Fort Lauderdale: ‘Very Likely No Such Records Exist’ in Requests For More Alex Pussieldi Documents. Us: ‘Huh?’

by Irvin Muchnick

Cole Copertino, assistant city counsel for Fort Lauderdale, today told Concussion Inc. that the police administrative staff “have been diligently searching the records you have requested. It is very likely that no such records exist, but they are doing their best to exhaust all search options.”

From where I sit, if “no such records” exist, then it is “very likely” that the reason they don’t exist is that someone used them to fuel a bonfire at a pep rally.

To review, there are three sets of current requests:

* Two “verbatim statements” referenced in the 2004 Special Victims Unit report on Robert Cabrera Paredes’ complaint against Pussieldi. That is, a statement by Cabrera Paredes and a statement by Pussieldi. Why would a report exist while its key supporting primary-source materials were discarded?

* A February 14, 2004, email from Alan Silva, then acting city manager, to Ernest Burkeen, then director of parks and recreation. The content of that email was redacted in a recent release of records (see the bottom of the last page of http://muchnick.net/lauderdaledocs2.pdf). What we have requested is for Fort Lauderdale to reconsider that redaction. The reason we asked the city to reconsider the redaction is that it originally redacted other “narrative” material in one document release, but that narrative then showed up in the next document release — which turned out to be the Special Victims Unit report. (We didn’t even know that the first redacted document was a Special Victims Unit report because the words “Special Victims Unit” also had been redacted.)

* “The entire thread of the February 2004 ‘Re: Fort Lauderdale Swim Team Incident’ exchange, including all replies and forwards, among correspondents Al Ortenso, Bruce Roberts, Chuck Drago, Alan Silva, Ann Kelleher, Bob Lamberti, Richard Herbert, Ernest Burkeen, Bob Pusins, Sharon Andersen.” As in the first item above, the existence of these documents seems already well established, as the city already has surrendered copies of parts of them.

The public interest will be served by access to this material sooner than later. We hope Fort Lauderdale comes through.

Complete links to our Alex Pussieldi investigation are at https://concussioninc.net/?p=8652.

Here are headline links to articles on the specific topic of Pussieldi and the Fort Lauderdale police: