Latest news with #Baseggio
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Yahoo
Florida police officer pleads guilty in excessive force case that ignited scandal
ORLANDO, Fla.— The Kissimmee police officer whose brutal beating of a man two years ago sparked a scandal in his department pleaded guilty Friday to felony battery, witness tampering and official misconduct. Officer Andrew Baseggio now faces up to two years behind bars and must surrender his law enforcement certification, according to the plea agreement read in Osceola County court. The beating, the false report he wrote about the incident and the 'culture of cover-up' grand jurors said led his superiors to hide his actions and give him only an eight-hour suspension eventually led to the resignation of the then-chief of the Kissimmee Police Department. Baseggio, hired as a patrol officer at KPD in 2007, was accompanied in the courtroom by his attorney Jay Rooth as Judge Keith Carsten read out his guilty plea. They hustled out of the courthouse once the hearing concluded and did not comment to reporters. In exchange for his plea, he can be sentenced to far less time in prison than the 40 years he initially faced. He will not be sentenced for another two months pending a court investigation. As part of his plea, two other charges he faced — solicitation of perjury and misdemeanor battery — will be dropped. The plea also requires that he testify 'regarding any criminal activity as requested by the state,' though it is not clear for what investigation prosecutors might want his testimony. Representatives of Kissimmee Police Department and the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The case began with an April 2023 call about a disturbance at a home on Brack Street. Body-worn camera video showed Baseggio illegally entered without a warrant and then brutally beat 44-year-old Sean Kastner by kneeing him in the face and stunning him with a Taser seven times. He was then taken to a hospital with lacerations on his face and a nasal bone fracture. Baseggio later wrote an incident report that did not accurately describe what happened and then, following an internal investigation, was given an eight-hour suspension for the beating. The incident went unaddressed until prosecutors learned what happened from a TV news report. They then took the case before the grand jury, which returned an indictment against Baseggio. The grand jury's 34-page report questioned the credibility of 11 officers at KPD along with its top brass, including Chief Betty Holland. She resigned days ahead of the report's public release. The report accused Holland of not being truthful with prosecutors investigating the beating and found she had blocked attempts at a criminal investigation into Baseggio's actions. Officers who conducted the internal investigation sought to downplay the incident by falsely accusing Kastner of kicking at Baseggio, an effort to call the beating 'objectively reasonable,' the grand jury found. Holland had also kept Baseggio informed about the progress of outside investigations, which the report said allowed him to seek to influence the testimony of fellow officers. Then-State Attorney Andrew Bain presented the grand jury's report in October, telling reporters on the steps of the Osceola County Courthouse that the investigation into the officer 'was compromised from the beginning.' 'So we went back and re-interviewed a lot of those witnesses who were inside of that investigation, and it turned out that many of the things they said were falsified,' he said at the time. Prosecutors also determined KPD ran afoul of Florida law by not reporting to state authorities 15 excessive force cases involving other officers or Baseggio, a lapse stretching back a decade. The reporting of those cases was later rectified but yielded no charges against the accused officers. After Holland's resignation, city officials quickly replaced her with Orange County Sheriff's Office Maj. Robert Anzueto, who served as interim chief while OCSO conducted its own investigation into the Kissimmee department. Anzueto recused himself from that probe but moved to reform agency policies regarding internal investigations and other matters highlighted by the grand jury. Where the Sheriff's Office investigation stands is unclear. On April 1, Charles Broadway, the former Clermont police chief, was sworn in as Holland's permanent replacement and tasked with rebuilding the department's reputation. _____
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Yahoo
Kissimmee cop pleads guilty in excessive force case that ignited scandal
The Kissimmee police officer whose brutal beating of a man two years ago sparked a scandal in his department pleaded guilty Friday to felony battery, witness tampering and official misconduct. Officer Andrew Baseggio now faces up to two years behind bars and must surrender his law enforcement certification, according to the plea agreement read in Osceola County court. The beating, the false report he wrote about the incident and the 'culture of cover-up' grand jurors said led his superiors to hide his actions and give him only an eight-hour suspension eventually led to the resignation of the then-chief of the Kissimmee Police Department. Baseggio, hired as a patrol officer at KPD in 2007, was accompanied in the courtroom by his attorney Jay Rooth as Judge Keith Carsten read out his guilty plea. They hustled out of the courthouse once the hearing concluded and did not comment to reporters. In exchange for his plea, he can be sentenced to far less time in prison than the 40 years he initially faced. He will not be sentenced for another two months pending a court investigation. As part of his plea, two other charges he faced — solicitation of perjury and misdemeanor battery — will be dropped. The plea also requires that he testify 'regarding any criminal activity as requested by the state,' though it is not clear for what investigation prosecutors might want his testimony. Representatives of Kissimmee Police Department and the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The case began with an April 2023 call about a disturbance at a home on Brack Street. Body-worn camera video showed Baseggio illegally entered without a warrant and then brutally beat 44-year-old Sean Kastner by kneeing him in the face and stunning him with a Taser seven times. He was then taken to a hospital with lacerations on his face and a nasal bone fracture. Baseggio later wrote an incident report that did not accurately describe what happened and then, following an internal investigation, was given an eight-hour suspension for the beating. The incident went unaddressed until prosecutors learned what happened from a TV news report. They then took the case before the grand jury, which returned an indictment against Baseggio. The grand jury's 34-page report questioned the credibility of 11 officers at KPD along with its top brass, including Chief Betty Holland. She resigned days ahead of the report's public release. The report accused Holland of not being truthful with prosecutors investigating the beating and found she had blocked attempts at a criminal investigation into Baseggio's actions. Officers who conducted the internal investigation sought to downplay the incident by falsely accusing Kastner of kicking at Baseggio, an effort to call the beating 'objectively reasonable,' the grand jury found. Holland had also kept Baseggio informed about the progress of outside investigations, which the report said allowed him to seek to influence the testimony of fellow officers. Then-State Attorney Andrew Bain presented the grand jury's report in October, telling reporters on the steps of the Osceola County Courthouse that the investigation into the officer 'was compromised from the beginning.' 'So we went back and re-interviewed a lot of those witnesses who were inside of that investigation, and it turned out that many of the things they said were falsified,' he said at the time. Prosecutors also determined KPD ran afoul of Florida law by not reporting to state authorities 15 excessive force cases involving other officers or Baseggio, a lapse stretching back a decade. The reporting of those cases was later rectified but yielded no charges against the accused officers. After Holland's resignation, city officials quickly replaced her with Orange County Sheriff's Office Maj. Robert Anzueto, who served as interim chief while OCSO conducted its own investigation into the Kissimmee department. Anzueto recused himself from that probe but moved to reform agency policies regarding internal investigations and other matters highlighted by the grand jury. Where the Sheriff's Office investigation stands is unclear. On April 1, Charles Broadway, the former Clermont police chief, was sworn in as Holland's permanent replacement and tasked with rebuilding the department's reputation.
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Beleaguered Kissimmee police to get new chief
The City of Kissimmee is in the middle of the process to select a new chief to helm its beleaguered police department, more than three months after its former chief resigned in scandal. But the city has yet to say who the candidates even are. Mayor Jackie Espinosa declined to disclose the names of potential replacements when asked this week by an Orlando Sentinel reporter but hopes a list of finalists will be ready by the end of February. A public records request for the names submitted Wednesday has yet to be fulfilled while a city spokesperson has not responded to a message seeking comment. Florida law clearly makes public applications for a municipal job opening. Last week marked 100 days since Interim Chief Robert Anzueto arrived from the Orange County Sheriff's Office, tasked with conducting formal investigations into officers the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office deemed problematic and what a grand jury called a 'culture of cover-up' at the Kissimmee Police Department. Anzueto declined to grant a sitdown interview to the Sentinel about his efforts, with a spokesperson saying he is on his way out the door. Questions submitted to him via email Thursday have not been answered. The KPD scandal exploded following the indictment of Officer Andrew Baseggio, who received a mere eight-hour suspension after an internal investigation found he kneed a 44-year-old man in the face and used his Taser on him seven times despite facing no resistance. Prosecutors said they weren't notified of the case until WFTV aired a report about it, prompting a fresh look at the internal investigation that revealed agency-wide attempts to downplay the incident including from Chief Betty Holland, who was 17 months into leading the department following her predecessor Jeff O'Dell's retirement. Holland was forced to resign Oct. 28 after a letter from the State Attorney's Office questioned her credibility, saying her statements about the department's own internal investigation into Baseggio's actions were 'inconsistent with other sworn testimony received from witnesses.' The grand jury that indicted Baseggio issued a stronger rebuke, implicating her and others of blocking attempts at a criminal investigation. Records show Baseggio — now facing charges of felony battery, witness tampering, official misconduct and soliciting perjury — was kept in the know about the internal investigation from its inception and sought to dissuade fellow officers who witnessed the incident from speaking truthfully. 'The investigation was compromised from the very beginning because Officer Baseggio was able to have access to knowing that the investigation was going on, and then began to tamper with witnesses along during that time,' then-State Attorney Andrew Bain told reporters on the steps of the Osceola County Courthouse following Baseggio's indictment. 'So we went back and reinterviewed a lot of those witnesses who were inside of that investigation and it turned out that many of the things they said were falsified.' The letter that forced Holland's resignation also identified 11 current and former officers as having credibility concerns. That included Deputy Chief Camille Alicea, who the Sentinel reported stepped down after an internal review found she had made homophobic remarks about a lesbian officer facing a promotion. Further investigation revealed the existence of 15 excessive force cases dating back nearly 10 years that the department failed to report to the State Attorney's Office, which Bain's administration said ran afoul of Florida law. Enter Anzueto, a major overseeing the Sheriff's Office patrol division tapped to lead the agency after the Orange County Sheriff agreed to conduct an internal and criminal investigation into the concerns raised by prosecutors. In his first comments to reporters, Anzueto said KPD officers 'deserve strong, principled leadership that not only supports them in their mission but also guides them in upholding the highest standards of our profession.' 'I support them 100% that are out there doing the right things,' he said. 'Do we have some who might not be doing the right things? We're going to learn that in the investigation from the Orange County Sheriff's Office.' It's not clear what happened with that investigation following Anzueto's appointment, but prosecutors flagged Alicea in Baseggio's case as being on the their Brady list of untrustworthy law enforcement officials, according to court filings. The Kissimmee City Commission has not discussed Anzueto's imminent departure in public, nor its process to choose a new chief.
