Deputy’s Lawyer Calls Charges ‘Trumped Up’
NBC6 News (Florida)
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The fabled blue wall of police solidarity turned into a red tide flooding the courthouse Wednesday at the arraignment of one of two Broward sheriff’s deputies charged with filing falsified reports.
When the judge called Deputy Chris Thieman’s name, all the police officers stood with him. Thieman pleaded not guilty.
“I don’t even know these people, but they’re here to support us and cry out against a wrong being imposed on an honest guy,” Thieman’s lawyer, Charley Kaplan, said.
The police union, the PBA, said the protest inside and outside the courthouse was aimed at state attorney Mike Satz. Jim Spearing, of the Florida PBA, said Satz is throwing the book at Thieman, and the other deputy, Christian Zapata, for political reasons.
“He hasn’t been very aggressive going after public corruption. They’re making an extreme example of these deputies. The law enforcement community’s tired of it and they’re going to start pushing back,” Spearing said.
Thieman and Zapata are charged with falsely accusing people of crimes.
“We’re not afraid of the charges. They’re trumped up. I believe the state knows that, which is why as recently as last week my client appeared in a deposition as a state witness,” Kaplan said.
Despite the police officers gathered at the courthouse, the state attorney’s spokesman Ron Ishoy did not concede that the truth has been found yet.
“Investigating these allegations is the state attorney’s job, and that handful of protesters out there knows that,” Ishoy said.
However, PBA members who support the accused deputies spoke in their defense.
“Not only do we know that an innocent person was put in jail because of this, not one person was charged with these. These were cold cases they had no leads in, so they did what the system told them to do, and now they’re being punished for it,” Pat Hanrahan, of the Florida PBA, said.
Attorney Brad Cohen said he does not buy the “victims of the system” argument. He represents a woman who claims to be a victim of the deputies.
“The charges that were filed against my client were clearly trumped up. She spent 31 days of her life in jail. To say that no one was hurt, no one was injured by these individuals filing false police reports is an absolute misstatement,” Cohen said.