Fort Lauderdale Police will not investigate the allegations in the information against Scott Rothstein about police officers.
The information filed against Scott Rothstein Tuesday stated that the now disbarred lawyer used money from his Ponzi scheme to hire members of local police departments to provide security. That money was "used to provide gratuities to high ranking members of police agencies in order to curry favor with such police personnel and to deflect law enforcement scrutiny of the activities of RRA and defendant Rothstein."
The information doesn't specify which police department but dozens of Fort Lauderdale officers worked off-duty details which started earlier this year at Rothstein's home, law firm and Bova restaurant. Plantation police and the Broward Sheriff's Office both said that their officers did not provide off-duty detail although Rothstein had connections at both: his law firm represented the Plantation police union for many years and Rothstein was close to Sheriff Al Lamberti's executive officer, Lieut. David Benjamin.
It was Benjamin who escorted Rothstein from his car to the airplane when he fled for Morocco in October. He was not paid to do that but BSO is investigating Benjamin's side business and Lamberti removed him from overseeing internal affairs.
"There is no internal investigation into what was alleged in that complaint," said Fort Lauderdale police Sgt. Frank Sousa, spokesman for the agency. "We have not been contacted by federal authorities."
When asked if any city officer received a gratuity from Rothstein, Sousa said: "You are asking a question I don't have an answer to. You are speculating it was a Fort Lauderdale officer who got a gratuity. (The information) doesn't say Fort Lauderdale police officer."
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