CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. – A woman who reported a $450 theft in Coral Springs while she was grieving her father’s death helped to catch a serial thief who was hiding behind his work as an investigator for the medical examiner’s offices in Broward County and New York City, according to police.
The woman’s father was dead for about two weeks before police officers found him on Oct. 21, in the bathroom of apartment 1119 at 9777 Westview Drive, records show. Police officers gave the woman a key to the apartment.
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When she visited the apartment, she reported finding her father’s debit card on the kitchen counter and three fraudulent transactions on Oct. 23-24. A detective narrowed his list of suspects to eight police department employees, a removal transport services employee, and Darrell Reid Jr.
Sgt. Brian Koenig reported data from Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase Bank, CashApp, AT&T, and Comcast helped to identify the main suspect of this and other thefts as Reid, an investigator with the Broward County Office of Medical Examiner and Trauma Services, according to an arrest warrant in the case.
“He has engaged in a pattern of repeatedly stealing debit and credit card numbers and from death scenes and cases he was entrusted with investigating,” Koening wrote, according to the arrest warrant.
In the case of Coral Springs, “the fraudulent activity happened on an iPhone connected to the WIFI at [Reid’s] residence, approximately one and a half hours after [he] left the scene,” Koenig wrote as the investigation was ongoing and Reid, 38, lived in Pembroke Pines, records show.
Koenig reported evidence showed Reid had likely abused his access to the file of another death investigation in Broward, and during his work as an investigator for the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York, according to the arrest warrant.
Detectives questioned Reid on Jan. 16 and arrested him on Jan. 19, and prosecutors filed the case on Jan. 22, and he posted a $6,000 bond, court records show. Coral Springs police used Facebook to announce the arrest on Jan. 29 and ask the public for help.
Records show Reid is facing three counts of criminal use of personal identification information and one count of fraudulent use of a credit card in Broward County. Circuit Judge Edward Harold Merrigan Jr. was presiding over the third-degree felony case.
Koenig asked anyone with information related to this investigation or who suspects a related crime to reach him at Bkoenig@coralsprings.gov.