News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 19, 2007

Miami-Dade County Corrections Officer Arrested on Bribery Charges

JAN 19 -- Mark R. Trouville, Special Agent in Charge, Drug Enforcement Administration, Miami Field Division, R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Robert Parker, Director, Miami-Dade Police Department, announced that Shynita Townsend, a Miami-Dade Corrections & Rehabilitation Officer, has been arrested on a federal complaint charging her with bribery, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 666(a). If convicted, Townsend faces a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment.

According to the complaint, Townsend, a Miami-Dade Corrections Officer since 1989, was assigned to the Police Department’s Monitored Release Program, where she supervised defendants who are out on bond and wearing electronic monitoring . On June 18, 2003, an individual named Humberto Febles was arrested and charged with various crimes, and subsequently released on a $500,000 bond with home detention. As a condition of his bond, Febles was required to wear an electronic monitoring device and was assigned to defendant Townsend for supervision. While supervising Febles, Townsend allegedly accepted over $5,000 in cash and gifts from Febles, to allow him to violate the conditions of his bond and evade the electronic monitoring requirements. As a result, Febles was able to continue to operate his drug trafficking organization. Ultimately, Febles fled the jurisdiction and remains a fugitive to this date.

Mr. Acosta commended the investigative efforts of the DEA and the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Public Corruption Investigations Bureau.