(CNN) Raimundo Atesiano had a scheme to make himself look good. It landed him in federal prison.

The former police chief of Biscayne Park, Florida, once bragged at a city council meeting that his department had a 100% clearance rate for burglaries. But prosecutors say it's because Atesiano directed his officers to pin unsolved crimes on innocent people.

Atesiano, 52, was given a three-year prison sentence Tuesday for conspiracy to deprive individuals of their civil rights, according to a press release from the US Attorney's Office

Throughout his tenure as chief in Biscayne Park, a tiny Miami village of just over 3,000 people, he encouraged three officers -- Guillermo Ravelo, Charlie Dayoub and Raul Fernandez -- to falsely arrest individuals with no evidence or probable cause to cover for all reported burglaries, the release said.

"Putting an arrest statistic above the rights of an innocent man instead of working to protect all our citizens undermines the safety goals of every Miami-Dade police department," said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. "Miami-Dade's residents deserve honesty and integrity, qualities that Raimundo Atesiano deliberately failed to deliver."

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