A longtime Miami cop who pleaded guilty to extorting people he believed to be drug dealers out of money and cocaine during traffic stops was sentenced Tuesday to 11 years in prison.
Frenel Cenat, of Boynton Beach, was charged with one count of attempt to extort under the Hobbs Act and one count of attempt to possess cocaine with the intent to distribute it. He had worked for the City of Miami police department for close to 20 years. But at some point over those years, he “lost his way,” prosecutors say.
An undercover operation last year revealed that Cenat, 40 at the time, was using his power to threaten drug dealers with arrest unless they gave him money and drugs, according to facts agreed upon by prosecutors and the defense in a federal court document. In October 2023, he told an unidentified “confidential human source” about his process: conducting traffic stops in his unmarked police car immediately after drug deals took place, then using information he had collected about the people involved to get them to comply. The confidential source later gave those details to law enforcement.
In a federal courtroom in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday, Cenat was allowed a final chance to address the court. He spoke of crumbling under the pressures he had faced as an officer and keeping things from his family while putting his “nose to the grindstone.”
“Judge, you don’t know me,” he said. “All you know is a piece of paper put in front of you … I didn’t communicate with my wife. I didn’t communicate about the pressures.”
But U.S. District Judge James Cohn did not appear sympathetic.
“This was the ultimate betrayal,” he said as he delivered the sentence. “It was a betrayal of trust. It was a betrayal of the oath every police officer takes. It is the antithesis of respect for the rule of law.”
The “only mitigation,” Cohn said, was Cenat’s “early acceptance of responsibility.”
As U.S. marshals walked over to Cenat, two women in the back of the courtroom cried. He blew them a kiss as they led him away.
The investigation
The investigation began in October 2023, according to the court document. A mutual friend of Cenat’s known as “the Associate” introduced him to the confidential source at a meeting in Broward County. During the meeting, the three discussed a plan for Cenat to conduct a traffic stop after a drug deal and collect $50,000 worth of cash. Cenat told them about his typical strategy, adding that he did his traffic stops while off duty, choosing locations outside of his jurisdiction, the city of Miami.
In November, Cenat, the Associate and the source held multiple group calls, the document states. They discussed their plans for the traffic stop: At 7:30 p.m. in a Miami Gardens hotel parking lot, Cenat would give the drug dealer a choice between life in prison or a bag of $50,000 in cash. He asked to do it at night to avoid detection, and requested information about the dealer, including his name, appearance, associates, girlfriend, and car details, so that he could use the information to make the dealer believe the police were actually watching him. At one point, he suggested cutting the Associate out of the deal by telling him the traffic stop didn’t happen.
Unbeknownst to Cenat, the entire traffic stop was staged; the dealer was an undercover FBI employee, according to the document. That night, in the hotel parking lot, the undercover employee acted out a staged drug deal, which Cenat observed before pulling the employee over. Wearing black tactical police gear and his police-issued gun and taser, he told the undercover employee his name was Officer Martez with the Miami-Dade Police Narcotics Unit. He then began to tell the undercover employee everything he knew, threatening him if he did not give him a backpack, which held $52,000 in real U.S. government funds.
Later that night, Cenat met up with the source, and they agreed to cut the Associate out of the deal. Cenat gave the source $13,000 of the government funds he had taken.
A few days later, Cenat called the source, asking if the source could help him do a traffic stop for 7 or 10 kilograms cocaine because he had promised someone in Orlando drugs from a previous traffic stop. The source set up another fake stop, this time at a parking lot in Deerfield Beach, for 7 fake kilograms of cocaine as well as $30,000. As plans came to fruition, Cenat told the source he had not heard back from the person in Orlando, so the source could keep the drugs and he would take the $30,000.
Again, an undercover FBI employee conducted a staged drug deal in the parking lot. Again, Cenat followed the employee and pulled the man over while wearing black tactical gear. He introduced himself as Officer Martez, but this time with the Broward Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Unit. He then went to the back of the employee’s truck and took a duffle bag of fake cocaine and $80,000 out of the cooler.
“You want to go home tonight or spend 30 years in … federal prison?” Cenat asked, according to the document.
The man told him he wanted to go home. Cenat then asked for his phone number. But when the employee began to recite it, he interrupted him to pretend to talk into his police radio. Despite not getting the full phone number, he told the employee that he worked for him now and “had to answer when he was called,” the document states.
Cenat then called the source, who told him to come to a Walmart parking lot in Coral Springs. But when Cenat arrived, he was arrested.
Over the course of the entire undercover operation, Cenat thought he had amassed about $244,000. In reality, he had about $132,000 in government funds and several kilograms of fake cocaine.
‘We will find you’
At a news conference following the sentencing Tuesday. U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe and law enforcement leaders emphasized that Cenat’s actions do not represent police officers as a whole.
“All systems and organizations are human at their very core,” Lapointe said. “The very moment that someone stands before you and tells you they’re perfect, the next moment you find out they’re not.”
No other police officers are being investigated for similar crimes, according to Lapointe. Despite court documents mentioning the Associate and the criminal activity of “others” in addition to Cenat, he said that no one Cenat had worked with in the past is currently facing charges, and declined to comment on whether Cenat led investigators to other suspects.
Also in attendance at the news conference were FBI Special Agent in Charge Justin Fleck and City of Miami Police Chief Manuel Morales. Cenat was fired from the force after his arrest.
Morales sought to reassure the public to keep their faith in police officers.
“Let this be proof, let this be a demonstration, of what we are willing to do to uphold the trust you have placed in your police departments,” he said, before warning police officers not to follow Cenat’s footsteps: “If you ever think about losing your way, if you ever have a thought about betraying the public trust and tarnishing the badge that we all wear so proudly, this is what will happen. We will find you, we will identify you, and we will put you behind bars.”
Fleck asked anyone with information about corruption in South Florida to come forward.
Cenat now faces 11 years and 3 months in prison, plus five years of supervised release.