Press Release
BROWARD SHERIFF’S DEPUTY AND TWO OTHERS PLEAD GUILTY IN UNDERCOVER CORRUPTION PROBE
December 5, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Jonathan I. Solomon, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti announced that former Broward Sheriff’s Deputies Richard V. Tauber, 37, and Kevin D. Frankel, 38, and co-defendants Robert Thomas Baccari, 38, and Christopher C. Provenzano, 37, pled guilty today to a one-count Information charging them with knowingly and intentionally attempting to possess with intent to distribute fifty kilograms of cocaine. Sentencing has been scheduled for February 20, 2009 before the Honorable Kenneth Marra in West Palm Beach, FL.
This 10-month undercover investigation was jointly conducted by the FBI and BSO. Tauber, a 14-year veteran of the Broward Sheriff’s Office and the City of Pompano Beach Police Department, Frankel, a Broward Sheriff’s Deputy since October 2006, and Baccari and Provenzano, long-time friends of Tauber not employed by the BSO, provided a variety of illegal services to individuals who represented themselves as being associated with organized criminal activity in the South Florida and New York areas, including a high ranking member of an organized criminal group purportedly operating out of the New York/New Jersey area and a purported Colombian drug distributor whose organization operated out of Miami. In reality, however, the individuals were three undercover FBI agents, and the purported criminal activities were all staged operations conducted as part of the investigation.
By their plea of guilty each of the defendants admitted that on April 18, 2008, Tauber, Baccari, and Provenzano transported fifty (50) kilograms of purported cocaine from Miami to the Pompano Beach Municipal Airport, where it was loaded on a plane purportedly destined for the New York/New Jersey area while Frankel did countersurveillance around the perimeter of the Pompano Beach Municipal Airport. For this service Tauber, Frankel, Baccari and Provenzano received a total of $20,000.
All defendants face maximum sentences of life in prison and fines of up to $4,000,000 if convicted of the conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine.
Mr. Acosta commended the efforts of the numerous special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the detectives of the Broward Sheriff’s Office Organized Crime Unit who worked on this investigation. In addition, Mr. Acosta thanked Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti for his cooperation during this investigation. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Jeffrey N. Kaplan and Paul F. Schwartz.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.
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