The former police chief of Biscayne Park, a suburb of Miami, pleaded guilty last week to charges that he had conspired in 2013 and 2014 to frame three black men for robberies they had nothing to do with. Three other former officers, in the preceding couple months, also pleaded guilty for their roles in the schemes.
It began when Raimundo Atesiano, the former police chief, decided he wanted his department to reach a 100 percent success rate for burglaries—something the department achieved in 2013, falsely.
One officer even reported that the police chief and a second officer instructed him “multiple times to pin cases pending on anyone black walking through the streets at night,” according to an internal affairs report commissioned in 2014. He said that another officer relayed that message to him as well, and that officer told him, “If you see anybody black walking through our streets and they have somewhat of a record, arrest them so we can pin them for all the burglaries.”
Police claimed one of the framed men, Banmah Erasmus, had confessed to breaking into five cars; another 16-year-old victim was framed for four house burglaries. Both had their charges dropped against them.
But a man named Clarens Desrouleaux, a 41-year-old legal immigrant from Haiti who has lived in the country for more than 20 years, ended up serving five years for grand theft and a burglary he never committed, according to the Miami Herald. When he was released, he was deported to Haiti, according to a federal lawsuit filed last week.
When police arrested Desrouleaux on suspicion of forging a check, Atesiano told the arresting officers to charge him with two unsolved burglaries. They claimed he confessed to the crimes, and Desrouleaux, facing the prospect of 30 years in prison, took a plea deal.
In August 2017, when he completed the sentence, he was deported, according to the lawsuit. A judge vacated his convictions, but Desrouleaux’s attorney says he is still not allowed to return to the United States, where his family and two children live.
According to the Herald, under federal sentencing guidelines, Atesiano faces between two and two and a half years in prison for his crimes.
