MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – An undercover sting operation by Miami Beach police led to the arrest of a woman who sold fraudulently-obtained disabled parking placards for up to $200 a piece, according to the office of Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.
Police arrested 26-year-old Nicole Cardona, a southwest Miami-Dade resident, Thursday.
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Cardona is accused of selling disabled parking permits, complete with forged doctor signatures, allowing her customers to obtain parking placards from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
“Miami Beach police and Miami Beach government officials have been inundated with resident complaints (referencing) drivers abusing disabled placards to park in permitted residential neighborhoods for unlimited lengths of time,” Fernandez Rundle’s office said in a news release.
The investigation began in Nov. 2021, when a Miami Beach police detective noticed a driver exiting a vehicle parked in a spot reserved for people with disabled parking placards, officials said.
Despite displaying a permit, the circumstances seemed “suspicious,” Fernandez Rundle’s office said.
According to an arrest warrant, the driver initially told the detective that the permit belonged to his grandmother, but later said he paid someone to get it from a doctor, admitting the placard was issued in his name.
When asked how he obtained it, the man, who told police he parked in the spot because he was late for work at a nearby restaurant, said a co-worker told him that a friend of hers could “hook him up” with a placard, the warrant states.
The man then contacted Cardona and paid $150 for the placard, according to the warrant. He told investigators he did not know Cardona’s name but still had her phone number.
He later told investigators that Cardona instructed him to send her his driver’s license and biographical information and meet her in a southwest Miami-Dade parking lot, where she then handed him a paper form, complete with a forged doctor’s signature, the warrant states.
She then told him to go to any local DMV location and present the form to them to obtain his placard, police wrote.
The report states police set up two controlled buys featuring undercover officers, in which Cardona gave them similar instructions. Police wrote that she told the undercover detectives to send her $200 via Cash App and gave them the pre-filled forms.
Police interviewed the two physicians whose names were listed on the applications. Both told investigators that the forms were not in their handwriting and that they would only approve disabled parking permits in limited circumstances, according to the arrest warrant.
“While profiteering from the sale of illegal handicapped parking placards may seem like a small issue to many who live beyond Miami Beach, this enterprise which allegedly involved the forging of doctors’ signatures on official documents, is a criminal act and impacts the daily lives of numerous residents living in the city,” Fernandez Rundle said.
Cardona faced felony charges of organized scheme to defraud, criminal use of a public record or public records information and forgery, plus a misdemeanor charge of making false official statements.
Officials didn’t specify how many placards she’s accused of selling or whether any additional arrests were forthcoming.