fool me thrice - new times broward-palm beach

8/3/2019 Fool Me Thrice - New Times Broward-Palm Beach

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Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office

Cliff Berry II was acquitted, but a jury convicted his company.

Fool Me ThriceA South Florida company caught stealing twicesurfaces under a new name and gets a lucrativegovernment franchise.By Thomas Francispublished: February 12, 2009

A few hours before the corporate Christmas party in

December 2005, the Miami-Dade State Attorney's

Office came to collect Cliff Berry II. They hauled him

off on six felony counts, including fraud,racketeering, and grand theft. Another blow to the

Yuletide cheer: The company itself, Cliff Berry Inc.,

would also face felony charges.

Cliff Berry Inc. had been bribing contractors at

Miami International Airport since 2001. Money

convinced airport personnel to look the other way

when the company's trucks stole millions of gallons

of gas, which it then sold illegally.

By the end of a two-year investigation, 27 arrests

were made. Company President Cliff Berry II was

the only one acquitted. But this past December, a

jury convicted Cliff Berry Inc. on two counts of

grand theft and two counts of fraud.

It seemed that after 31 years in business, the Cliff

Berry name would never be trusted at a major South Florida transportation hub again.

But Cliff Berry Inc. was remade earlier this year. Trucks got a coat of paint and a new logo for

a company called Everglades Waste Removal Services. Aside from the aesthetic differences,the company also got a new leader: Cliff Berry Sr., the 78-year-old father of Cliff Berry II.

That rebranding equaled forgiveness. Port Everglades awarded the new company a waste-

removal franchise.

Cliff Berry Sr. wasn't exactly a newcomer at the port. He had started working at Port

Everglades in the '50s, founding Cliff Berry Inc. in 1973. Ever since, his was the company to

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call when a barge ran aground and started spilling oil near South Florida's coast.

The elder Berry retired in 1995 but stayed on as an officer in his company and had a stake in

the profits. Cliff Berry II had just turned 30 when he was made company president. His

father turned his attention to Cliff Berry Associates, which handled petroleum products that

came to Port Everglades.

Cliff Berry Inc.'s job at Miami International Airport was to remove rainwater that had mixed

with spilled fuel on the ground of the airport's fuel farm, where aviation fuel is stored before

it is transferred to jets via tanker trucks. The company charged the airport a fee 13 cents

for every gallon of contaminated water it hauled away.

In 2003, investigators with the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office were tipped off about

another company stealing jet fuel from MIA. Authorities widened their investigation and

looked at all the materials being trucked out of the fuel farm. Cliff Berry Inc. was a relatively

easy bust: No matter how much or how little it rained in a given month, the company

claimed to be hauling roughly 400,000 gallons of contaminated water from the airport.

Investigators needed an informant working inside the operation and found one in Richard

Caride, a former Hialeah cop and convicted murderer. Caride was working as operations

supervisor for the company that managed the fuel farm. According to court documents,

Caride volunteered that Cliff Berry Inc.'s then-environmental director, Jeff Smith, had been

paying him to make sure his company went along with the scheme. That included a shoebox

with about $25,000 in cash after Caride said the Cliff Berry Inc. contract at the airport was

going out to bid in 2000. Caride told investigators that he discovered Cliff Berry Inc. was

stealing fuel in 2001, with Smith's knowledge. After Caride objected, he said that Smith and

Cliff Berry II paid him a visit, with Berry stating that "he had authorized Jeff [Smith] to do

whatever it takes to make [Caride] happy."

Caride told investigators that he told the pair to talk to Brian Schneir, a coworker who later

came back to inform Caride that they'd be getting a kickback on every gallon of stolen fuel

hauled away by Cliff Berry Inc. Smith entered a guilty plea in December, and on February 2,

Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Jacqueline Hogan Scola sentenced him to ten years in

prison. Schneir, who testified for the state against Cliff Berry Inc., got 12 years.

Cliff Berry Inc.'s biggest moneymaker, however, was Port Everglades. After the company and

president Cliff Berry II were charged, the Broward County Commissioners, who oversee the

port's budget, ordered an audit. Cliff Berry Inc. was among a few companies with a contract

to remove waste from incoming ships. The company would dump the waste into the port'ssewer system and then, by contract, pay the port two-tenths of 1 cent per gallon.

The 2005 audit, however, revealed that Cliff Berry Inc. was dramatically underreporting its

gallons of waste. Auditors estimated the port had been cheated out of roughly $230,000.

By February 2006, Cliff Berry Inc. had paid the money back, but the Broward County



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Commissioners refused to renew the company's port contract.

So the following month, Cliff Berry Sr. incorporated Everglades Waste Removal Services,

making himself the sole shareholder. He then lobbied the county for the franchise that had

belonged to Cliff Berry Inc.

At a commission meeting on June 13, 2006, minutes show that Commissioner John

Rodstrom expressed reluctance to grant the new company a franchise at the port, at least

until the county had conducted a more far-reaching audit of the old company. "I just want to

go back and get the records, and I want to make sure we get all of our money that we're due,"

he said.

This tested Cliff Berry Sr.'s temper. "I resent Mr. Rodstrom's thinking we did it on purpose,"

he said. "It's our damned bookkeeping, and it ain't nothing I can do about it, because when

you get in computers, these things happen."

Rodstrom said he wanted a more thorough audit of Cliff Berry Inc., and Cliff Berry Sr. said:

"Bring your auditors on and let's bury the hatchet."

In speaking for the old company, Cliff Berry Sr. contradicted statements he'd made moments

before that he was no longer involved with the company. It seems he had authority to agree

to an audit of the company but not to take responsibility for crimes of the company.

Florida law forbids the county from conducting business with a company convicted of a

public-entity crime like fraud. But Cliff Berry Sr. assured commissioners that he would run

the new company and agreed to include language in his franchise agreement stating it would

be void if Cliff Berry II, who was then preparing his criminal defense case, was found to be

involved in the new business.

Commissioners voted unanimously to award Cliff Berry Sr.'s Everglades Waste Removal a

franchise at the port.

A message left at Everglades Waste Removal was returned by the company's operations

manager, Kathy Dalton, who said she was calling on Cliff Berry Sr.'s behalf. She said that

Cliff Berry II had no role in the new company. She confirmed that the new company was

using "refurbished" equipment from Cliff Berry Inc.

When asked why Everglades Waste Removal had been granted a franchise to work at the

port despite the criminal conviction of Cliff Berry Inc., Port Everglades spokeswoman EllenKennedy said, "They're considered two different companies."

On February 2, Judge Scola ordered Cliff Berry Inc. to pay roughly $2.5 million in restitution

and fines. The company's attorney, Jonathan Goodman, says Cliff Berry Inc. is "surprised

and disappointed with the verdict." Goodman wants another chance to cross-examine those

who testified for the prosecution. "The state's main witnesses were thieves who were

themselves defendants and who cut deals for themselves at the last minute," Goodman wrote



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in an email toNew Times. He adds that star witness Schneir "admitted at trial to perjuring

himself numerous times." He said Cliff Berry Inc. plans to appeal.


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