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

Former Broward Sheriffs Deputy Richard V. Tauber, 37, was sentenced today 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 Sheriffs Office and the City of Pompano Beach Police Department, and his co-defendants Kevin D. Frankel, 38, a Broward Sheriffs 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.