3 Men Died in Drug Rip-Off : Miami Seeking Answers as Police Trial Unfolds

It was the summer of last year when the river gave up three floaters. Police snagged them with a gaff and yanked them from the brown ooze.

Like so much that is grisly and evil around Miami, the corpses carried the stench of a drug deal that had turned into a drug rip-off. But there was something even worse about these deaths, something long feared by anyone who knows about temptation and betrayal and a city stuffed with cash. Witnesses laid the crime to a handful of cops.

Today, in a federal courtroom just blocks from that same dirty river, seven men who once wore the deep blue of Miami’s finest will go to trial on charges ranging from cocaine trafficking to causing the three drownings.

Police scandals are always a sour business, revealing the bad in the good and the price it took to get at it. In the Miami area, where many fear that drug money is nibbling away at the moral core, more than two dozen policemen have been busted on drug-related charges in the past 18 months.

Of these many troubling arrests, the so-called Miami River Cop Case has become the most disturbing: The accused policemen allegedly were as sinister as any drug-peddling gang to hit these tough streets.

“We’re not just talking about taking bribes or giving protection to criminals; we’re talking about setting up a criminal enterprise,” said Miami Police Capt. Judith Bennett, who worked on a unit investigating the case.

“The police themselves pulled the robberies. They themselves stole the drugs. They were thugs, operating under a whole different set of rules.”

Investigators have dubbed the defendants “The Enterprise.” They portray them as grab-happy cops who started out small-time, stealing drugs from motorists stopped for traffic violations.

From there, the policemen allegedly worked their way up to major rip-offs: informants would tell them the location of million-dollar loads of cocaine and they would steal the drugs instead of arresting the dealers.

Charges Denied

The defendants--Armando Estrada, Rodolfo Arias, Roman Rodriguez, Armando Garcia, Arturo de la Vega, Osvaldo Coello and Ricardo Aleman--deny all the charges.

In public, they have looked unruffled. When arraigned last December, four of them made goofy faces for the cameras in the courtroom. They rolled their eyes. They smiled. One blew kisses.

Even in a city well used to scratching away at its rashes of scandal, the cocky manner of the young, muscular cops was unnerving.

“I couldn’t help wondering if steroids destroy brain tissue,” wrote Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen.

People wanted to know more about these snickering cops, and the answers reflected back from an image of Miami itself.

All of them are in their 20s, home-grown in a city where drugs long ago became a main generator of the economy.

Off hours, they were body builders and touch football players. They enjoyed the discos. Aleman had a Corvette. Coello drove a red Lotus, its sticker price four times a policeman’s annual wage.

Aggressive, Self-Motivated

On the job, the young officers worked the night shift. Most had reputations as aggressive, self-motivated cops.

In fact, during July, 1985, “Rudy” Arias was named Officer of the Month. He tackled a bank robber who had pointed a gun at his head. The commendation said he represented “the best tradition of the Miami Police Department.”

It was late that same month, according to the grand jury indictment, that Estrada, Rodriguez and eight other individuals dressed as policemen forced their way into the Jones Boat Yard along the Miami River.

They rushed toward an aging scow, the Mary C. Six men had just finished transfering 700 kilos of cocaine from the boat to a van. When they saw the police, they panicked and jumped into the river. Three drowned.

The next day, the indictment charges, Arias, Estrada and Garcia--who used the nickname Scarface--plotted the murder of Miami bar owner Luis Rodriguez, who had helped get the rogue cops started in the drug trade.

According to affidavits, Rodriguez had met them through a go-between named Armando Un. The bar owner persuaded the cops to peddle drugs from their squad cars. Finally, the policemen outgrew their partner. They wanted rid of him.

Body Popped Up

Three days after the river deaths, Rodriguez’s body was found in an empty lot. Someone had stuffed him into a tiny pine box. When police pried it open, the body popped up. Police called it “The Jack-in-the-Box Murder.”

Arias, Estrada and Garcia are charged with conspiring to murder Rodriguez, though no charges have been filed in the murder itself.

In fact, secret tape recordings make it sound as if someone else got there first. Un had turned police informant. He was wearing a body bug during a Dec. 4 meeting with Estrada.

“I could care less if they killed Luis (Rodriguez) 40 times over,” Un said. “He had to be killed. If they had not killed him. . . “

Officer Estrada finished the sentence, “We would have killed him.”

Last week, a jury was selected for this complicated case, which involves 21 counts--mostly for drug trafficking--and is expected to last two months.

Only Estrada, Garcia and Roman Rodriguez are named in the river drownings. The actual federal charge is depriving the victims of their civil rights, resulting in death.

Underworld Portrait Promised

Testimony, like the few tapes made public so far, promises to provide a riveting portrait of a Miami underworld.

In a way, that may work to the defendants’ advantage.

The prosecution’s case hinges on witnesses who themselves have been shoulder-deep in the drug trade. One defense attorney already has said he will show them up as “scum.”

Initially, the officers were to be tried in state court, but prosecutors decided to transfer the case to federal jurisdiction. Rules there permit them to disclose less of their evidence to the defense prior to trial.

In the last few months, investigation into The Enterprise has gone on. Detectives say several more Miami cops and ex-cops are involved, but they don’t have enough proof yet for more arrests.

“It’s not demoralizing as much as it’s just very sad,” said Bennett. “It’s just upsetting that so many good police officers have to work with this going on.”

The Miami River Cop Case, as well as the other police scandals, have prompted introspection: Why here? Why now?

Many in the city blame recent hiring practices.

Caught Short-Staffed

In 1980, after a hiring freeze, the Police Department was left with 630 officers, its lowest number in more than five years. The city was caught short-staffed during a time of riots and the Mariel boatlift, in which the Havana government allowed 125,000 Cuban refugees to flee to the United States over a five-month period. An estimated 80,000 of the refugees settled in the Miami area.

In an ensuing rush to put 50% more cops on the street, screening was lax. Training was hurry-up. Supervision was sometimes scant.

“We got some folks with their rubber bands strung too tight who shouldn’t be carrying a gun and a badge,” then Police Chief Kenneth Harms has told reporters.

It is frequently pointed out that all seven defendants in the river case joined the force during these post-1980 mass hirings.

“Basically, we hired some thugs without knowing they were thugs and they continued to be thugs,” Bennett said.

Another common answer is the lure of all the drug money, abundant as sunshine and almost as easy to soak up.

“It’s very tempting for a policeman with four kids who sees one year’s salary in one night’s work,” said Karl Weber, a veteran officer in nearby Hialeah.

Already Prone to Greed

But no amount of dirty money can make a good cop go bad, most police officers say, though it certainly can tempt one already prone to greed.

“We see what a guy goes through every day, trying to pay his debts, struggling honestly when dopers are out there driving Mercedes and wearing Rolex watches,” said Rolando Bolanos of the Forida Department of Law Enforcement. “But we don’t just say, ‘Hell with it, let’s do the same thing.’ ”

For the next few months, a jury will ponder what happened down by the river and try to decide whether seven Miami cops were among those lured into crime.

Whatever that outcome, the sight of policemen in handcuffs has become another symptom of this city’s infection by drug profits.

Recently, Miami has seen a federal drug agent go to jail for selling computer secrets to dope dealers; an FBI agent plead guilty to accepting cocaine kickbacks; a Hialeah city cop sentenced for his role in a drug execution.

There will be other arrests and other trials.

$150,000 Stolen From Police

Authorities have yet to catch whoever stole $150,000 from the safe at the headquarters office of the Miami police vice squad, and they have yet to try the case of George Staphylaris.

Last February, Staphylaris, a police corporal in nearby North Bay Village, was arrested for allegedly selling protection to FBI agents posing as drug dealers.

The kids at Treasure Island Elementary knew the 43-year-old cop as Officer George. He ran the school’s drug prevention program. His seminars were called “Just Say No.”

Times researcher Lorna Nones contributed to the reporting of this story.