ORLANDO -- An Orange County Sheriff's deputy who was suspended and arrested on theft charges Tuesday used stolen credit cards he took from a suspect to buy baby supplies, according to an arrest affidavit.
Deputy Joseph Haddad, 26, was arrested on a grand theft charge Tuesday at his Osceola County home, officials say.
He’s accused of stealing a wallet containing $1,700 in cash and the credit cards of a man he helped arrest.
“They are supposed to help me and then they turn me into a criminal and then steal my stuff,” said the victim, Sammy Shehata, 40.
Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings called the incident “troubling.”
“The Orange County Sheriff's Office is not a place for a liar or thief to work,” he said. “I am committed to ensuring that such individuals are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and that they will be fired."
Orange County Sheriff’s deputies said Haddad was responding to a burglary call at a home in the 13000 block of Heming Way in east Orange County early Sunday morning where 15 firearms had been reported stolen.
While Haddad was investigating, he saw marijuana in the home and called in a second deputy to investigate, the affidavit said.
Shehata was arrested on drug possession charges after deputies found 7 grams of marijuana and 11 grams of hashish.
Before he was taken to jail, he asked to go get his wallet from inside the home so he could pay his bond — but it wasn’t there, according to the affadavit.
“I said ‘well my wallet was here like five minutes ago and now it’s not,’” he said Wednesday.
Shehata told deputies that after he bonded out of jail, he had multiple text messages alerting him of fraudulent purchases on his credit cards at a Walmart and a Target in Osceola County.
Haddad and his wife were seen on surveillance camera buying a baby crib, monitor and other supplies, the affidavit said.
Osceola County Sheriff’s deputies found Shehata’s wallet and credit cards inside Haddad’s home, according to the affidavit.
Haddad told detectives that he accidentally took the wallet and forgot to put it in evidence, the affidavit said. He said he left it in his patrol car and his wife grabbed it when she was moving the car.
He said he noticed his wife using the credit card, but did not return the items, according to the affidavit. She does not face any charges.
Haddad was taken to the Osceola County Jail. Other charges related to the investigation also are pending against him in Osceola County.
He was suspended without pay and his law enforcement authority stripped, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.The OCSO Professional Standards Section also will investigate. The section also is investigating another allegation against Haddad, but a spokesman declined to specify what that was.
Shehata said the incident made him upset.
“I don’t care what he bought, he should have bought it with his money,” he said. “They arrested me just so they could rob me.”
A man who answered a phone registered to Haddad declined to comment.
[email protected], 407-420-5471 or @DavidHarrisOS
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