his role in chasing a motorist who drove onto Interstate 95 and killed four tourists in a fiery wreck.

Pate, who is coming up on one year as city manager — Opa-locka’s seventh in seven years — said he has a “zero-tolerance policy” for misconduct.

“During my administration, from day one my goal has been to root out corruption,” he said, “and eliminate wrongdoing from the employee ranks of this great city.”