HIALEAH, FLA. (WSVN) - A former Hialeah Police officer has been acquitted of allegations that were made against him in 2021.
The former officer, Armondo Perez, expressed his feelings after he was fired last year and then some.
“It was a pretty horrific feeling,” said Perez.
In 2021 he was arrested by the Hialeah Police Department for allegedly writing phony tickets.
When he was asked if whether it was wrong of the department to arrest him, the officer responded by saying:
“Yes, sir, they definitely were,” said Perez.
The Miami-Dade court also agreed.
On Monday, Perez was acquitted of charges of falsifying public records and misconduct connected to allegations that he and a colleague wrote bogus traffic tickets.
The other arrestee, ex-Hialeah officer, Ernesto Arias-Martinez has since taken a plea deal.
They both walked out of jail last year, around the time Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said, “It’s just such a distrust to the community.”
“The state couldn’t prove the allegations,” said attorney Michael Grieco.
Grieco said his client was always innocent and that the charges against Perez were out of spite because his department, then under Chief Sergio Velasquez, was angry to learn he accepted a better job with the state to be an investigator.
“That was the same day they put them on leave and told me he was under investigation,” said Grieco.
“It was a shock, a very drastic change being in the spotlight, all of our neighbors, friends, schoolmates,” said Diana Gonzalez Perez, Perez’s wife.
Diana remembers an unsettling feeling of not knowing what was coming next after her husband was taken off the force and faced jail time.
Now that he’s been cleared, he has plans for the future.
“Just wanna get on with my life and move forward,” said Perez.
“By the way, Hialeah needs to make sure they give him his job back, or otherwise they’re gonna be writing us a big fat check because they owe him for firing him improperly,” said Grieco.
7News has reached out Hialeah Police over the phone and through email and did not receive a response. The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office they will not comment on the case.
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