Biscayne Park, FL, cop sent to prison for false arrests of black men | Miami Herald
Biscayne Park, FL, cop sent to prison for false arrests of black men | Miami Herald
Five years ago, Guillermo Ravelo was a rookie cop in Biscayne Park when he framed a Haitian man for a pair of home burglaries under orders from the police chief.
Ravelo then pinned five unsolved vehicle break-ins on an innocent black man — again because the town’s police chief, Raimundo Atesiano, ordered him to do it to boost his department’s clearance rate for property crimes.
Between those false arrests, Ravelo slugged a handcuffed Hispanic man after he was stopped for a broken tail light while driving through the suburban town north of Miami.
On Thursday, the 37-year-old Ravelo faced his own punishment when a federal judge sentenced him to two years and three months of prison for conspiring to violate the civil rights of the two black men wrongly accused of the burglaries and for using excessive force on the Hispanic man during the traffic stop.
Ravelo, who was fired from the Biscayne Park police force and pleaded guilty in July, broke up as he apologized to U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga. Tearful family members and friends described him as a devoted father to his two sons who was active in church and school activities.
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