Former Miami-Dade cop gets 2 1/2 years in prison for fraud
A former Miami-Dade police officer was sentenced Tuesday to 2 1/2 years in prison for falsifying police reports in exchange for cash payments from a credit-repair company.
In May, federal jurors found Rafael Duran, 44, conspired with a ring that submitted hundreds of fabricated police reports that allowed people to clean up their poor credit histories by claiming they were victims of identity theft.
Trial evidence dating back to 2010 showed that the veteran county officer wrote 10 false incident reports for customers of the credit-repair business as well as for himself and a family member.
Duran, who joined the force in 1994 and was fired in March, played a minor role in the scheme, compared with his former colleague, another veteran Miami-Dade officer, George Price. Last year, Price pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge after admitting he wrote 159 police reports claiming the couple's customers were victims of identity theft.
He fabricated the reports and sold them for $200 to $250 each so they could be used to remove blemishes from the purported victims' credit histories. Price, 43, who joined the force in 1999, was sentenced to four years in prison.
Jay Weaver: 305-376-3446, @jayhweaver
This story was originally published July 26, 2016 at 6:13 PM with the headline "Former Miami-Dade cop gets 2 1/2 years in prison for fraud."