Former Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Sentenced for Participation in Undercover Corruption Probe

R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern district of Florida, Jonathan I. Solomon, special Agent in charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Al Lamberti, Broward County Sheriff, announced today’s sentencing of former Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Richard V. Tauber, 37, on charges of knowingly and intentionally attempting to possess with intent to distribute fifty kilograms of cocaine. Tauber was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Marra in federal court in West Palm Beach, FL, to 112 months in prison, to be followed by 5 years of supervised release.

This 10-month undercover investigation was jointly conducted by the FBI and BSO. According to documents filed with the court, Tauber, a 14-year veteran of the Broward Sheriff’s Office and the City of Pompano Beach Police Department, and his co-defendants Kevin D. Frankel, 38, a Broward Sheriff’s Deputy, Robert Thomas Baccari, 38, and Christopher C. Provenzano, 37, both long-time friends of Tauber not employed by the BSO, provided a variety of illegal services to individuals who represented themselves as being associated with organized criminal activity in the South Florida and New York areas, including a high ranking member of an organized criminal group purportedly operating out of the New York/New Jersey area and a purported Colombian drug distributor whose organization operated out of Miami. In reality, however, the individuals were three undercover FBI agents, and the purported criminal activities were all staged operations conducted as part of the investigation.

During their guilty pleas, each of the defendants admitted that on April 18, 2008, Tauber, Baccari, and Provenzano transported fifty (50) kilograms of purported cocaine from Miami to the Pompano Beach Municipal Airport, where it was loaded on a plane purportedly destined for the New York/New Jersey area while Frankel did countersurveillance around the perimeter of the Pompano Beach Municipal Airport. For this service Tauber, Frankel, Baccari and Provenzano received a total of $20,000.

Mr. Acosta commended the efforts of the numerous special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the detectives of the Broward Sheriff’s Office Organized Crime Unit who worked on this investigation. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Jeffrey N. Kaplan and Paul F. Schwartz.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at http://www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.