Man dressed as security guard charged with impersonating officer
ORLANDO, Fla. March 25 2021
A man previously arrested for impersonating a law enforcement officer in Orange County was arrested again on Tuesday after being pulled over on Interstate 4.
Jeremy DeWitte and another man dressed as security officers were pulled over on I-4 eastbound near Fairbanks Avenue.
Only DeWitte was placed in handcuffs by Orange County Sheriff’s deputies and walked to a patrol car for transport to the Orange County Jail.
A man who wishes to be identified only as Alex recorded cellphone video of the encounter and described a loud confrontation between officers and the two men on motorcycles.
“They’re telling them to get on the ground. They’re yelling at them and they’re pointing guns at them this whole time,” Alex said. “They let the second guy go with his gun belt when they took the gun belt away from the guy that they arrested,”
DeWitte is a convicted sex offender who served four years in prison for lewd and lascivious assault on a teenage girl.
According to the arrest affidavit, DeWitte is now charged with “carrying a concealed weapon by a convicted felon.” Inside his “law enforcement style firearm holster” the deputies said they found “a tear gas gun or chemical weapon.”
It’s the same kind of “pepper spray” device that DeWitte showed WESH 2 Investigates in September 2019 after he was arrested for impersonating an officer.
DeWitte claims his security business, primarily escorting funeral processions, is legitimate, though his own helmet cam video seized for evidence shows him acting rudely to drivers during those processions.
“You’re not really a police officer,” one driver told him. “Listen you don’t know what the (expletive) you’re talking about. I know what I can and cannot do,” DeWitte replied.
DeWitte has consistently denied being a “fake cop.”
“At no point should I ever have been pulled over, at no point should I ever have been put in handcuffs,” DeWitte said in 2019.
His attorney said the latest arrest is just more proof that “local law enforcement continues to harass my client.”
So far, DeWitte faces a dozen charges. including five counts of impersonating an officer, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
DeWitte was released from jail on Wednesday.
