SANFORD, Fla. – A fired Sanford police officer has been arrested as part of a fraud investigation in which he allegedly scammed the city out of at least five figures, according to the police department.
Ronny Neal faces 79 counts of official misconduct and a charge of organized fraud.
“(In) 2013, I took over this job. My goal was to develop relationships, partnerships, rebuild trust in his organization and trust in this community. Someone who has been a trusted employee betrayed that trust,” Sanford police Chief Cecil Smith said during a news conference Wednesday.
The police department said Tuesday in a news release that the investigation began in July 2024, when the city’s finance department noticed some unpaid vendor accounts associated with Neal’s off-duty details.
“During this review, discrepancies and negative balances were found,” the release reads. “Over the course of the next year, the Finance Department began requesting invoices from vendors, and information from Ronny Neal, the Off-Duty Detail Coordinator, to reconcile the accounts.”
Issues with unresolved accounts continued to crop up, and by November 2025, investigators determined that the discrepancies could possibly stem from criminal activity, police added.
As such, a criminal investigation was launched, and on Dec. 9, Neal was relieved of duty and placed on administrative leave, the department revealed.
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It turned out, investigators said, that Neal had been creating fictitious off-duty details at the Lofts at Eden apartment complex and charging the city on his time sheet for working them.
This activity ranged from Oct. 1, 2023, through July 28, 2024, according to Chief Smith.
As a result, Neal was ultimately taken into custody and now faces 79 counts of official misconduct among his charges, one for each fraudulent shift he allegedly entered at the apartment complex.
“Betrayed and disgusted do not come close to describing how I feel,” Smith said. “He chose day after day to lie, cheat and steal from the community he took an oath to serve and protect, using his badge as a shield to hide his criminal acts. He has single-handedly tarnished the hard work and trust that the men and women of this agency have worked years to build and strengthen. We will do everything in our power to ensure he answers for every cent he stole and every lie he told.”
Police told News 6 that Neal was first hired by the department in January 2003 and was serving as an investigator in the Professional Standards Unit.
“He was an investigator in general crimes. He was an investigator in major crimes. He worked (as) the public information officer. He was in Professional Standards. He was a SWAT operator. He also was CVSA, which is our lie-detector guy — imagine that (expletive),” Smith said.
Neal submitted his resignation on Dec. 10, yet Smith said that Neal was terminated on Tuesday — instead of being allowed to resign — due to the prevailing circumstances in the case.
Though Smith could only describe a “substantial amount” when asked for the dollar amount of taxpayer money that Neal had allegedly made away with, he later added it was at least five figures.
A judge on Wednesday set Neal’s bond at $150,000.
Watch Chief Smith’s news conference again in the video player below or by clicking here: