Orange deputy alleges confrontation led to his termination

During one of his first weeks as a provisional Orange County deputy sheriff, Jacob Stewart said his field training officer became angry and threatened to kill him— pulling out a gun and a knife, before threatening to use his bare hands and “bury him in the woods.”

But when the Sheriff’s Office began investigating the incident 18 months later, Stewart said he quickly went from being treated as a potential victim of aggravated assault, to the target of an internal investigation into whether changes in his testimony amounted to lies.

That probe led to his firing from the agency for being untruthful, after OCSO investigators said he initially claimed Deputy First Class Keith Mobley pointed the gun and knife at him, but conceded in a follow-up interview that he didn’t see the Mobley point the weapons at him.

Stewart— who has now twice appealed his firing without success — says the investigations that led to his termination were biased against him, that he felt coerced to change his story and that the probes violated his rights as a crime victim and officer under investigation.

The truthfulness violation also landed him on the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office Brady list, which tracks officers with credibility issues. He said his in-

clusion is unwarranted.

“Nothing I said about it is untrue, and that’s what disheartens me the most,” Stewart, 24, told the Orlando Sentinel. “I wanted to be as open and honest.… I’ve been brutalized during this entire process.”

Stewart and attorneys for the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 93, which represents OCSO deputies, said they are now considering filing a lawsuit, having exhausted internal reviews. Michelle Guido, an OCSO spokeswoman, said the agency affords officers accused of wrongdoing “all elements of” the state’s Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights.

Stewart says the incident occurred in June 2018, during one of his first weeks of in-the-field training. He was driving when he missed an update on his laptop about a call to which he and Mobley were responding, angering Mobley. From the passenger seat, Mobley grabbed the steering wheel while the vehicle was moving, forcing Stewart to pull over, the OCSO investigative report said.

Stewart said he then heard the “distinct sound” of Mobley’s agency-issued firearm being removed from its holster, and in his peripheral view saw Mobley holding the gun “pointed directly at [him],” the report said. Mobley re-holstered it, but continued to threaten Stewart, this time with a knife, Stewart said. Mobley then threatened to kill him with his bare hands and bury his body, Stewart said.

Mobley told investigators he remembered getting upset and possibly yelling or cursing at Stewart, which he said was in response to an insubordinate comment by the new deputy. But he denied ever threatening to kill him or pointing any weapons at him, describing the incident as a training “misunderstanding.”

Therewas no video evidence and only Stewart and Mobley were in the vehicle.

Stewart reported to a supervisor that he was threatened by Mobley, and soon after requested anew field training officer, but the OCSO probe wasn’t opened until about 18 months later. It began after a colleague who Stewart had told about the incident reported it to the Professional Standards Division.

After talking to Stewart, investigators interviewed six deputies and Stewart’s wife, who he’d told about what happened. All said Stewart had described being threatened by Mobley, though some said they thought Mobley only threatened to beat him up. Two recounted the full scenario Stewart had described to investigators. One said he’d heard Stewart was threatened only with a knife, but had learned from Mobley that wasn’t the case.

Investigators then spoke again to Stewart “to clarify discrepancies in his initial testimony,” the report said. After officials pressed Stewart on whether he embellished any part of his testimony, he conceded that he didn’t see the gun pointed at him or know for sure if it had been.

Under Florida law, an assault charge requires only that person made a credible threat “by word or act to do violence” to another, and an assault is considered aggravated when any deadly weapon is involved. There is no distinction made for whether the weapon was pointed.

Stewart attributes his uncertainty to the difficulty of trying to relay a traumatic incident months after the fact. He also feels he was coerced into changing the story.

“To me it was clear I was going to be held in that room… until they got what theywanted,” Stewart said at his appeal hearing Monday. But OCSO investigators determined the coercion claim was “not reasonable” because he was a deputy with two years of experience.

Though Stewart’s appeals were rejected, a captain tasked with reviewing his first appeal found the investigations were biased, as Stewart claimed, and the findings should have been overturned.

Capt. Susan Wallis noted investigators asked another deputy if Stewart may have “embellished” the incident, before that word had come up in interviews with Stewart. She also felt investigators were “accusatory and argumentative” with Stewart, while Mobley’s interviews were “cordial, calm, polite and professional.”

Wallis also found investigators did not press Mobley on questionable training practices he described using, like “frightening verbal commands” and changing his voice tone and speed to “intentionally induce stress.”

Without adequate explanation, Mobley’s admission that he used those methods “gives validity” to Stewart’s claim of having felt threatened, Wallis wrote.

Investigators also interviewed 16 deputies who were trained in recent years by Mobley. None said he ever pointed a gun or weapon at them, but three mentioned they had concerning interactions with him.

One said hewould “randomly start to yell,” almost causing her to crash her car, while two others said Mobley mentioned that if the deputies got into a physical fight, Mobley would watch until they were near death before helping, the report said.

Wallis said she was also concerned by the lack of separation between the two investigations: the criminal probe into whether Mobley had threatened Stewart and the administrative probe to determine if Stewart had lied. Both were conducted by the professional standards division, as is OCSO’s procedure, but assigned to different investigators. Wallis said Stewart was not quickly enough granted the rights that officers are afforded when they are under investigation. But Sheriff John Mina’s administration — which has the final say in all disciplinary decisions— overruled Wallis’ findings.

At Monday’s hearing, three OCSO officials voted to uphold the investigation and his termination.