Hialeah Police Officers Caught Issuing Dozens Of Bogus Tickets

Two South Florida police officers were are facing charges for issuing dozens of tickets to drivers they never pulled over, according to the Miami Herald.

An internal affairs investigation revealed that Hialeah police officers Ernesto Arias Martinez, 32, and Armando Perez, 40, ticketed at least nine drivers in early 2020, according to court records. Following the investigation, the pair were arrested Wednesday (April 21) on multiple counts of official misconduct.

Reporters said their scheme started falling apart when lawyers who specialize in defending drivers started reaching out to people with multiple tickets. The people contacted had no idea what these lawyers were talking about, however.

The investigation kicked off when some drivers started filing complaints about these unexpected tickets. Reicel Sosa Polo for example found out he had 10 tickets from a law office even though he was never pulled over, records say.

“When police officers create false traffic tickets, as we are alleging happened here, they damage the reputation of their own department and the reputations of every police officer working to serve our Miami-Dade community,” Miami-Dade County State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement.

This is what the president of the Hialeah Fraternal Order of Police said in a statement:

"As law enforcement officers, we are entrusted in protecting and serving our residents, and these alleged actions have violated the trust of the people and rightfully so. We ask that our community not judge all our dedicated officers by the alleged actions of two," President Marlon Espinoza said.

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