Miami ex-cop gets 11 years – NBC 6 South Florida
By day, Frenel Cenat tended to evidence and property for the Miami Police Department, where he’d been a cop since 2008.
But last year, federal authorities got a tip that when off duty, Cenat was something else: a rogue officer using his car and badge to shake down drug dealers for cash and drugs.
Gaining intelligence from the street, he would pull over drug dealers’ cars and, U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe said, “would ask them, ‘Look, I know what you’re doing. I know you have drugs in your car, or cash in your car. You have a choice. You can let me take this money from you right now, or the drugs, or you can go away for a long time.’”
Tuesday, it was Cenat going away for a long time – 11 years, three months in federal prison – after pleading guilty to extortion and attempted possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
The charges stem from two incidents, last October and November, where the FBI turned the tables on the now-former police officer.
Using a confidential informant, they led Cenat to pull over a car that held $50,000 in cash and videotaped him as he extorted the money from the men inside.
“Unfortunately for Mr. Cenat, these individuals weren’t drug dealers. They were undercover FBI employees,” FBI assistant agent in charge Justin Fleck said.
A month later, Lapointe recounted, “he felt obviously emboldened. He went on for another time, and this time he wanted to resolve a score because he said he had a deal where he wanted to pay off someone else with some drugs in a prior deal that he had.”
So he was set up to stop another car, whose occupants would turn over $80,000 and seven kilos of what was made to look like cocaine.
He was arrested soon after.
“Mr. Cenat’s conduct was reprehensible,” said Fleck. “He is no longer a police officer. He is no longer attempting to profit from his official duties or illegal drugs, and as of today, he no longer has his freedom.”
His family wept as he was led off by marshals from a Fort Lauderdale courtroom to federal prison, and they had no comment leaving the courthouse.
His convictions stem only from the two stings where the crimes could be easily proven, but the feds suspect he was involved in much more.
“It would appear to me that would not have been his first time, the two transactions that we actually got him for,” Lapointe said, noting Cenat specifically said he wanted drugs to make good on a prior deal.
Miami Police Chief Manuel Morales was also present at the news conference after the sentencing, and he issued a warning: “If you ever think about losing your way, if you ever have a thought about betraying the public trust and tarnishing the badge that we all were so proud, this is what will happen. We will find you, we will identify you, and we will put you behind bars.”
While authorities could not say how long or how often Cenat ripped off dealers, they did say no one else has been charged with working with him.
Asked if Cenat led them to others involved as part of his plea deal, Lapointe said he could not discuss conversations they may or may not have had with him.
