A police officer has been taken into custody in Florida.
The arrest of a Florida police officer charged with various felonies in connection with an alleged fraudulent plot to seize a deceased person’s home was revealed in a joint news statement by the Broward County Property Appraiser’s Office and the Broward Sheriff’s Office.
Brian Sguros, a Lauderhill Police Officer in Broward County, Florida, was arrested and charged with five counts of official misconduct, criminal use of deceased personal identification, criminal use of personal identification information, offense against a computer user, and unlawful use of a two-way communication device.
According to officials, on July 11, 2022, Brian Sguros arrived as a backup officer to do a welfare check at 4551 NW 12th Street in the City of Lauderhill after a neighbor reported not seeing the homeowner, Dennis West, for almost two weeks. West was discovered dead inside the apartment. A death investigation revealed that West died of natural causes.
According to the joint press statement, material emerged that led detectives to think that Sguros then took control of the decedent’s personal and financial affairs. Although no evidence was established that Sguros knew the deceased homeowner, records from the medical examiner’s office revealed that Sguros fraudulently identified himself as a friend of the deceased and claimed Mr. West had no living family. According to police, Sguros volunteered to make funeral arrangements and seized custody of the deceased’s body.
The investigation finally concluded that Sguros’ claimed activities were motivated by a desire to seize control of West’s most valuable asset, a Lauderhill mansion worth more than $400,000. Sguros allegedly used his position as a police officer to gain access and information that would not otherwise be available to him for personal gain.
Sguros is accused of taking possession of the decedent’s Florida driver’s license and using it in a fraudulent plan to give the impression that West was still alive. Sguros is also accused of forging the decedent’s signature on a notarized building permit application filed to the City of Lauderhill Building Department, as well as a contract issued to a company engaged to operate on the South Florida property.
Sworn statements revealed that Sguros’ activities were meant to give the impression that the decedent was still alive and had personally authorized the work on his residence. Further inquiry revealed that the notary whose notary seal appears on the documents did not recognize the materials and that the signature on the documents was not hers, according to law enforcement.
“We want to thank the Lauderhill Police Department who acted swiftly and requested the Broward County Property Appraiser’s Office Crimes Against Property Unit (CAP), which consists of detectives from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, Fort Lauderdale Police Department, Hollywood Police Department, FDLE, and seasoned BCPA civilian investigators, to conduct this investigation in an effort to ensure transparency and independence,” the joint press release between the Broward County Property Appraiser’s Office and the Broward Sheriff’s Office stated.
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