Police say a guy with a fake badge broke into a woman’s hotel room in Orlando, Florida, and robbed her while holding a gun to her head.
A press statement from the Orlando Police Department says that on August 23, police were called to a hotel on a busy stretch of Florida’s Sunshine State that is full of vacation resorts.
A woman told police that an unknown guy with a “badge” around his neck broke into her room and said he was a police officer. Police were told that the suspect put handcuffs on the victim, stole her wallet, and showed what looked like a gun in his pocket.
Hotel security video showed the suspect arriving on the hotel floor and a close-up of his fake ID, which backed up what the woman said.
Police found the suspect to be 27-year-old Michael Darren Jesse Rodriguez by watching surveillance tape.
Rodriguez, who is 27 years old, had done similar thefts at a Days Inn in Miami Springs and in Lantana, Florida, according to the police.
The Gwinnett County Police Department in Georgia caught Rodriguez on September 8, 2024, while he was driving the same car that was used in the Orlando and Lantana crimes.
Investigators from Orlando went to Georgia to search the suspects’ cars and found a fake police badge, handcuffs, and more evidence that was connected to both cases.
Orlando cops got a warrant out for Rodriguez’s arrest, and on Oct. 2, he was taken into custody.
Rodriguez was charged with robbery with a gun, false imprisonment with a gun, and impersonating an officer to commit a crime with a gun.
Police in Orlando asked anyone else who might have been harmed by Rodriguez to call them at 800-423-TIPS (8477).
Content Source: Man impersonating an officer forces way into Orlando hotel room, robs woman at gunpoint: police
