NBC6’s Steve Litz is live from Miami where a trial underway for ex-cop being accused of kidnapping.
The trial for one of two former Hialeah Police officers accused of kidnapping a homeless man, driving him to an isolated location, and beating him while he was handcuffed last year began Monday.
Opening statements were delivered Monday afternoon in the trial of former officer Rafael Otano, before testimony got underway.
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Otano and felow officer Lorenzo Orfila turned themselves in to face charges of armed kidnapping and battery in the alleged incident, which happened on Dec. 17, 2022 during the arrest of Jose Ortega-Gutierrez.
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Ortega-Gutierrez, who is homeless, was placed in handcuffs and put in the back of a Hialeah Police car outside a bakery at a shopping plaza on W. 60th Street for allegedly disturbing the peace.
Surveillance video showed officers escorting Ortega-Guitterez in the parking lot of a Hialeah shopping center, and placing him in a police cruiser.
Although Ortega-Gutierrez had a history of fighting and public drunkenness, the surveillance footage from the scene did not show a reason for him to be taken into custody, officials said.
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Authorities said the officers took Ortega-Gutierrez to an isolated location where he was beaten and thrown to the ground while still handcuffed.
Both officers were fired after the charges were filed against them earlier this year.
Prosecutors argued Monday that department policy was neglected, a supervisor was never called about the arrest, and neither officers' body camera was turned on during the alleged encounter.
An off-duty Miami-Dade officer who was the first to come into contact with Ortega-Gutierrez after the alleged beating was among those who testified Monday.
The officer, who didn't want to be identified, described Ortega-Gutierrez's injuries.
"He had a cut, laceration on the top of his head, his face was looked swollen or bruised, his clothes were torn, and he appeared intoxicated," the officer testified.
But Otano's attorney, Michael Pizzi, said Otano wasn't there during the arrest of Ortega-Gutierrez.
In announcing the arrests of the officers back in January, the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office said investigators discovered that GPS on their police vehicles showed Otano and Orfila were outside their assigned sector that day.
Pizzi told NBC6 last week that the GPS data from his client's squad car is unreliable.
"The GPS system that they are trying to use to falsely charge my client, that the whole GPS system, is a travesty and a sham," Pizzi said. "It malfunctions and doesn't even work and they've concealed this all this time."
Pizzi filed an emergency motion Tuesday, asking the court to exclude GPS data from the case after he said mounds of emails and other materials from the Hialeah Police Department detail how the GPS data from Otano's car and other officers' patrol cars have been repeatedly flagged as "erroneous and flawed" and sometimes places squad cars at wrong or even mystery locations.
