A Palm Beach County Sheriff's lieutenant was arrested Wednesday and charged with misconduct for trying to void a handful of traffic tickets, the state attorney's office said.
Michael Morris was released from jail on $5,000 bond. Morris, 41, and a six-year veteran of the force, was placed on administrative leave pending the results of the case, the sherriff's office said.
Morris was allegedly trying to help Mary Evans, the public relations manager for Belle Glade, authorities said.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Evans' daughter, Jamie, was pulled over by a PBSO deputy in November and she was issued five tickets.
Before the deputy could finish with the traffic stop, Evans called her brother, James Evans, who is a homicide detective with PBSO, the narrative read.
Morris got involved when Mary Evans called him on his cell phone 30 minutes after the traffic stop, the report alleged.
Evans told investigators she never called Morris and has no clue why her call logs show a phone call on the night of her daughter's traffic stop.
Local
Morris allegedly told the deputy to dismiss the five tickets and then asked a clerk for the original citations in order to erase the incident, prosecutors alleged.
The clerk made copies and alerted authorities of the suspicious activity, the report stated. When the clerk asked for the originals back, Morris said he had lost them and that they needed to be voided from the system, the report said.
