Thread: FL: Court Interpreter Accused Of Selling Fake Docs

Posted: 5:38 pm EDT October 22, 2010
Updated: 6:38 pm EDT October 22, 2010


Court Interpreter Accused Of Selling Fake Docs

MARION COUNTY, Fla. -- Investigators say the Marion County jail had no idea one of its interpreters sold fake drivers licenses for $1,500 a pop in the middle of its courtroom, because she did the deals in Spanish.

Petersen found out they broke the language barrier and caught her.

Milagros Rosa used to come to the jail to work, but earlier this week she spent time in one of the cells.

"Pull her clearance. Not being allowed back into the facility," said Major Paul Laxton of the Marion County jail said.

Laxton is taking a hard line with 59-year-old Rosa, who was a contracted jail interpreter.

"The people she interprets for either speak very little English or none at all," he said.

The Florida Highway Patrol believes Rosa took advantage of that. She and co-defendant Jose Guerra are accused of supplying illegal immigrants with phony documents needed to obtain a driver's license.

Rosa met the immigrants at court hearings at the Marion County jail. Rosa would stand at a podium and speak into the microphone. The suspect would be standing right next to her.

Usually, every seat in the courtroom was filled. But sometimes Rosa and the defendant would be the only ones in the room who could understand Spanish. That is how detectives believe she was able to speak freely about a scheme to sell the counterfeit documents for $1,500 a piece.

Two illegal immigrants told police what happened after they were arrested while trying to get a driver's license. The language barrier in the courtroom leads investigators to believe this could have been going on for some time.

Rosa and Guerra face felony fraud charges. The suspects who bought the counterfeit documents could be dealt with by immigration officials.

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http://www.wftv.com/countybycounty/25481649/detail.html

This is so brazen.

This is what happens when we allow other languages to undermine the need to learn English. This is nothing new, it's been going on for decades, that's why legal immigrants are eager to learn English asap, so they cannot be taken advantage of by their own people!

It's disgraceful that by allowing so many spanish speaking people to blow off learning English, they are exploited again and again, it's oppressive. But it is very profitable to keep them "dumb".

Arrest of interpreter exposes resentment

Milagros Rosa was arrested on charges she helped with driver's license fraud.
By Suevon Lee
Staff writer


Published: Sunday, November 14, 2010 at 10:36 p.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, November 14, 2010 at 10:39 p.m.

Situated right in horse country, its rural fields beckoning to the transient migrant worker, Marion County tends to draw a steady stream of people from south of the border.

For those whose job it is to defend the rights of such workers who become entangled with the law — whether the charge is driving without a valid license or driving with a suspended license or driving under the influence — this subset represents a potential client base.

In such a small community, where the number of Spanish-speaking attorneys can be counted on one hand, limited access to such clients could be cause for disgruntlement.

But disgruntlement isn't why local family law and criminal defense attorney Jorge Colon has urged several clients to report to law enforcement their interactions with Milagros Rosa, a court and jailhouse interpreter.

"You have to do what you have to do," Colon said Friday in an interview at his downtown office. He said he was "dumbfounded" by what these people alleged of Rosa, who wore a "cloak of authority."

A veteran Spanish-language interpreter for the courts, Rosa was arrested Oct. 20 on two counts of acting as a principal to making a fraudulent application for a Florida driver's license. This is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

In a probable cause affidavit, the Florida Highway Patrol wrote that Rosa, 59, had allegedly provided two defendants — illegal immigrants — the name and number of someone who could sell them fraudulent documents for $1,500 so they could obtain a driver's license.

Rosa, whose contract with the 5th Circuit Court Administrator's Office was immediately severed following her arrest, has posted bail and awaits arraignment.

The man accused of promising the counterfeit paperwork, Jose Luis Guerra-Machado, 30, pleaded not guilty last week to three counts relating to making fraudulent applications.


***

Long before her arrest, made possible due to sworn testimony from Jose Gaspar and Crispin Hernandez, Rosa was a perpetual source of frustration for Colon, who believed she displayed a "willingness to bend the rules" in her professional capacity as an independent contractor with the court and the county jail.

At issue is her alleged habit of referring defendants whom she encountered during first appearance hearings to one person in town — someone with whom she shared office space and whose office phone she occasionally answered.

This resulted in a "disproportionate" number of Hispanic defendants' cases being funneled to Douglas Kirkland, say some lawyers — even though he, unlike some lawyers, isn't fluent in Spanish.

No one accuses Rosa, a native of the Bronx who has been a court interpreter in Marion County for 13 years, of having financially benefited from this alleged practice. They do take issue, however, with the fact that a colleague seemed to have "a monopoly" on the cases for Hispanic defendants seeking a private attorney.

"Douglas Kirkland was getting more misdemeanor cases for Hispanic clients than a combined everybody [else] in Marion County," criminal defense attorney Henry Ferro said.

David Mengers, another criminal defense lawyer who speaks Spanish, points out, "If you're Hispanic, the first thing you're going to do is look to someone who speaks your language."

Ferro's concern was great enough that two years ago he approached Circuit Judge David Eddy, the chief administrative judge in the county, with his belief that Rosa was taking advantage of her role as a contract interpreter to send clients to Kirkland.

"Nothing was done to stop her," Ferro said.

He doesn't hesitate to draw a link between the past inaction of court officials and the current predicament faced by the illegal immigrants for whom Rosa allegedly tried to help procure fraudulent immigration paperwork.

"The administrative office of the court is ultimately responsible for having created this situation," Ferro said. "They didn't put a stop to her soon enough and the result now is that there are at least 12 to 15 Mexican-Americans who are now subject to felony charges."

David Trammell, court administrator for the 5th Judicial Circuit, said his office only received anonymous complaints about Rosa.

It's not sour grapes, these attorneys contend; they deny their business has been detrimentally affected by what they perceived to be Rosa's supposed stranglehold on the Hispanic client base of Marion County.

"I think she may have meant well. I don't think that she saw how things may have created an appearance of impropriety, by the numbers," Colon said.

Kirkland, for the time being, is no longer in the picture. He was disbarred in May for five years for misappropriating funds from his attorney trust account. He has offered no comment about Rosa's arrest or the accusation she steered clients to him.

Colon doesn't dispute that. He has practiced law in Marion County for eight years and has come to understand the dynamic involving migrant workers who come in and out of Marion County who may quickly be added as statistics in the criminal justice system for infractions like driving without a valid driver's license.

"As misguided as it may have been, it might have been in the effort to help," he said of Rosa's alleged actions.

"They wanted to have a valid license," he said of Hernandez and Gasper. He said they are among a larger set of people here wishing for "some normalcy" to go about their daily lives.

"We make them criminals by denying them the right to drive," he said.

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