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Imprisoned ex-cop gets 18 months more for putting 'Miami Mice' recording of fellow officers online

Two days before he began serving a four-year sentence in a federal corruption case, a former Miami police sergeant posted telephone recordings of two ex-colleagues on YouTube and a law enforcement site.

Entitled “Miami Mice,” the clip was intended to embarrass two officers who worked under Raul Iglesias when he ran the department’s now-disbanded undercover drug-fighting squad, the Miami Herald (sub. req.) reports.

But the recordings of conversations orchestrated by federal investigators were covered by a court confidentiality order, even though they weren’t used at Iglesias’ trial. So on Friday, despite pleas for leniency by Iglesias and his lawyer, U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro added another 18 months of contempt time to his prison term for retaliating against witnesses.

The 42-year-old ex-marine called himself a patriot and said that he considers himself “a role model in prison.” He said he never intended to violate the court order and his lawyer, Roy Kahn, said slicing even three months off the new sentence would make a big difference to his client, but Ungaro wasn’t persuaded.

In addition to displaying what she called “extremely poor judgment and lack of a moral compass,” Iglesias posted the recordings “whether he benefited or not, to cause harm,” the judge said. “And that is offensive to me.”