Van Buren filed an internal affairs (IA) complaint in 1996, alleging that two Miami police officers arrested him without cause, beat him up, and then stole two Florida Panthers hockey tickets from him, most likely for their personal use or resale. As part of his complaint Van Buren submitted a videotape of interviews with friends who witnessed the arrest. "Check out how this guy appears to be reading from a script," instructs the commander of internal affairs, Maj. Paul Shepard, as the first eyewitness stumbles through his account. When the parade progresses to other shaky testimonials, Shepard leans back in a chair and allows a smile to stretch across his face.

"Can you hear his voice in the background?" he asks with a snicker. "He has all these guys refer to him in the third person even though he's the one operating the camera."

Not surprisingly, Van Buren's complaint went nowhere. IA detectives identified him as a ticket broker with three arrests for a minor strain of scalping known as "vending without a license." They noted in their report his refusal to hand over key evidence to support his claims. There were no visible injuries from the alleged beating. And with barely suppressed guffaws they determined that the two $65 Panthers tickets Van Buren says were stolen from him were actually four cheap Florida Marlins tickets he was probably trying to pawn off on unsuspecting hockey fans.

The officers, Thomas Laura and Jeffrey Locke, were cleared of misconduct. Locke has since been promoted to sergeant. The internal affairs bureau was headed at the time by Maj. William O'Brien, who has also climbed in rank -- to chief of police. Speaking from a conference room in his office, O'Brien initially remembers the case only vaguely. "From what I recall," he says with a quiet chuckle, "what we had there was a scam artist trying to, well, pull a scam. I don't know if [Van Buren] was getting screwed himself or if he was about to screw someone else."

The laughter infuriates David Van Buren, a 38-year-old resident of Coconut Grove probably best known, if known at all, as the Alligator Guy. Five years ago Van Buren's eight-foot-long alligator Gwendolyn escaped from a pen in his garden. Trappers found the domesticated pet in a neighbor's back yard and turned him (Gwendolyn is actually a he) over to Florida wildlife officials. As punishment state prosecutors sought to lock Van Buren in a pen of his own for 60 days. Gwendolyn, it was announced, would be executed.

Van Buren beat the rap. A judge dismissed charges after learning that none of Van Buren's neighbors were worried about the gator, who is so housebroken he sometimes sleeps in Van Buren's bed. Gwendolyn received clemency. Under a welcome banner and accompanied by champagne toasts from dozens of supporters, the alligator returned to a new outdoor pool ringed by an eight-foot-high concrete fence. A steady sardine diet has helped him grow another two feet.