A third Pinellas County sheriff's deputy has been arrested on charges of misusing automated license plate readers — also known as Flock cameras.
According to the sheriff's office, Deputy Ronald Scott resigned from the agency and was arrested last week on four felony charges of accessing information about his ex-wife, her boyfriend and others.
During a Thursday press conference, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said Scott started the illegal activity in February while the couple was separated and continued until just after their divorce around June.
"What was happening in this case was an emotional thing. I mean, that's really what it came down to,” Gualtieri said.
Meantime, similar charges were recently dropped against another former deputy after Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bruce Bartlett wrote in a court filing that Florida statutes “do not address the misconduct reported.”
The deputy, Karl Gwynee, was accused in September of using the database about 300 times to track a woman he'd arrested in hopes of dating her, Gualtieri said.
"There are some concerns and some, I'll say it mildly, disagreements about interpreting the elements of the statute,” Gualtieri said.
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The sheriff said he's comfortable he and Bartlett can work through the issue or else Scott wouldn't have been arrested.
Bartlett's office still plans to charge a third former deputy, Travis Stanton, with harassment by use of personal information.
Stanton, 33, was arrested the same day as Gwynee and accused of using the Flock databases to find a 17-year-old's address and photos, then visited her at a restaurant where she worked.
