Records in a related federal case - where Batrony's informant status is a matter of record - show he pleaded guilty in 2002 to money laundering in the state case.

Batrony's lawyer said the clerk's office altered the public docket at the direction of Judge Trawick and assistant state attorney Michael Smith to protect Batrony and allow him to work undercover by making it appear he had beaten the state charges.

"They phonied up the docket and made it look like his charges were dismissed, " said defense lawyer Paul Petruzzi. "They kept a secret docket on the side showing everything that was actually going on."

Petruzzi said he went along with the charade. "You do it to protect your client, " he said.

Trawick, now assigned to the civil court bench, referred a request for comment to court spokeswoman Sigler. She said court administrators want to review the Batrony case before further comment.

Arrojo, chief assistant state attorney for special prosecutions, said his office believes state laws that exempt some sensitive records from public disclosure also allow judges to authorize what was done with the docket in Batrony's case.

He said he did not believe that "there's been a falsification of the public record."

"This is an established practice in this circuit for many, many years and we are comfortable that the rules of judicial administration allows for this, " he said.

He said, too, that such acts are intended to be temporary.

Veteran Fort Lauderdale criminal defense lawyer David Vinikoor, a former chief of the Broward state attorney's organized crime unit, said he's never heard of dockets being altered to protect informants.

"I'm trying to think of a reason why they would do that. . . . It's obviously a fraudulent act, " said Vinikoor, who has worked in Miami-Dade.

"There are statutes that allow judges to seal records and there are statutes that allow judges to expunge records, but I'm unaware of any statute that allows judges to alter records falsely, " he said.

Altering records to create "false impressions about whether somebody has pleaded guilty to a crime" undermines the credibility of the public record that people rely on for truthful information, said attorney Julin.

"Public records are for the public, not for providing cover for informants, " he said.

In Batrony's case, his court file was as elusive as his true docket. Two file clerks said there was no such file. A third, who called it "the mystery case, " produced two sheets of custody papers describing state plans to bring Batrony to trial. Those papers were filed May 30, 2006, four years after Batrony pleaded guilty.

Batrony's case docket has continued to shape-shift. After a reporter's recent inquiry, electronic entries from April 17, 2002 stating that his criminal charges were "nolle pros, " or dropped, were deleted.

On Oct. 11, Batrony was sentenced to 66 months - the same sentence he drew last year in federal court. He's serving both at the same time in federal custody.

Reports of such false dockets are rare. In 1989, federal prosecutors in Miami created fictitious court cases and used them to go after corrupt state court judges in Operation Court Broom. Before they did, though, Florida's chief justice and the U.S. attorney general personally approved the plan.

A docket also was altered in the attempted murder and kidnapping case of another of Petruzzi's clients, Michael Scott Segal. Segal was arrested in 2001 for stuffing his girlfriend into the trunk of a car and trying to drive it into a lake. Later, he pleaded guilty and became a snitch in a police investigation of corruption at the county's Turner Guilford Knight jail.

Segal entered his guilty plea at an unusual, secret hearing at a Miami-Dade police station on May 13, 2003. But you wouldn't know it from the docket. The plea, taken by Judge Victoria Sigler, wasn't docketed. Petruzzi said the docket was altered to indicate that a trial was pending.

"We kept getting computerized notices of trial after he'd already pled, " he said.

Segal's case surfaced in the news for a day in April 2004 - including mention of a brewing scandal at the jail - after Petruzzi filed court papers seeking a better deal from prosecutors.

In his motion, Petruzzi said that "at the state's request" Segal's plea hearing was kept secret "and the docket sheet altered to make it appear as though Mr. Segal's trial remained pending."

But the jail investigation fizzled, as did another tip from Segal about an unsolved 1986 murder, said state attorney's spokesman Ed Griffith. So Segal got no further reduction.

Judge Sigler said she couldn't recall if she authorized altering the docket in Segal's case or any other. "Without the file and paperwork in front of me, it would be difficult for me to answer that, " she said.

The number of Miami-Dade cases with bogus docket entries isn't known. But Arrojo expects the public will have a say on future policy.

"If you expect your government to engage in proactive investigations while protecting the lives of cooperating witnesses . . . certain materials are going to have to be kept from public view."