You hear about identity theft all the time, but usually a police officer isn’t the one doing the stealing.
A Florida police officer who found a man dead during a welfare check in 2022 is accused of taking possession of the man’s home and impersonating him for years while fixing up the place, authorities said.
The officer said he took possession of the property weeks after discovering the homeowner’s body to “prevent squatters from taking control of it,” according to a court document he filed.
“Smell test” failed.
Investigators in South Florida have accused Lauderhill police officer Brian Sguros of carrying out a “complex scheme” to take control of the $400,000 home. They say he made it appear the man was still alive by using his identification to pay taxes on the property and obtain permits to make repairs.
Sguros was arrested this week and charged with five felonies, including official misconduct and criminal use of deceased personal identification. He appeared in court at a brief hearing on Wednesday and then dashed away from reporters outside.
Messages seeking comment were left Thursday with one of his attorneys and Sguros, who has been suspended from his job.
Court documents in a related civil case show that the officer’s attempt to take possession of the two-story house in a tidy neighborhood just outside Fort Lauderdale became known after a real estate group bought the house from the man’s relatives in 2025.
Sguros said in an affidavit that in August 2022 — less than a month after he found Dennis West dead inside the Lauderhill home — he took possession of the property and spent the next 2 1/2 years making repairs, spending more than $200,000 of his own money.
So not only did he commit fraud, his fraud is going to lose him $200K.
He said the house had been filled with trash, that its roof was partially collapsed and that the structure was unstable.
Sguros said in another court document that he took over the property “believing that by cleaning, securing, and restoring a dangerous and abandoned residence he was acting lawfully and responsibly to protect the surrounding community.”
Sure he did.
He argued that he made no attempts to hide what he was doing.
But investigators with Broward County Sheriff’s Office said the deception began when the officer told the county medical examiner that he was friends with West, who had died of natural causes, and that the man had no family, which was not true.
Sguros paid taxes and utilities at the home in West’s name, and forged his signature to get permits for work at the home, the sheriff’s office said. Investigators said Sguros also used his access to law enforcement databases to find information about West.
Usually the way this sort of fraud works is that someone stealing the dead person’s ID keeps cashing their Social Security or disability checks. That sort of fraud can be profitable until you get caught. But stealing a crappy house and putting your own money into it in hopes you won’t be detected (deeply unlikely, given how much paperwork goes into real estate transactions) isn’t.
Committing a crime that involves years of negative cash flow offends both Florida law and Dave Ramsey.
And what did this house look like?
There’s nothing about that house that screams “jackpot” to me. And if it’s after he put $200,000 into it, it still looks like crap.
Crime doesn’t pay. Especially poorly thought-out crime…
