Jeremy Dewitte, the Osceola County man who has made headlines for years in Osceola and Orange counties for impersonating law enforcement, has been sentenced to prison on other charges of failure to register new motor vehicle registration information as a past sexual offender, State Attorney Andrew Bain's office announced late Friday.
The maximum penalty for this conviction is five years in prison. However, the judge sentenced Dewitte to nearly seven years in prison because of his previous convictions, the Ninth Judicial Circuit said. Osceola County Jail records show he is currently in jail after his conviction by an Osceola County jury.
Dewitte, 44, has a dozen felony arrests across Orange and Osceola. They include lewd lascivious battery on a victim between the ages of 12-15, for which he was sentenced to a year in prison and forced to register as a Florida sex offender. Some of his other charges stem from impersonating law enforcement, as a number of agencies have cited him for his work escorting funerals on or in a marked "Metro-State Services" vehicles or motorcycles, complete with sirens and flashing lights. Others were for failing to register new addresses or vehicle registrations.
What eventually took him down was a failure to register the purchase of a new vehicle in October 2022 with law enforcement as a sex offender. During his trial, Dewitte’s defense argued he did not know about the requirement to register the vehicle with FDLE but then noted the defendant initially registered the vehicle as a multi-colored car. The law mandates that convicted sex offenders must register any vehicle modification, including color changes, with FDLE within 48 hours of the change. Dewitte failed to meet this requirement, the State Attorney's Office said.
After one of Dewitte's many Osceola County arrests in late 2022, Osceola Sheriff Marcos Lopez called him a "frequent flyer".
"The guy loves the attention apparently," Lopez said. "Hoping with these charges, he'll get a little more time (in jail). He went Youtube famous, stopping traffic all over. The guy's definitely out of control ...
