Broward Sheriff Israel Has Ties To Wayne David Collins; Infamous for Links to Corruption in RI

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

GoLocalProv News Team

 

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Israel close friends with Collins

The embattled Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel has deep ties to Wayne David Collins, the former Rhode Islander connected to police corruption in Providence during the Administration of Buddy Cianci. Collins says he and Israel are good personal friends, but denies there is any business relationship.

Collins is one of the top bail bondsmen in Southern Florida.

“I could get him (Israel) on the phone with you, but I won’t,” said Collins in a phone interview with GoLocal on Monday morning.

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Israel is now under fire for his department's handling of the mass shooting at Parkland High School in which 17 were killed. Florida House Republicans have called for Israel to step down or be removed from office.

“I met him when we coached together. He was the head coach. He would ask me to cover practice all the time. I asked [Israel], ‘Who's the coach, you or me,’” said Collins.  “Then he explained he was a cop. Our kids grew up together baseball and football.”

Collins says that while the two are close, they “don’t do business together" - although he admits to being a significant campaign donor to Israel over the years.

The relationship between Israel and Collins came to the forefront in Florida in an article in 2012, titled, "Scott Israel Has Taken $13,700 From Bail Bondsmen; What Do They Want in Return?" brought the relationship front and center.

“Collins' companies also allegedly gave thousands to the Common Sense Coalition, which supported Israel in 2008 (and which… took in $160,000 on Israel's behalf from two of Scott Rothstein's partners (Collin’s lawyer)…” wrote the Broward/Palm Beach New Times.

“I wanted him to win [as] he is a good friend of mine. I backed him when no one else would,” said Collins about his relationship with Israel.

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From the Esserman report

Corruption in Providence

The report titled, “PROVIDENCE POLICE DEPARTMENT TESTING INVESTIGATION” starts off, “On January 31, 2003, Colonel Dean Esserman assembled a team of investigators from the Providence Police Department, as well investigative consultants from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Attorney and the Rhode Island Department of Attorney General, to investigate the department's promotional cheating scandal.”

The 59-page report found that the Department had a sweeping array of problems including heavy-handed influencing by the Cianci City Hall to a twisted relationship between Urbano Prignano and Collins.

The report stated, “…Wayne David Collins was a close personal friend of (then) Colonel Urbano Prignano. Information indicates that Wayne David Collins had full access to the police department, which included the door keypad code for the intelligence bureau. Additionally, information indicates that on one occasion prior to the 1997 exam for Sergeant, Collins told a candidate that he/she would not make the list. Subsequently, that individual did not make the original list of 10.”

Collins said the report about him and Prignano is false. “I did not have the code. They would just buzz me right in.”

He says that a number of the claims in Esserman’s report are false and that he had relocated to Florida when they allegedly took place.

When asked if he has the same type of relationship with Israel as he did with Prignano, he said,”I have never been in any of his police stations. I work in Dade County and he is in Broward."

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Wolf Kennedy says Collins was an informant

Collins Blasts GoLocal for Airing Wolf Kennedy’s Charges

Collins said that GoLocal was wrong to impugn the reputation of former RI State Police Superintendent Stephen O’Donnell. In March of 2017, in a nearly thirty-minute interview on GoLocal LIVE, Charles “The Ghost” Kennedy alleges that former RI State Police Superintendent Steven O’Donnell ran a FBI/Whitey Bulger-like relationship with informant Collins in which Collins was able to commit crimes under O’Donnell and other leading police officials' supervision.

“David Collins was the prize informant of the feds, the state, and, right here in this town, with the Providence Police,” said Kennedy.

“He (Collins) was able to infiltrate and garnish information from several criminal organizations...how he was able to do that was his attorney and friend Joe ‘Judas’ Bevilacqua was supplying that as it is a total embarrassment to this state.”

Collins says he was never an informant and it was wrong for GoLocal to have asked Kennedy about the relationship with O'Donnell.

“It simply was not fair,” said Collins.

 

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