The Miami-Dade State Attorney on Tuesday dropped a battery case against a one-time Opa-locka police captain, citing a newly discovered “inconsistent statement” made by the alleged victim – a police sergeant who claimed the captain intentionally fired a Taser at him.
A medical record obtained last week by the defense quoted the alleged victim as twice saying the weapon was fired accidentally – gutting the state’s contention that it was an intentional misdemeanor battery.
The captain, Sergio Perez, 37, was demoted to sergeant and then suspended without pay 10 months later after another misdemeanor battery charge was filed against him. That case, involving the rough handling of a mentally ill man during a domestic disturbance, remains pending.
But the first case fell apart after Perez’s attorney, Richard Diaz, uncovered a medical record that quotes the alleged victim, then-Sgt. Michael Steel, as saying the Taser was fired accidentally – which would not be a battery.
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"This was a typical he said/he said case, where FDLE unfortunately blindly believed the quote/unquote victim," Diaz said.
"I knew I would be exonerated and vindicated,” Perez told NBC6. “This was an accident, something I said from the very beginning…and there was never a crime committed."
Perez’s weapon did not produce an electrical charge, as Tasers usually do, because it was equipped with a projectile used in training, but the two prongs did strike Steel, leaving two "red dots," according to notes from his visit to an urgent care center within hours of the Sept. 1, 2021 incident.
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But it’s what is noted elsewhere in the record that led the state to drop the criminal charge against Perez.
"Patient states his captain accidentally hit him with the Taser gun today at work," the clinic notes state, adding in another section: “Patient states he is a police officer and he was hit with a taser gun at work by a coworker accidentally."
Diaz and Perez said those statements appear to contradict what Steel told the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which investigated the incident, and what he has alleged in a civil lawsuit he filed against Perez and the city, citing the "battery." That complaint remains pending.
In a statement to NBC6, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office Tuesday confirmed Steel’s "inconsistent statement made to a medical provider… completely changed the complexion of our case, in that we would no longer be able to prove our case beyond a reasonable doubt."
A telephone call and email from NBC6 to Steel’s attorney in the civil case seeking comment from Steel on the dismissal of the criminal charge have received no response.
Steel was fired by the police department in October 2022 after an outside investigation by a law firm recommended his employment be terminated because of “grave concerns regarding legal implications” of keeping Steel on the job, according to that 13-page report and the city’s termination letter.
In addition to claiming vindication by the dropping of the charge, Perez alleges law enforcement conducted a shoddy investigation into the Taser incident, misplacing potential evidence, including a USB drive that investigators at one point said contained video of the incident. The state later told the defense no such video existed, Diaz said.
Perez remains suspended without pay pending resolution of the second battery charge. A judge will soon decide whether to dismiss that criminal case, as well, as Perez claims he was simply standing his ground when he engaged with the subject, Jafet Castro-Reyes, in September 2020.
An internal investigation had cleared Perez and other officers of using excessive force in that encounter, but the matter was referred to FDLE in 2022 after a new police chief became aware of the case.
