Left: Paul Fluty (Volusia County Corrections). Right: The individual identified as Fluty displays a badge to a deputy in Deltona, Florida. (Volusia County Sheriff’s Office).
A Florida man was arrested this week for impersonating a police officer by using an old badge, Sunshine State law enforcement say.
Paul Fluty, 39, stands accused of falsely personating an officer, according to Volusia County Sheriff’s Office records.
The incident took place this week in a driveway in Deltona, a sizeable city about 30 miles from Orlando. Deputies encountered Fluty sitting in the driver’s seat of a stationary car, as reported in a press release from the sheriff’s office.
When approached by a deputy, the man identified as the defendant said he was part of a “task force,” body-worn camera footage shows.
In the video, Fluty appears to show the deputy a physical badge as well as an image of his police ID card on his cellular phone.
The defendant allegedly told a tale of trying to locate a missing girl who “keeps on pinging” somewhere “within a 3-block radius.”
Fluty allegedly said the girl was not officially missing, but he was tracking her cellular phone location, according to the sheriff’s office.
“This girl keeps on running from cops,” the man tells the deputy. “She runs from the cops, that’s why we didn’t want marked cars.”
However, the sheriff’s office asserts that Fluty had no means to label his vehicle, at least not in the manner he purportedly intended – and certainly not any longer.
In May, Fluty was fired by the Miami-Dade Police Department after failing a urine test, according to The Daytona Beach News-Journal.
“Upon further investigation, detectives found that Fluty is no longer a police officer and does not belong to any federal task force,” the sheriff’s office revealed.
Additional footage shows the defendant’s arrest hours later.
“What did I do?” the man asks as he is being handcuffed.
As deputies adjusted the handcuffs to place Fluty in the back of a car, he stated, “You can Google my name. I was officer of the year and everything. I don’t understand how I’m impersonating.”
In fact, in May 2020, the Miami-Dade Police Department honored Fluty as officer of the year after he was shot while attempting to apprehend a domestic battery suspect, according to a report by the Miami-based WSVN, a Fox and ABC affiliate.
As part of the honors, the defendant was presented with a 2020 Toyota Tundra by the automobile company, the TV station reported.
“Following his arrest, Fluty said he provided his old badge and credentials ‘out of habit’ and ‘by mistake,’ and that he ‘accidentally’ claimed to be a police officer,” according to the sheriff’s office. “Documentation gathered during the investigation suggests he is actually a private investigator who may have been in the area for an insurance investigation.”
Fluty was arrested on Monday and posted bail the next afternoon.
