A now-former Osceola County Sheriff's deputy was arrested Tuesday for his role in covering up his cousin's October domestic violence arrest.
Kevin Encarnacion, 27, has been charged with being an accessory after the fact and official police misconduct, both third-degree felonies, Sheriff Marcos Lopez said Tuesday. Third-degree felonies can carry a jail term of five years.
Lopez said Encarnacion had been suspended when the investigation began last month, and was formally terminated upon his arrest.
“I won’t tolerate any criminal activity as a law enforcement officer,” Lopez said at a press conference. “We have domestic violence victims who need to trust somebody in a uniform. This is a real rarity that this happens, here or across the nation.”
This stems from an incident on Oct. 2 when police allege that Enrique Davis, 28, Encarnacion’s cousin, argued with his wife, threatened to throw a brick at her outside their Kissimmee home, threw the brick through a nearby truck window, then fled the scene.
He was arrested Oct. 4 for aggravated assault, but Lopez said Encarnacion, a Tactical Flight Aviation squad member since 2017, exchanged information with Davis about how he was being pursued and how to evade arrest. Sheriff Lopez also noted he told deputies investigating the assault that the victim had mental health issues, trying to discredit her claim, researched evidence being collected and advised Davis not to pick up his phone.
“Now there’s a guy in my uniform, using my equipment, trying to help his family member get away with a crime. He used computer information in an unlawful manner and advised the location of investigating officers,” Lopez said, noting the victim discovered this was going on via an Apple Watch left at the scene.
“The victim is the hero here. If she hadn’t let us know this was happening, we would have probably never known that one of our own officers could have put other officers in danger.”
Through an investigation, Encarnacion was arrested at the Sheriff’s office Tuesday morning. He made a written request to keep his booking photo exempt from public record, and as of Tuesday afternoon was not listed among the jail population. He did not have an initial court date set.
Court records showed Davis bonded out on his charge on Oct. 6. County court records also show he was arrested in March on a misdemeanor domestic violence-battery charge and was on probation, but the October arrest resulted in additional violation of probation charges.
