GILCHRIST COUNTY, Fla. — A former Gilchrist County Sheriff’s deputy is facing a host of charges after superiors determined she faked a dire COVID-19 hospitalization and swindled coworkers out of more than $3,700 in paid sick time as part of the scam.
Trent Freeman, 38, surrendered on Wednesday after a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation determined that she falsified documents supporting a phantom hospitalization and bilked fellow employees out of hundreds of donated hours of sick leave in the process, WCJB reported.
Freeman, who was ordered held on a $50,000 bond, has been charged with two counts of uttering a forged instrument and one count of scheme to defraud.
“No matter the circumstances or situation, we will strive to make sure our employees do the right thing at all times. This is an unfortunate situation, but this in no way represents the men and women as a whole who work at the Gilchrist County Sheriff’s Office,” Gilchrist County Sheriff Bobby Schultz stated in a news release posted to the office’s official Facebook page.
According to the TV station, the sheriff’s office asked the FDLE to intervene after Freeman’s medical filings failed to support her account of events.
“Obviously I’ve seen law enforcement officers get in trouble, to this magnitude of what she did and how she took advantage of the goodness of her fellow employees is saddening,” Schultz told WCJB.
Specifically, Freeman is accused of forging several doctors’ signatures over the span of about two months. Her fraud was first detected Oct. 5, and she was fired 10 days later, the TV station reported.
“Investigators found that, rather than being comatose in the hospital as she claimed, Freeman had in fact started working at a full-time private-sector non-law-enforcement job early in her scheme, one which she applied for prior to the filing of the initial fraudulent (Family Medical Leave Act) paperwork,” the news release stated.
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