An investigator with the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office has been arrested after he was accused of stealing the credit card information of at least one dead resident and using it transfer money to his own accounts.
According to a Broward County Sheriff's Office booking report, Darrell Fernando Reid, 38, was arrested on Jan. 19.
An arrest affidavit from the Coral Springs Police Department said that back on Oct. 21, Reid was among the officials called to an apartment located in the 9700 block of Westview Drive where there were reports of a foul smell.
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The victim had been dead for more than two weeks, the affidavit said.
During an investigation, the victim's wallet and it's contents are usually documented and examined, but three days after the man’s body was discovered, his daughter contacted police and said she found his debit card on a kitchen counter, the affifavit said.
She told officers that she checked his bank account and noticed that it had been accessed three times for $150 each.
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According to the arrest affidavit, police found the payments were linked to a CashApp account belonging to Reid and another to a woman, Shanika Wright.
Reid has been charged with three counts of criminal use of a dead person’s identification and one count of fraudulent use of a credit card.
From 2020 until Nov. 2023, Reid’s CashApp account listed 27 payment sources, including 25 debit and credit cards and two CashApp card, according to the arrest report.
In addition to the Oct. 21 victim’s card, investigators found another tied to someone who had recently died in Broward on Nov. 6.
The November victim’s credit card information was added to Reid’s CashApp account just 90 minutes after Reid was at the dead man’s house, according to the warrant.
Police also linked Reid’s CashApp account to the credit card of a man who died in New York City in December 2022, when Reid was an investigator for the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office.
