SANFORD, Fla. – A Sanford police officer has been arrested as part of a fraud investigation in which he allegedly scammed the city, according to the police department.
In a release on Tuesday, police said that the investigation began back in July 2024, when the city’s finance department noticed some unpaid vendor accounts associated with 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 and charging the city on his time sheet for working them. This activity ranged from Oct. 1, 2023, through July 28, 2024.
As a result, Neal was ultimately taken into custody and now faces 79 counts of official misconduct, as well as a charge of organized fraud.
“Betrayed and disgusted do not come close to describing how I feel,” Police Chief Cecil 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 he was serving as an investigator in the Professional Standards Unit.