KEY LARGO, Fla. – A longtime Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputy is facing a driving under the influence charge in the Florida Keys.
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Deputy Pedro Villalonga was booked into jail Monday after being arrested by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.
MDSO officials said the 46-year-old has been with the agency for 18 years.
According to an MCSO arrest report, deputies said Villalonga was driving a Ford pickup truck on U.S. 1 in Key Largo at around 10:45 p.m. Monday and “was occupying two lanes of travel, unable to maintain a single lane of travel” and “was traveling in the left lane, failing to yield to a vehicle from the rear.”
“Villalonga exhibited signs of impairment; his speech was slurred and thick tongued,” the MCSO report states. “(He had) red, glossy, watery eyes, and the smell of alcohol was emanating from (his) breath.”
Authorities said he refused field sobriety and breath testing.
Local 10 News and other South Florida media outlets interviewed Villalonga in January as he worked as an MDSO K-9 deputy and swept Hard Rock Stadium with his police dog ahead of the Orange Bowl.
In a statement, Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said she was “disappointed” to learn of Villalonga’s arrest.
“Driving impaired is not only illegal but also dangerous and reckless,” she said. “The public’s trust in our office is built on integrity, and his actions do not reflect who we are as an office.”
Officials said Villalonga has been relieved of duty with pay as of Wednesday.
He no longer appeared in MCSO jail records as of Wednesday. Villalonga is set to be arraigned in a Florida Keys courtroom on July 23.