Orlando Sentinel

An Orange County

- By David Harris

Sheriff's deputy who was suspended and arrested on theft charges used stolen credit cards he took from a suspect to buy baby supplies, according to an arrest affidavit.

An Orange County Sheriff's deputy who was 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.

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 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.

Shehata told deputies that after he bonded out of jail, he had multiple text messages alerting him to fraudulent purchases on his credit cards at a Walmart and a Target in Osceola. Haddad and his wife were seen on surveillan­ce camera buying a baby crib, monitor and other supplies, the affidavit said.

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 elaborate.

A man who answered a phone registered to Haddad declined to comment.

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