Prosecutors Allege Police Officer Took Over Dead Man’s Home

A Florida police officer who helped discover a man’s body inside his home is accused of taking advantage of the situation by moving into the property, carrying out an expensive renovation and allegedly using the dead man’s identity to obtain building approval.

Brian Louis Sguros, 35, allegedly took control of Dennis Ionis West’s Lauderhill house only weeks after finding his body during a welfare check. Investigators say he then spent years remaking the property while ownership officially remained connected to West.

The most serious allegation involves a building permit application filed more than two years after West’s death. Authorities say the paperwork included West’s personal information and a signature presented as his.

The Lauderhill officer has been charged five times after investigators accused him of misusing his authority, accessing restricted law enforcement databases and trying to create a financial stake in the home.

The charges include official misconduct, unlawful use of a deceased person’s identification, criminal use of personal identification information, an offense involving a computer user and illegal use of a two-way communications device.

A 21-page arrest affidavit from the Broward Sheriff’s Office says the case began on July 11, 2022, when Sguros and another officer were sent to West’s home at 4551 NW 12th Street in Lauderhill, Florida.

Police had been contacted by a concerned neighbor who had not seen West for approximately two weeks.

The officers entered through the unlocked front door and found West’s body near the entrance. An autopsy later concluded that he had died from cardiovascular disease, with the death classified as natural.

Investigators said body-camera footage did not show Sguros telling the other officers that he knew West.

Later records indicated that Sguros described himself as West’s friend when speaking with the medical examiner’s office. He also allegedly offered to organize the funeral if officials were unable to locate any relatives.

West did have surviving family members, however. Investigators eventually identified several relatives and legal heirs.

While West’s family would have expected the estate to be handled through the legal process, investigators allege that Sguros was pursuing a different outcome for the property.

Court documents cited in the affidavit say the officer acknowledged taking possession of the house around August 1, 2022, roughly three weeks after West’s body was found.

Neighbor Lethel Haye said she was confused by how quickly Sguros appeared to gain control of the property.

“I was wondering, Dennis had just passed away and how could he have gotten the house so quick,” she said.

Haye recalled watching the neglected home undergo major changes as rotten boards were removed and discarded and extensive interior renovations got underway.

“He was taking out all the rotten boards and everything inside and putting it outside, and at one point, they were living in there.”

West’s house was being given a makeover, but the question of who had the right to call it home would eventually become the subject of a bitter legal feud.

Sguros maintained that he had spent more than two years cleaning, securing and renovating the property to protect it from squatters and criminal activity.

In court filings, he claimed to have invested at least $214,000 of his own money into the house, which he said was worth approximately $500,000 after the improvements.

He also paid property taxes, according to investigators. Records showed that nearly two years after West’s death, a payment of more than $2,500 was made towards a utility account that remained in the dead man’s name.

But however much work had gone into the property, the paperwork bore West’s name. The house remained registered under his estate.

In August 2024, investigators say, an application was submitted for an $8,000 project to replace the property’s windows and exterior doors.

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The application listed West as the owner, included his driver’s license information and bore a signature purportedly belonging to him.

More bizarrely, it also indicated that West had appeared before a notary that month, yet West had been dead for more than two years.

According to the affidavit, the telephone number listed for the deceased homeowner on the application actually belonged to Sguros.

Detectives interviewed an employee of Active Builders Inc, the company involved in the renovation. The employee said Sguros had supplied the documents needed for the building permit, including a copy of West’s driver’s license, according to investigators.

The employee told detectives he believed West was alive and owned the property because of the information Sguros had provided.

Investigators also reviewed text messages between the employee and Sguros that allegedly included images of West’s identification and the permit paperwork.

The notary whose name appeared on the documents told detectives she did not recognise the paperwork and said the signature was not hers. She also said the notary stamp appeared smaller than the one she used, according to the affidavit.

Investigators also examined whether Sguros had used the privileged access that came with his police job to obtain information about West.

Records allegedly showed that the officer conducted seven searches on a Lauderhill Police Department-issued computer between July 2022 and January 2023, looking up West’s driver’s license and vehicle registration details.

The results included personal information such as West’s address, date of birth, Social Security number and vehicle details, according to the affidavit.

One search, conducted in January 2023, specifically identified West as deceased, investigators said.

Meanwhile, the battle over who had the right to the house continued.

In February 2025, Sguros and another individual filed paperwork seeking to establish adverse possession of the property, according to the affidavit. The filing itself did not grant them legal ownership.

Then Equinox Realty Holdings entered the picture, locating West’s several surviving heirs and acquiring their ownership interests in the home.

A Broward County court subsequently recognized the heirs’ interests and the transfers to the company.

Sguros eventually surrendered the keys, investigators said. But he was still seeking to recoup the money he claimed to have poured into the property.

In February 2026, he filed a civil lawsuit seeking an equitable lien against the house, citing his alleged investment in its renovation.

In effect, the officer who had claimed to be protecting the property was now seeking a financial stake in it – despite the ownership interests subsequently recognized by the court.

The company’s attorney later complained to the Lauderhill Police Department, raising concerns about Sguros’s involvement with the house and his alleged use of information obtained through his official duties.

The investigation eventually drew in the Broward County Property Appraiser’s Deed Fraud Task Force and Broward Sheriff’s Office detectives.

Sguros was arrested Tuesday and faces the five criminal charges.

Broward County Property Appraiser Marty Kiar said the allegations were particularly troubling given the trust placed in police officers.

‘We hold police officers in the highest regard because they take an oath to protect the public,’ he said in a statement to Local 10 News.

‘This case is so troubling because this officer has been charged with using his position to defraud the public.’

He thanked the county’s Crimes Against Property team and the Broward Sheriff’s Office for their detailed investigation.

Our News Outlet has reached out to the Lauderhill Police for comment.