Debbie Schlussel: EXCLUSIVE: ICE Fraud--Top Immigration Agents Took Tax-Paid Sick Days to ACT in "Miami Vice"
Want to act in movies and get paid to do it? You could go to Hollywood, and struggle as a waiter/actor.
OR . . . you could become an ICE agent--and get taxpayers to pay for your acting-career-in-development, instead.
Sources say Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were allowed to take paid sick days to act and do stunt work in "Miami Vice," the hit (but terrible) movie that is currently #1 at the box office. Yup, your tax dollars--meant for immigration enforcement--subsidized the making of the "Miami Vice." (My review of the horrid "Miami Vice" movie here. Info about its anti-Israel cheap shot here.)
Blame Jesus Torres--Miami Special Agent in Charge for Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE)--and his ultimate boss ICE chieftess Julie L. Myers a/k/a "The ICE Princess." The fish rots from the head down.
Incredibly, Torres allowed high-ranking ICE agents to take paid "sick days" (paid for by U.S. taxpayers) while they simultaneously worked as actors and stuntmen on the set of "Miami Vice," sources familiar with the situation told us. Torres' agents were fraudulently paid for being sick, when they were actually developing their acting chops with Farrell and Foxx. The sources say Torres--who also worked on the film, though he is conspicuously not listed in the credits--may, himself, have collected sick pay while he worked it with "Crockett and Tubbs."
A look at the full "Miami Vice" credits confirms that at least two high-ranking ICE agents who work for Torres are in the movie. One of them, Alexander Alonso, is listed as a stuntman. Sources say Alonso is Torres' Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Miami ICE office. Alonzo even provided his photo to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). (Actors we know say IMDB charges for posting photos and that only serious actors provide them.)
As a "punishment," ICE Director of Investigations Marcy-Forman-Friedman a/k/a "Peppermint Patty" sent Alonso to temporary duty in Madrid, Spain, where he currently is--courtesy of the taxpayers. That's "punishment" for fraud? Please, Peppermint Patty, "punish" us, too. The guy should be serving time for fraud.
Already aired is a making-of-"Miami Vice" documentary on HBO, "HBO First Look: Miami Vice." Alonso is in that, too, we're told. Sources also say that other ICE agents also worked for pay on "Miami Vice," with the same fraudulent sick pay arrangement through ICE.
Monday, we told you about how Jesus Torres showed "Miami Vice" stars Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx classified undercover drug operations and provided them with confidential methods and techniques used in drug buys. All of this made it into the hit (but terrible) movie, jeopardizing undercover agents and law enforcement drug operations and lives.
That was bad enough. Now this.
We reported that ICE's Forman-Friedman temporarily suspended Torres. But we've since learned his "suspension" was a temporary assignment in Texas for a few days or so. He whined, and got back to his top ICE job in Miami. This is the "punishment" for committing fraud on American taxpayers with immigration enforcement money . . . for a Hollywood movie?
This sick day scam is fraud . . . and it's criminal. Or should be.
$30-$50K Tommy Lasorda speeches at ICE confabs; sick days for ICE agents while they work on "Miami Vice." We're wondering what's next under "The ICE Princess" Julie Myers as she fritters away tax money meant for immigration enforcement. Perhaps a private Aerosmith concert for The ICE Princess and her peeps at the ICE Palace on "Eye" Street, before she goes on partially tax-paid preggers leave.
We hear Stephen Tyler is looking for extra income, now that the gazillionth divorce and alimony payments are in the works. And since all illegal aliens have been captured and deported already, there's plenty of tax money to spend on these things.
Posted by Debbie on August 3, 2006 10:43 AM to Debbie Schlussel