KEY WEST, Fla. — An arrested Florida Keys sheriff’s deputy misused official law enforcement databases in pursuit of a woman he met on the set of the television show “Bad Monkey,” according to documents obtained by Local 10 News on Wednesday.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office warrant report states that Deputy Lamar Eliseo Roman, 28, used that information to pull her over on U.S. 1, “almost caus(ing) a head-on collision” while speeding to catch up to her. He’s since been fired.
A chance encounter
According to the MCSO report, Roman was working security on the set of “Bad Monkey” ― a streaming show set in the Keys starring Vince Vaughn and based on a book of the same title by legendary South Florida author Carl Hiaasen ― on Big Pine Key on Feb. 3 when he noticed the woman getting off the extras bus.
The report states that he “began whistling at her” and proceeded to “cat call” her, “very loudly” saying, “Oh my god, why didn’t nobody tell me we were bringing models to (the) set.” Investigators said the two eventually spoke and while the woman said she had a boyfriend, Roman was “flirting and joking” with her and they exchanged names and cellphone numbers.
He allegedly “stated something along the lines of, ‘I need your name and number just in case I pull you over someday,’” according to the report, and sent her an unanswered direct message on Instagram.
Investigators said Roman used Florida’s Driver And Vehicle Information Database ― better known as DAVID ― and the Florida Crime Information Center/National Crime Information Center ― or FCIC/NCIC ― databases to look up the extra and enter her license plate information into a “hotlist,” which would alert if her vehicle was picked up on any license plate readers.
A high-speed traffic stop
On Feb. 19, her license plate pinged and dashcam videos showed Roman, on patrol that day, speeding up to 70 mph on U.S. 1 as he passed two dump trucks in a no-passing zone, then an SUV, according to the report.
Investigators said Roman “almost cause(d) a head-on collision while passing as a white truck traveling northbound had to veer off the roadway” in order to avoid a wreck.
About two minutes later, authorities said Roman pulled the woman over in front of Bobalu’s Southern Café on Big Coppitt Key. His in-car camera captured video, but not audio, of the traffic stop, because he didn’t have his microphone.
According to the report, she would tell investigators that the stop made her “uncomfortable” because of comments Roman made, including, “Oh, I thought you had a boyfriend.”
The woman pressed him on how he got her information, asking, “How did you know it was me?”, authorities said.
“I told you I’d find you and pull you over,” he allegedly responded. “And I was hoping your boyfriend was in the car so I can pull him out and give him a hard time.”
He also asked her why she didn’t follow him back on Instagram, authorities said. They said Roman never logged the traffic stop.
‘Yeah, I know it’s stupid’
During a March 4 interview, investigators said Roman fessed up. After being asked why he searched DAVID, investigators said Roman told them he “didn’t need to, but, I don’t know, I knew right when I did that, I was like ‘f---.’”
Investigators said Roman told them, regarding the traffic stop, “at that point I was just going to say ‘hi,’ you know, ‘got you’ and we were laughing and then that’s kind of it.”
“So you were pursuing her in an effort to just stop her and say ‘hey?’” a detective said she asked Roman.
Roman, who worked for MCSO for less than a year, allegedly responded, “Yeah, I know it’s stupid.”
“I just apologize for you guys to have to do this you know. That’s it. I mean, it’s a tough month and I saw a shiny thing and teasing and all that and I knew that when I put that I’m like ‘f---,’ and that’s why I just like I stopped right after and nothing else,” investigators said Roman told them.
According to the warrant, the woman said “she did not want to pursue criminal charges against Deputy Roman,” but his own agency did ― arresting him Tuesday on a charge of accessing a computer or electronic device without authority.
Roman, who was taken to the MCSO Key West jail facility, was no longer listed as an active inmate in jail records as of Wednesday.
In a brief statement following his arrest, Monroe Count Sheriff Rick Ramsay said he was “committed to keeping this community informed of significant events that occur in this agency — good and bad."
Jail records show Roman is scheduled to be arraigned in a Florida Keys courtroom on March 26.
A similar case
As of Wednesday, another ex-MCSO deputy was serving time in the minimum-security Gadsden Correctional Facility in the Florida Panhandle for misusing law enforcement databases.
What Jennifer Ketcham, 42, did was even more extensive and arguably even more serious, however: in November, she was convicted and sentenced to three years on an assortment of felonies for using official systems to pass sensitive information along to her 19-year-old then-boyfriend, described by authorities as a “drug dealer.”
Ramsay, prosecutors and the Key West police chief all said that her actions put several of her fellow law enforcement officers’ lives in danger. Prosecutors said they also led to a “confidential informant being beaten so severely” that he had to be airlifted out of the Keys.
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