Chief fires Miami’s most powerful police couple. They vow to fight for their jobs

Two of Miami’s top-ranked police officers — a couple with almost a half-century of combined law enforcement experience and personnel jackets brimming with commendations and promotions — were fired Tuesday for not being truthful about an accident involving a city-issued SUV, said Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo.

The termination of Deputy Police Chief Ronald Papier and his wife, Nerly Papier, a commander in Little Havana, came almost three months after Nerly Papier ran her SUV into a curb one morning on her way to police headquarters and blew two tires, an accident she claimed happened after steering quickly away from a car that had veered into her lane of traffic.

Acevedo’s final decision came after Internal Affairs investigators concluded Nerly Papier had left out important details about the accident, like pedestrians being on the sidewalk when the vehicle jumped the curb and her running at least two red lights while driving the vehicle to the office on its rims.

Her husband was let go, his Internal Affairs report says, because among other things, he didn’t recuse himself from the IA investigation or tell Acevedo about a Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office investigation into the incident — a probe that found no criminal wrongdoing.

“Any time we see folks terminated, it’s sad,” Acevedo said. “But we all have to be accountable for our actions.”

But Miami’s most powerful police couple aren’t going away quietly.

Couple will fight dismissal

The decision to end their careers was blasted by attorney Eugene Gibbons, who called the investigation a sham started by “an anonymous, slanderous email” that circulated on social media and was sent to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle, Acevedo and others. Gibbons also claims the Papiers were “targeted” by Internal Affairs and Acevedo, and the attorney vowed to re-depose many of the witnesses while continuing to fight for the couple’s employment.

Many of the claims — including one that Nerly Papier was drunk when she hit the curb — were unfounded in probes by both the state attorney and Miami police.

The author of the encrypted email Gibbons referred to remains unknown. The IP address hasn’t been traced and the name of the sender “BillSchahwartzman,” is apparently false. The email also said Ronald Papier, who was acting chief at the time of the crash, contacted a police captain to have the vehicle towed and said the SUV had been vandalized, accounts not supported by investigators.

Gibbons also argues that Ronald Papier’s Law Enforcement Bill of Rights was ignored because he was never told he was a subject of an investigation and that the charges against him were cherry-picked after he agreed to testify before investigators as part of the probe into his wife’s accident.

“False or inaccurate allegations and evidence in a criminal complaint is one of the most heinous injustices that can be committed by a law enforcement officer,” Gibbons wrote in a letter penned to City Manager Art Noriega on Monday. “The conclusions reached in the Papiers’ reprimands are completely manufactured on inaccurate and misleading information.”

Nerly Papier crashed her SUV into a curb on Northwest Second Avenue near Flagler Street on the morning of April 2, three days before Acevedo was sworn in as Miami’s new police chief. The accident happened as the chief met many staffers for the first time. It was a meeting in which he offered the now infamous line “You lie, you die,” stressing accountability and truthfulness. That line was cited by investigators in the probe of Nerly Paper.

Instead of following procedure, leaving the vehicle where the accident occurred and calling a tow truck, Nerly Papier decided to drive it the few blocks to police headquarters, damaging its rims and opening the door to an investigation.

Ortiz memo sparked probe

Records obtained by the Miami Herald show that four days after the accident one of the city’s most notorious cops — a captain who had just recently returned from a yearlong suspension after a series of racist comments and social media posts and who had survived a yearlong investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement into several questionable use-of-force incidents — wrote a meandering memo to Acevedo saying he was conducting an investigation into the accident. He is now in the fleet division.

In the memo, Police Capt. Javier Ortiz also explains how he had been suspended for “identifying publicly as a Black male” and how the police department was “obviously” retaliating against him for something he claims to have discovered in the evidence room. How it was retaliating remains unclear.

The next day, according to a memo written by Internal Affairs anti-corruption investigator Wanda Jean Baptiste, Acevedo contacted Internal Affairs and informed it about Ortiz’s memo on “corruption” and “retaliation” and an investigation was launched. In all, investigators said they spoke to 30 witnesses.

The decision to fire the Papiers and retain Ortiz, a politically powerful former union president, surprised many in the police department and in City Hall. Acevedo was well aware of Ortiz’s record before he was sworn in on April 5 and several law enforcement sources say early on Acevedo expressed surprise the captain had not been fired before he arrived. Acevedo said he hasn’t moved to fire Ortiz because most of the incidents looked into by the FDLE were old and unproven.

Immediately after joining the department, Acevedo argued for a host of procedural changes; some, like longer jail sentences, led to a meeting with prosecutors and the public defender. Another was taking control of Internal Affairs, a unit that had been overseen by Ronald Papier for most of the past decade.

Ronald Papier, the second in command in Miami, and with the consent of Acevedo, served as acting chief during the six-week transition until Acevedo was sworn in. He was the acting chief at the time of his wife’s accident. He’s a decorated 27-year veteran who had served in the department’s command staff for almost half his career.

Nerly Papier was with Miami police for 22 years. She started as a temp in the department and worked her way to commander, first in Coconut Grove and more recently in Little Havana. She was highlighted in March in a story by WFOR Channel 4 about Women’s History Month.

Gibbons said the couple’s next move is to go back before the city’s Civil Service Board on June 29, where they hope to be reinstated as police captains. It’s a demotion that would allow them to continue to receive benefits and pensions and be paid, but at lower salaries. If the board agrees, it sends its recommendation to Noriega, the city manager.

“If he says no,” said Gibbons, “then we go to [Miami-Dade] Circuit Court, which can order him to do it.”