Florida cop used license plate reader to stalk woman he met on Apple TV show set

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Body camera footage obtained by 404 Media shows a police officer explaining why he used police databases and license plate reader cameras to research, stalk, and pull over a woman he met on the set of a TV show. "I mean, I saw a shiny thing, teasing and all that," the cop said in the footage. "I knew that when I put that [into the system], I was like ‘Fuck.’

404 Media obtained more than an hour of body camera footage that shows the investigation into Florida cop Lamar Roman , who met a woman on the set of the Apple TV show Bad Monkey, then illegally researched her using government department of motor vehicles databases, put her license plate on a police “hot list” that would notify him when she drove past an automated license plate reader camera, nearly caused a head-on collision while speeding to track her down, and illegally pulled her over after stalking her. We previously published footage from Roman’s police cruiser ; the new footage shows police station interviews with Roman about why he did what he did, an anonymized police station interview with the victim about his actions, and the eventual arrest of Roman in front of his home.

The detective investigating Roman told the man “you’ll get past this bro” during his arrest, and later told the victim that he was "remorseful" and urged her not to post about the incident on social media, according to body camera footage obtained by 404 Media.

The footage also shows that the investigator told the victim that “we’ve had deputies misuse databases, we’ve told them over and over again ‘that’s not what it’s for. You see a hot chick, you don’t look them up in a database. That’s not what it’s for.’”

The footage gives unprecedented insight into how and why abusive police use government spy tools including license plate reader cameras to surveil and stalk victims, how victims are informed of this surveillance, and how cops are treated when they are ultimately arrested for this crime. The footage is particularly notable as dozens of cops around the country have been caught abusing Flock and other ALPR systems to stalk ex wives, ex partners, and random people. When 404 Media wrote about this issue in early July, Flock claimed it was “aware of 15 incidents of abuse,” though we, local media, and a report by the Institute for Justice had found far more than that. The Washington Post then found “at least 50” incidents and, now, Flock’s CEO Garrett Langley is saying that its system has “caught a lot of bad cops. It’s a ton. It’s more than I ever would have hoped.” (Roman used an ALPR system called Guardian made by a company called Turing.)

'You see a hot chick, you don’t look them up in a database. That’s not what it’s for'

The most striking footage comes from an interview with the victim by detective Jenna Moeller, who investigated, questioned, and arrested Roman. Moeller is the one who informed the victim of the extent of the stalking. 404 Media is not naming the victim and changed her voice in the videos we've uploaded to protect her identity.

Moeller begins by telling the victim "I'm going to tell you some information. It may be upsetting."

Moeller tells the victim how, exactly, Roman found her, and said that this is not the first time she has investigated a case involving the police misuse of a database.

“He met you on the Bad Monkey set, he was flirting with you. He did use our databases to look you up. He looked you up multiple times to see who you were, where you live. Accessed your information, unfortunately. We have a system called DAVID, Department of Motor Vehicles,” Moeller says. “So it’s your driver’s license information, he looked at your signature, the vehicles you have, and your photo. I can tell he looked at vehicles and photos of each one to see if it was you. He then used a different system we have to run your name, your license plate number. Your address, date of birth. He accessed that the day of the filming.”

“The most concerning part to me, listen, we’ve had deputies misuse databases, we’ve told them over and over again, ‘That’s not what it’s for. You see a hot chick, you don’t look them up in a database. That’s not what it’s for,’” she says. “The more concerning part to me is we have what’s called license plate readers, LPR system, which is the camera’s positioned up and down the highway, and we use that for law enforcement. We have one highway, so if we’re looking for somebody, it makes it very easy to locate their vehicle. He put your tag in that, so he would be alerted when your vehicle was going one way or another.”

“Stop it,” the victim says, incredulously.

“So that, obviously, is very concerning to me. In my interview, he stated that’s how he knew your vehicle was moving that day. And he knew you were going to be headed south,” Moeller says. “He was looking for your vehicle to pull you over. Our in-car cameras do click on when you go over 70 [mph]. To catch up to your vehicle, he passed multiple cars to get behind you and initiate that stop.”

“It’s probably a lot to take in. But I will say he was very remorseful, he acknowledged it was dumb, acknowledged it was not the right thing to do,” she adds.

During the interview, the victim described her experience with Roman. She repeatedly told Moeller she felt uncomfortable throughout every interaction she had with him and that his advances were unwanted on set (a longer description of what happened and what Roman did is available in our earlier story).

“All the sudden, I’m driving, there’s steady traffic. And he cuts off a truck behind me, and immediately I’m like ‘This is him. I know it’s him.’ I could see him in my rear view mirror, and I’m like ‘He better not pull me over,’ and he pulled me over,” the victim tells Moeller in the footage.

“He came up to my passenger window, and I had my window rolled down and I’m like ‘I knew it was you, does all my information pop up on your screen?’ And he was like ‘I told you I would find you and pull you over,” she says. “And I was hoping your boyfriend was with you so I could pull him out and give him a hard time.’”

“And he was like ‘Why aren’t you following me on Instagram?’ and I was like ‘I’m late,’” she said. “He kept looking around my car and I was like ‘Can I please go?,’ and then he finally let me go […]I had this moment where I had my phone in my hand, and I could have started recording, or I could have popped off, but then it’s like, it’s my word against a police officer. And I just felt like I wasn’t in power in that situation.”

Moeller and the victim then discuss what it would mean to press charges, the fact that Roman’s body camera was not on when he pulled her over, and what it might be like to testify at a trial. Moeller tells her that he had been fired and that he lost access to police databases; the victim wonders if that might make him upset or if she’d be blamed. At the end of the interview, Moeller asks the victim not to post about the incident on social media until her investigation is over.

“It’s unsettling to all of us. I am glad that our agency found out about it relatively quickly, took action. Those are in my opinion, all positives. This is not something that’s getting swept under the rug,” Moeller says. “Other than that, I know you have a big social media following. I can’t tell you what to post or not post, but if you could refrain from posting anything until my investigation is over, I would appreciate it. Just so it doesn’t hinder anything else. I don’t think it would, but it just makes my life a little easier.” The two agree it would be a good “story time” on social media but the victim says she won’t post anything.

'I Saw a Shiny Thing'

In Moeller’s police station interview with Roman, he admits to “hitting on” and “flirting” with the victim on the Bad Monkey set—“she was kind of teasing,” he said. (The victim told Moeller that she was deeply uncomfortable the whole time, and that he was harassing her.) Roman says after he met her he looked her up in DAVID and MNI, another police database, which he knew was illegal: “Right when I did that, I was like, ‘fuck, what did I do?,’” he says.

“When you pulled her over, did you know it was her?,” Moeller asks him.

“Yes,” he says.

“Did you have a legal reason to pull her over?” Moeller says.

“No,” he says.

When asked what his “goal” with the hotlist was, Roman says “I think just meeting someone like that, getting the high from it. She was leading on. It was one of those things where, she was kind of pushing it.”

Later in the interview, another cop walks into the room and sits out of camera shot and tells Roman to “not let it get to you,” and said “of all the people I expected to be sitting down with here, it wasn’t you. I thought you were pretty good out there, so I wasn’t expecting this. It caught me off guard by a long shot. Nobody’s perfect. Everyone has their own issues no matter who they are.”

Before the interview ends, Roman says to Moeller and the other officer, “I just apologize for you guys having to do this. I mean, I saw a shiny thing, teasing and all that. I knew that when I put that [into the system], I was like ‘Fuck,’ and I stopped right after and nothing else.”

“Oh, I get it man. Life’s full of decisions. Some are good, some are bad, what I can tell you from 10 years of doing this job and doing a bunch of things in my life is that, regardless of what it is, you can always move past things,” Moeller says. “In life, time is relative, and you know, this will be a speed bump in a few years.”

'You'll Get Past This Bro'

404 Media also obtained footage from when Roman was arrested several days later at his home. The footage shows that Roman was allowed to make several phone calls before being arrested as he loiters on the sidewalk. Eventually, he is handcuffed and put in the back of a police SUV. Moeller tells him “Roman, I’m sorry man, it is what it is, we’re here now. But remember what I said. It’s a speed bump, OK? In the scheme of things, you’ll get past this bro. Alright, I wish you the best of luck. Keep your head up man.”

Roman was eventually charged with counts of stalking and improperly accessing government databases. He avoided jail time as part of a plea deal .