A former officer of the Miami Police Department has found himself on the wrong side of the law, as he faces charges for money laundering and swindling COVID-19 relief funds. Djimy Joseph, 47, was apprehended and charged with conducting an organized scheme to defraud over $50,000, money laundering over $100,000, and making false official statements, according to officials at the Miami-Dade State Attorney's office.
In an unexpected twist, the former officer's alleged unlawful activities surfaced during a routine inspection by the Florida Department of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobaco. The inspection uncovered that Joseph owned a bar and grill, a clear violation of state law prohibiting officers from engaging in businesses that serve alcohol. This discovery, as reported by Local 10 News, led to a full-blown public corruption investigation.
The scrutiny into Joseph's actions revealed that he owned additional businesses and had fraudulently secured over $246,000 in loans from the Paycheck Protection Program and other CARES Act-related government initiatives. As outlined in an official statement, "Mr. Joseph’s actions show a deliberate and intentional pattern of behavior that was meant for his personal financial gain at the expense of breaking the law he had sworn to uphold as an officer and betraying the trust the public placed in him," said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, in words echoed by NBC Miami.
According to the arrest warrant, Joseph's PPP loan applications were significantly at odds with his bank records and the testimonies of former employees. These documents highlighted discrepancies in the number of employees, payroll figures, business revenues, and expenses—all in a bid to illegitimately inflate his loan receipts. This act of public corruption, seen as an exploitation of pandemic emergency relief measures, has led to first-degree felony charges for the scheme to defraud and money laundering racket Joseph allegedly ran, while his false statements are deemed a second-degree misdemeanor.
The case against Joseph persists as an example of the corruption and betrayal of trust that can seep into public service. The consequences of such actions, particularly when coming from an individual sworn to uphold the law, cast a long and disheartening shadow over a community's faith in its protectors. Fernandez Rundle emphasized the necessity for integrity, stating, "Public Corruption in any form cannot and must not be tolerated at any level of public service."
