A Sheriff's Office investigation begun after he was involved in a crash concludes the detective's motorcycle permit was a fake.
By Times Staff Writer
Published August 11, 2004
A Pasco County sheriff's detective resigned last month after a sergeant accused him of faking a motorcycle driving permit.
Detective Rafthel Morales was pulled over while off duty on his personal motorcycle by the Florida Highway Patrol earlier this year, sheriff's spokesman Kevin Doll said.
"That's what first piqued Sgt. (Brett) Landsberg's interest in making sure Morales had the correct permit," Doll said.
Later in the year, at the end of May, when Morales was in a motorcycle crash, the sergeant asked Morales to bring him a copy of his permit.
The detective showed up with a fraudulent permit that he had produced on a friend's computer, according to a report on the Sheriff's Office's internal investigation of the incident.
Morales, 25, had been with the agency since November 1999. He investigated juvenile crimes.
Sheriff's investigators have referred charges of forgery and possession of a fictitious driver's license to the State Attorney's Office, Doll said.
