OPD officer avoids stalking protective order

Judge won’t grant woman’s request, but police investigating

A judge on Monday dismissed the request from a female employee at the Orlando Police Department for a protective order against stalking from an officer at the agency, citing insufficient evidence in the case.

However, OPD recently opened an internal investigation into Officer Richard Roman, whom the woman accused of repeatedly following and threatening her, refusing to accept the end of their relationship, according to her initial request for protection.

At the injunction hearing Monday morning, Ninth Circuit Senior Judge Lawrence Kirkwood said a protective order for stalking has “particular requirements,” and the woman failed to present evidence to meet the standard. He did not give any more reasoning for his decision.

The Sentinel is not naming the woman because she was identified in court records as the victim of alleged stalking and harassment.

While the domestic violence injunction case has been dismissed, OPD spokesperson Autumn Jones confirmed Roman is currently under investigation at the law enforcement agency.

When the Sentinel first wrote about the stalking petition in mid-March — a few weeks after the woman filed for protection and after she said she had reported Roman to OPD — Jones said the agency had not opened a probe into Roman’s actions or the case.

“As with all incidents, when additional information comes forward, the Orlando Police Department responds accordingly,” Jones said in a statement Tuesday. Jones declined to answer further questions about the scope of the probe, citing the ongoing investigation.

Roman, however, remains on active duty, and is still assigned to his post at the airport, Jones said.

In the hearing Monday, the woman said Roman had been following and harassing her for

a “very, very long time,” putting her in substantial emotional distress. At one point last month, she considered dropping the case because Roman had stopped contacting her after she filed for protection in February, but when she emailed him to let him know, she said he responded with threats.

“I didn’t want to deal with it anymore, but then once he started sending me these emails saying, ‘You better drop this,’ ... I’m like, he’s not getting it, he’s just trying to intimidate me like he’s always done and I’m tired of that,” she said.

David Bigney, Roman’s attorney, pointed out that the woman had initiated contact with Roman in that scenario, and also questioned the strength of the evidence from her testimony. Though he agreed they had been in a “rocky relationship,” he said the evidence did not prove there had been stalking.

The woman was not represented by an attorney in the hearing.

In the hearing, she described multiple incidents where she believed Roman had stalked or harassed her in recent months, though Bigney questioned the evidence in every scenario.

In one instance, she said she was leaving her friend’s apartment complex when she noticed Roman’s car, which followed her back to her own neighborhood. Bigney pointed out that the woman hadn’t seen Roman in the car or confirmed his license plate, making it difficult to prove it was him.

She also mentioned a trip the pair had planned to take in January, but later canceled after a disagreement. She said the weekend they were supposed to be away, Roman claimed he went to the hotel to find her and was “non-stop calling, non-stop texting” her, leaving 138 messages and 8 voicemails during a fourhour span. Bigney said the evidence presented lacked proof as the woman did not actually see Roman there and had only his statements in his text messages to show that he traveled there.

She also mentioned another trip in which she traveled with family to Tampa, and at one point, she turned around to find Roman behind her. Bigney argued that the woman had told Roman she would be in another place, so it wasn’t clear he was there to find her.

Bigney told the court that Roman had moved in with the woman and paid her rent for a few months last year, and pointed out she did not try to evict him or call the police that he was trespassing. Bigney also said the couple often got back together after disagreements, but she refuted that.

“No, we did not . ... I didn’t have a choice, he would not leave my house,” the woman said. “... He slept in my bedroom, I slept in the living room or another room because that’s how bad it was. I did not have any peace of mind in my house.”

Bigney chalked the case up to “confusion” in their relationship, instead of stalking or harassing.

“I have no doubt that the [woman] does not want to have contact with Mr. Roman, but over and over again that contact is accepted, if not initiated by, the [woman],” Bigney said in the hearing.

But the woman said there was no confusion, as she repeatedly told him she didn’t want to be with Roman any longer.

“He basically forced himself into my house just to have control over me, because that’s what he does,” the woman said. “... I didn’t keep going back with him, I never had a choice.”

She also said that Roman had, at one time, threatened to kill her if they separated, and told her he wouldn’t spend a day in jail if he did so. When she considered dropping the case last month, she wrote to the court that Roman had recently stopped contacting her, and that “asking for help and filing this petition was the worst thing I could have done in my situation,” court records show. She also mentioned Monday that reporters had called her about the case and knocked on her door, and she was upset her personal life had become the news.

“I was tired,” she said. “This man put me through this emotional abuse and now I’m having to have to deal with all this stuff.”

But she said when Roman emailed her threats, including that she should “be ready to deal with what’s coming for a long time,” she decided to pursue the injunction, not wanting to give in to his “intimidation.” She also said she later found out OPD had told him not to contact her, yet he continued to email her.

Jones declined to answer questions about if OPD had issued a no-contact order, citing the ongoing investigation into Roman.

The woman said she provided the emails from Roman to the judge, but they were not available for public review in court records.

In her initial petition, the woman said deputies responded to her home in February — a few days before she filed the petition for protection — when her supervisor called 911 after overhearing Roman screaming at her. The Orange County Sheriff ’s Office confirmed it responded to her home for a “verbal” issue but the agency did not complete a report.

Roman has been an officer with OPD since 2004.