Broward detective details deception with falsified case reports

Former Broward Sheriff's Detective Christian Zapata told prosecutors in a sworn statement last month that there was "no rhyme or reason" to which suspects or crimes he would include in falsified reports.

Zapata said he made up information to keep up with a "numbers game" the Sheriff's Office played to maintain monthly crime-clearance rates, according to the three-part, 501-page transcript obtained Friday by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

"It was like a machine, just get these cases out. Do what you have to clear them," Zapata said in the videotaped statement, taken Aug. 21, 22 and Sept. 5.

Zapata, a deputy for 10 years, was one of the first two detectives to be charged in the Sheriff's Office crime-statistics scandal. In December 2004, he was charged with official misconduct for making up confessions and blaming crimes on people who did not commit them.

A jury acquitted the former Weston/Southwest Ranches detective on eight of the charges in June. The Broward State Attorney's Office dropped the six remaining criminal charges in July. After dropping the charges, prosecutors subpoenaed Zapata to give a statement.

Criminal charges are pending against two more suspended detectives from Weston/Southwest Ranches, Shane Campbell and Lee Martin. Two detectives have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors and several have been fired or resigned.

When Zapata, 36, completed the Sept. 5 statement, he went to the Sheriff's Office and resigned. He had been suspended without pay. Zapata said that when he started as a detective in December 2000, Martin, a senior detective, explained how to use the department's exceptional clearance process to handle cases.

Exceptional clearances are supposed to be reserved for cases in which a suspect is known to police, but for a variety of reasons, such as death, the suspect can't be charged. The case is classified as solved but no one is arrested or charged.

Lt. Mark Murray and Sgt. Mike Menghi explained that clearances had to be made by confessions, Zapata said.

He said nobody ever told him to fabricate confessions or falsify reports and would not say when he realized it was acceptable within his district to do so.

"I don't know when I got that inkling," Zapata said. "And I don't know where it came from."

If his district had a shortfall in the numbers the Sheriff's Office liked to maintain, "we would pin someone," Zapata said.

Zapata said that if a suspect mentioned or alluded to a crime, he would find ones that "kinda look similar" and were committed in the general vicinity and accuse that suspect.

Martin, Menghi and Murray would sometimes give him the nod to do so but didn't know he was making up details, Zapata said. He later conceded Menghi must have known.

He said he was never pressured, threatened or forced to clear a case or keep his numbers high.

He said he only falsely accused suspects of committing property crimes, mostly burglaries and thefts, and would never charge someone for something he knew they didn't do.

Menghi never questioned how Zapata was clearing cases, but he often pointed out if a case had already been cleared or the suspect was in custody when the crime was supposed to have been committed, Zapata said. Menghi would return the report, Zapata said, adding that he would remove the case and redo the report.

Menghi, who has not been charged, has denied any wrongdoing.

When Zapata and others were arrested, they were in disbelief, Zapata said.

"Nobody could believe we were being charged for this, when this is all BSO's been doing, or at least in -- in my little circle. It's what we've been doing," Zapata said.

Despite facing similar accusations, Zapata and his fellow detectives never discussed what they were doing, before, during or after their arrests, he said.

Zapata's final words at the end of the third day of the statement: "A lot of these guys that retired ... they were part of the beginning of this ... And it's evolved into whatever it has and then became extinct as of last year ... All these people started all this ... now it comes down to the four of us taking the hit for everyone."