23. The Deputy (Frankie Bybee)

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No waiting room can wait.

6740 needs a boss with response.

1040, do you need a second unit?

Yeah, right, Sergeant.

But I'm off the gravel road that runs between the MF plant and Honey Road.

6740, your status.

Fox Lake unit 6740, checking your status.

Fox Lake units on Hony, checking status on 6740.

On September 1st, 2015, at 7.52 in the morning, Lieutenant Charles Joseph Glenowitz, a 30-year veteran of the Fox Lake Police Department, reported to his dispatcher that he was investigating suspicious activity near the abandoned cement plant in Fox Lake, Illinois.

He described seeing three male suspects, two white and one black, fleeing on foot towards the swampy area near the border of Wisconsin.

He contacted the dispatcher again three minutes later and requested backup.

That was the last time anyone heard Lieutenant Glenowitz's voice.

When backup patrol officers arrived at the scene, they discovered Joe Glenowitz's body lying motionless on the ground about 50 yards away from his cruiser.

He had been shot twice with his own gun.

The first bullet hit Glenowitz's lower abdomen and had been partially blocked by his bulletproof vest and the cell phone he wore on his hip.

The second bullet hit him fatally in the chest just underneath the top of his protective vest.

Near Glenowitz's body, police found his department-issued pepper spray and baton.

His eyeglasses had fallen off as well.

Obvious signs of a physical struggle, but no suspects in sight.

The police officers at the scene requested all hands on deck to search the woods and marshy areas surrounding the plant.

Federal and state agencies sent sent in reinforcements.

An all-out manhunt was underway for the men who killed their brother in blue.

More than 400 law enforcement officers searched on foot.

Some were canine units, others were on horseback or all-terrain vehicles.

Helicopters patrolled from above, equipped with night vision technology and body heat sensors.

They had covered every square inch of two square miles for over two months, but the three suspects never found.

The investigation would continue, but the search was over for now.

Lieutenant Charles Joseph Glenowitz, who was only one month away from retirement when he was killed, received a hero's funeral.

Thousands of people people gathered to honor the 52-year-old father of four who gave his life protecting his community.

The crowd reflected on his military service and his consistent fashion choice of army fatigues and the origin of his nickname G.I.

Joe.

His colleagues reflected on Joe's 30 years of public service as a police officer and all of the lives he had touched during his career.

This is Fox Lake Mayor Donny Schmidt.

There's several people in our town you cut us.

We bleed Flaxlake Blue.

Joe was one of them.

He devoted his entire life to the community.

And

every time I saw him, I said, hey, Joe, let me use your gun.

And

he always told me negative.

And

when you got done, you told him something, he roger that.

Every morning he said he was vertical and caffeinated.

And,

you know, these are just the things about Joe I'm going to miss, you know.

At an emotional vigil held in Lieutenant Glenowitz's honor, his widow Melody told the crowd that more than anything, Joe would be remembered as a loving husband and father.

She tried to express how much he would be missed by his family.

Joe was my best friend, my world, my hero,

the love of my life for the last 26 and a half years.

He was the most wonderful, caring, and loving father to our boys.

He will truly be missed by all of us.

Joe's son, DJ, echoed his mother's sentiments.

I didn't just lose a father.

I didn't lose just a coach.

I didn't lose a trainer or mentor.

You know, most importantly, my father was my best friend.

Lieutenant Joe Glenowitz would be remembered as a hero, and rightfully so.

But before he was even buried, members of the media and politicians would use his death as a wedge.

to further divide an already racially and politically divided country.

An article on InfoWars, the far-right conspiracy website owned by Alex Jones, wondered if Glenowitz's murder was, quote, another violent result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Lloyd Green at the Daily Beast wrote, Look around, history can repeat itself.

This past week, three men gunned down Police Lieutenant Joe Glenowitz in the president's adopted home state of Illinois, even as people were mourning the execution-style killing of Darren Goforth, a Harris County, Texas sheriff's deputy.

Yet Obama and his party appear helpless, hostages to the same demographic forces they courted and then rode to power.

Senator Ted Cruz from Texas, in reference to Glenowitz's death, said the following, quote,

cops across this country are feeling the assault.

They're feeling the assault from the president from the top on down as we see, whether it's in Ferguson or Baltimore.

The response of senior officials of the president, of the attorney general, is to vilify law enforcement.

That is fundamentally wrong, and it is endangering the safety and security of us all.

Those people and many more who were quick to politicize the death of Lieutenant Glenowitz probably should have waited until the investigation was completed.

On November 4th, 2015, a press conference was held to announce the conclusion of the investigation.

and to reveal newly discovered details about the case.

This is Lake County Major Task Force Commander George Filenco.

We're here this morning to wrap up the investigation into the death of Lieutenant Charles Joseph Glenowitz.

This extensive investigation has concluded with an overwhelming amount of evidence that Glenowitz's death was a carefully staged suicide.

A carefully staged suicide.

But why?

We have determined this staged suicide was the end result of extensive criminal acts that Glenowitz had been committing.

In fact, he was under increasing levels of personal stress from scrutiny of his management of the Fox Lake Police Explorer Unit.

The Police Explorer Unit is a program for adolescents who are considering careers in law enforcement.

The program provided up-close experience and training alongside law enforcement officers like Joe Glenowitz, who oversaw the Fox Lake chapter.

Joe would stage crime scenes, what a coincidence, and teach the kids about certain aspects of the job.

Joe was responsible for the lessons and equipment related to the program.

He was also solely responsible for the program's finances.

After 25,000 man hours and $300,000, A major break in the case revealed itself in thousands of pages of financial documents and 6,500 pages of deleted deleted text messages from Joe Glenowitz's phone.

Investigators had determined that Joe Glenowitz had been stealing and laundering money from the Police Explorer program for over seven years, and that at least two other individuals knew about it and participated with him.

Joe had spent tens of thousands of dollars of the program's funds on personal expenses, travel expenses, mortgage payments, gym memberships, and memberships to pornographic websites.

And he had forged signatures on official documents to cover up his improprieties.

However, when the new Fox Lake Village Administrator, Anne Marin, announced that she would be conducting an audit of the Fox Lake Police Explorer unit, Joe began to panic.

In a text message sent to someone referred to as Individual Number Two in the released transcripts, Joe laments about a failed attempt at ending the department's sponsorship of the program and considers what would happen if he got caught.

Quote, Chief won't sign off to move it to American Legion, Legion, and if she gets a hold of the old checking account, I'm pretty well fucked.

Joe tells that same individual number two that they should start dumping money into the Police Explorer checking account as soon as possible, or that they would be visiting him in jail.

All caps, two exclamation marks.

At one point, Joe became so desperate for a way out that he even considered hiring a member of a local motorcycle gang to kill the woman who was performing the audit.

Joe told an unidentified friend in a Facebook message that Anne Marin's body might, quote, end up in a swamp.

Again, what a coincidence.

The investigation had also obtained Joe Glenowitz's personnel file from his three decades as a police officer, and what it contained was not pretty.

Joe had been suspended at least five times for multiple infractions.

There had been allegations of sexual assault.

He had even threatened an emergency dispatcher with his gun one time.

All of this was swept under the rug and kept in-house.

Chalk another one up to the boys in blue.

There are no winners here.

Glenowitz committed the ultimate betrayal to the citizens he served and the entire law enforcement community.

The facts of his actions prove he behaved for years in a manner completely contrary to the image he portrayed.

The only aspect of Joe Glenowitz's public life that seemed to be true was his love for his family.

He loved his wife and son so much that he included them in his fraud.

Individuals number one and number two in the text message transcripts are his wife Melody and his son DJ, respectively.

Melody was later indicted on four counts of dispersing charitable funds without authority and for personal benefit.

She pleaded not guilty and is currently awaiting trial.

Joe's son DJ has not been charged.

Lieutenant Joe Glinowitz is proof that merely wearing a uniform and a badge does not make one a hero, because clearly, Joe Glinowitz was no hero.

Joe Glinowitz was a coward who was afraid to face the same justice system that he had been championing for 30 years.

Joe Glinowitz was a coward who stole money meant to be used to prepare children to follow in his footsteps.

Joe Glinowitz brought shame to his department, to his community, and to his family.

And so did Frankie Bybee, another law enforcement officer who dishonored the badge in the name of greed.

A deputy sheriff in Florida befriends an elderly woman in need for the sole purpose of his own financial gain on this episode of Swindled.

They bribed government officials to hide accounting for clear violations of equity state law clearly unethical.

You'd take tens of millions of dollars,

dummied up its books

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The growth of Sarasota from a small, sleepy fishing village to a modern, prosperous city has been the creation of many men and women.

Their devoted efforts over the years have projected the ideals of the past into the present to ensure that Sarasota shall continue to be a place of beauty and contentment.

When Marcia Soule retired, she made the decision to leave her home state of Oklahoma for the sunnier skies of Sarasota, Florida.

Marcia had heard about the active and welcoming community that the state provided for retirees, and she was looking forward to spending her golden years living the life that she saw on all the brochure shores.

But after a few decades in Sarasota, Marcia's soul's mental and physical health had taken a turn for the worse.

She was 79 years old and chronically ill.

She only had a few friends and lived alone in a house that she rarely left.

She required a walker and sometimes a wheelchair to get around.

Marcia had fallen into a deep depression.

She had spent most of her golden years wasting away in a recliner in front of the television.

On October 21st, 2016, Marcia's soul picked up her phone and called her primary caregiver, Dr.

Brad Lerner, at his office and described to him the darkness that had overtaken her life.

She told him she was seriously considering ending it all soon, and that she had a plan to sit in her running car in a closed garage and let the carbon monoxide fill her lungs.

The only thing that was stopping her, she told him, was JJ, her two-year-old full-blooded Yorkshire terrier that she absolutely adored.

Marcia told her doctor that JJ was the only thing in her life that made it worth living.

This is Dr.

Lerner confirming that conversation.

Yes, Marsha and I had a conversation where she called and told me that she was very seriously considering committing suicide.

She specifically had planned to go in the garage, turn on her car, and die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

At that time, the only thing that she said that was stopping her from doing that was her dog.

Dr.

Lerner handed the phone to a nearby nurse who continued to engage with Miss Soule while he alerted the police on a different line.

After hearing Dr.

Lerner's concerns that his patient might be suicidal, the dispatcher on the other end agreed to send an officer to perform a welfare check, and a few minutes later, a Sarasota County deputy sheriff was knocking on Marsha Soule's front door.

That sheriff was 46-year-old Frankie Eugene Bybe.

He had been working for the Sheriff's Department for over 18 years.

Bybee was a military veteran who had returned to his home state of Florida after being discharged in the early 90s to begin working in law enforcement and to start a family.

He married a German woman named Heike, with whom he had three sons named Cole, Nicholas, and Samuel.

By all appearances, Deputy Frankie Bybey was an upstanding family man and a self-admitted man of faith.

Two aspects of his character that would help him reason with Marcia's soul.

When he entered the home, Deputy Bybey was greeted immediately by JJ, the terrier.

Bybe scooped up the dog and walked towards Marcia's soul, who he found seated in her favorite chair on the phone with her doctor.

Marcia was responsive but despondent, so Frank Bybey convinced her to seek help at a hospital and offered to give her a ride.

Ms.

Soul was hesitant to accept the offer because she didn't want to leave JJ behind, so Dr.

Lerner's wife offered to watch the dog for a few days until she was released.

Deputy Frankie Bybey then gave Marcia's soul a ride to Sarasota Memorial Hospital.

Frankie Bybey made sure Marcia's soul was properly admitted and comfortable in her hospital room.

He grabbed her hands and bowed his head, and the two of them said a prayer together before he said goodbye.

A few days later, the Sarasota Sheriff's Office received a message from Marcia Soule.

She wanted to commend Frank Bybey for going beyond the call of duty.

She explained how the kindness that he exuded during her time of need really helped her get back on her feet, and for that she would be forever grateful.

Frank Bybey responded by visiting Marcia Soule at her house to return the gratitude.

The two of them exchanged phone numbers and communicated frequently in the following weeks through text messages and phone calls.

Bybey would stop by Marcia's house every now and then while on and off duty just to check on her.

He even brought his sons over to Miss Soule's house to meet her on at least one occasion.

Marcia Soule's retirement seemed to be back on track, although her physical condition had not improved.

She told Dr.

Lerner that she felt happy because she had received two invitations to Thanksgiving.

Frank Bybe had even invited her to accompany him and his family to Busch Gardens to see the Christmas lights.

Neighbors said Marcia seemed to be taking better care of herself.

She even cleaned out her messy garage with Deputy Bybey's help.

For the first time in a long time, Marsha's soul seemed happy to be alive.

But then, on December 28, 2016, at about 8:30 p.m.,

Dr.

Lerner received an email from Marsha that ended the assumption that everything was alright.

The email read,

I am going to kill myself tonight, and it will be your fault.

I'm tired of you and your pretty little bitchy slut wife.

Thanks for all your help.

This email surprised Dr.

Lerner for a few reasons.

For one, he was under the impression that Marshall Soul's mental health was improving.

And two, he thought his wife and Marsha got along rather well.

Every interaction he witnessed between the two of them seemed pleasant enough.

His wife had even watched her dog while she was away.

Dr.

Lerner was no stranger to Marshall Soul's abrasive language, but he he did not understand why it would be directed at his wife.

Something must be very wrong.

I was on a vacation.

I called my office, advised them that I got this email threatening to kill herself, and asked that one of my associates in the practice follow up on that and see about having her baker acted again.

The Baker Act, also known as the Florida Mental Health Act of 1971, allows for the involuntary institutionalization and examination of of an individual in the state of Florida if that individual is showing signs of mental illness or is in danger of self-harm, harm to others, or self-neglect.

The act can be initiated by judges, law enforcement, or physicians.

So, Dr.

Lerner, based on the email that demonstrated both of those criteria, recommended that Marsha be evaluated whether she agreed to it or not.

Once again, Marcia Soule's main concern was what would happen to her dog JJ while she was away.

Luckily, she had a friend on the force that would ease all of her fears.

Marcia's new friend, Frank Bybe, volunteered to watch her most prized possession.

She handed Bybe two checks for $1,000 each.

One was for car repairs that Frank promised he would take care of for her, and the other was for medical care for JJ if, God forbid, anything might happen to him.

Frank Bybey watched from Marsha's doorstep as his friend was taken away to a rehabilitation center where she would remain for the next two weeks.

He placed JJ in the backseat of a squad car and sped away from her house and drove directly to the bank.

He cashed the two $1,000 checks and deposited the money into his personal account.

Back in his car, Frank opened his laptop and made a post on Craigslist.

Within days, he had sold JJ to a new owner.

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On January 9th, 2017, a white legal-sized envelope with Frank Bybey's business card taped to the front was delivered to the Sarasota Sheriff's Department.

The return address was from Marcia Soule.

Inside were four checks with the old woman's signature that totaled $65,000.

One for $50,000 was addressed to Frank Bybey.

The other three were for $5,000 each and were made out to each of Bybey's sons who were 16, 12, and 3 years old at the time.

Those four checks never made it to Frank Bybe.

Instead, they were intercepted by detectives from the Sarasota Sheriff's Department and taken to Marcia's Soule to verify.

Marcia confirmed that the checks were hers but denied ever signing them or sending them.

She pointed out the fact that the signature on the checks contained her middle name, something that she claimed she never did.

Sarasota detectives had not confiscated that envelope by chance.

The truth is they had been watching Deputy Bybe's every move since December 20th, 2016, because Marcia Soule had reported him for harassment.

Marcia said that in the two months she had known Frank Bybe, he had become increasingly controlling.

She said he had inserted himself into all of her personal affairs and that he had inquired about her longtime health and financial accounts.

She told the detectives about the two checks for $1,000 that Bybey cashed and kept.

She told them about the arrangement for him to watch JJ.

She told them about how he had sold her dog on Craigslist.

Frank Bybe was placed on paid administrative leave while the investigation continued, and it wasn't the first time that he had been disciplined at work.

This man in a position of authority apparently had a recurring problem with authority.

In 2008, Bybe had been suspended for not following proper law enforcement procedures.

In 2015, Bybey was suspended again for lying to his supervisors.

In response to the harassment investigation, Bybey was told to keep his distance from Marsha's soul.

an order that Bybe had no issue with since, according to him, this was all a big misunderstanding.

Much ado about nothing.

However, Frank Bybey's promises and denials didn't mean much, seeing as how he would be in contact with Marcia's soul less than three days after the failed delivery of the forged checks.

On January 12th, 2017, around 2.30 in the morning, the unlocked front door of Marcia Soul's home creaked open.

Marcia was sitting in her chair, dozing off in front of her TV, when she saw a man wearing dark clothes and a baseball cap and blue latex gloves enter her home.

Marcia could tell from his approach that the man was angry.

He was cursing and berating her about some kind of internal investigation.

As he got closer, from the illumination of the TV screen, she was able to recognize that man as Deputy Frank Bybey.

Frank mounted Marcia while she remained seated in her recliner.

He placed his knee on her pelvis to keep her from moving and violently grabbed her face and placed a hand over her mouth.

Marcia struggled to breathe.

She could taste the rubber from the gloves and the blood from her teeth and gums.

Then he pushed and he shoved and he left a permanent red mark on my nose.

And I kept moving around trying to get away and kept waiting to see the white light that you're supposed to see before you die.

Bybey removed a pillow from the recliner and placed it over Marcia's face.

He used all of his strength in an attempt at smothering the old woman to death, but she never lost consciousness.

Bybe grew frustrated.

He gave up and threw the pillow aside and reached for a white pill bottle that was sitting on a nearby end table.

He forcefully opened Marcia's mouth and dumped the contents of the bottle inside.

It was a prescription tranquilizer medication that Marcia used to aid her sleep.

Bybe forced her to swallow the pills and release his grip.

The last thing Marcia remembers from that night is begging Frank to leave her alone while watching him cover his tracks.

I started saying, Oh, Frank, please, please stop.

Go away.

Don't hurt me anymore.

And he got busy cleaning up the blood that was on the floor.

When Marcia's soul regained consciousness a few hours later, around four in the morning, she heard a faint rumbling coming from her garage.

Bloody faced and barely coherent, she struggled to her feet and walked into her kitchen.

She noticed that the door connecting her house to the garage was open, but the garage door was closed.

And that noise she heard was coming from her idling car, which was filling the inside of her house with carbon monoxide.

Marcia stumbled towards the phone and called the cops.

On January 16th, detectives interviewed Frank Bybey with his lawyer present for over two hours about his relationship and interactions with Marcia's soul.

One of the first questions asked was about the $65,000 worth of checks that arrived to the sheriff's office that were addressed to him.

Frank Bybey claimed to have no knowledge of these checks.

My apologies for the terrible quality of this recording.

Did you write the checks?

No.

Did you send these checks to the sheriff's office?

No.

Would your DNA or fingerprints be on any of these checks?

No.

Some of the checkpoints are very important, but

otherwise no.

If you couldn't hear that, Frank Bybey denied writing or sending the checks, and he said that there shouldn't be any reason that his DNA or fingerprints would be found on them.

Frank did, however, admit to cashing the two checks for $1,000.

They were for car repairs and health expenses for Marcia's dog, but he said he spent that money for its intended purposes.

When asked about Marsha's soul's latest allegations that he tried to kill her, Frank Bybey told the detectives that Marcia was an 80-year-old woman with mental issues who was trying to set him up.

He said that in the past, she had threatened to report him if he didn't agree to do certain things for her, like clean out her garage.

But this is a whole nother level.

So, why?

What would be her motivating factor to

do this?

If she did fall and she's got a busted-up face,

why would the call come in at 5:30 in the morning saying

had come over

and

you were angry

and now she has these injuries and it's your fault that you did this to her?

I don't know.

I mean, all I can say is it kind of

maybe she's trying to set me up also.

Maybe she's got something going on.

I don't know what's in her head.

I can't tell you.

But

she's 80 years old.

She's got some issues obviously, a lot deeper than I thought.

The Sarasota County Sheriff's Department also interviewed the officer that was the first to arrive at Marsha's house on the night that Frank Bybey allegedly tried to kill her.

23-year-old Deputy Carson Plank said she did not see anything out of the ordinary at the victim's home to cause her to believe in an attempted murder had occurred, and she denied having any contact with Frankie Bybey immediately before or after the incident.

Deputy Plank was interviewed a second time three days later, and she was confronted with evidence to prove that she had had lied.

Investigators had gained access to text messages between Bybey and Plank that were sent on the night in question.

One sent by Deputy Plank read, quote, Frankie, she said you tried to kill her.

Three minutes later, Deputy Plank followed up that message with another that read, quote, we squashed it.

Investigators also confronted Deputy Plank with a photograph of the crime scene that she had sent to Frank Bybey.

It was a photograph of a hare with blood on the follicle, a photograph that Deputy Plank had never submitted into evidence.

With the proof of her lies in front of her, Carson Plank had no other choice but to come clean.

She admitted that she had lied, and she told detectives that she had tipped Bybey off about the types of questions she had been asked during the first interview.

Deputy Carson Plank was arrested and charged with tampering with evidence and providing false information to law enforcement.

She was fired from the Sarasota Sheriff's Sheriff's Department four months later.

As the investigation continued, detectives were able to unearth even more incriminating evidence against Frank Bybee.

Surveillance video obtained from grocery stores and convenience stores in Sarasota and surrounding counties showed Bybey in uniform and on duty using Marcia Soule's debit card to withdraw cash from ATMs.

Detectives also discovered that Bybey had gained access to Marcia's PayPal account, which he used in combination with her name and and email address to purchase over $1,000 worth of automotive equipment.

It was the same email address that Bybey had used to send the fake suicide note to Dr.

Lerner.

Investigators had determined that Bybey used his knowledge of the legal system to have Marsha's soul committed under the Baker Act so that he could take advantage of her financially.

At 7 a.m.

this morning, deputies of the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office arrested Frankie Eugene Bybee, an 18-year Sheriff's Office employee, after allegations of harassment by a 79-year-old Sarasota woman led to a criminal investigation and felony charges.

Bybe's actions were first called into question on December the 20th, 2016 when the victim reported to us that Bybe was harassing her.

An internal affairs investigation was launched and quickly revealed that Bybe had befriended the victim after responding to her home for a call for service on October the 21st, 2016.

Bybe began making regular visits to the the victim's home while on and off duty and also introduced the victim to several members of his family.

Detectives learned that Bybey took possession of the victim's dog while she was hospitalized and received a check for $1,000 in the event that the dog had any medical needs while the victim was away.

Bybey deposited the money in his personal bank account and

later

told our detectives that he had re-homed the dog on Craigslist.

On January 23rd, 2017, Frank Bybe was arrested and booked into the Sarasota County Jail and terminated from the Sheriff's Department.

He was charged with attempted murder, kidnapping, battery of a victim 65 years or older, burglary of an occupied dwelling, exploitation of the elderly, grand theft, computer fraud, forgery, and 10 counts of criminal use of personal identification.

And if those charges weren't enough, a week after Bybe was arrested, internal affairs investigators received a tip from a woman concerning new allegations about the former deputy's behavior.

The story took an unexpected turn when a woman contacted the sheriff's office about possible prostitution.

She claimed for years she paid Bybey more than $100,000 for sex and said he'd send her videos of himself performing sex acts inside his patrol car while on duty.

The woman also stated she bought him a camper, gave him $20,000 $20,000 to buy a Jeep, and paid off his $30,000 loan.

While his brothers and sisters on the force were risking their lives trying to protect and serve, Frank Bybe received over $150,000 from some lady to sit in his car and play with his baton.

Not a bad gig, if you can get it, I guess.

But those days were over.

Frank Bybe was now sitting on suicide watch, housed in the medical wing of the Sarasota County Jail, where he was being monitored 24 hours a day.

He slept on a plastic mattress on the floor of the facility under bright overhead lights that never turned off.

He was not allowed reading materials other than the Bible, nor was he allowed to purchase anything from the commissary.

Bybe's lawyers filed a motion in April 2017 alleging that the conditions in which their client was being held were inhumane.

The motion contended that Frank Bybe was not suicidal.

and that he should be treated like a normal inmate.

The state defended their treatment of Bybey, saying it was for his own protection.

After all, a cop is never the most popular person in jail.

Frank Bybe's trial began in September 2017.

After about a week and a half of testimony from Dr.

Lerner, Frank's wife Heike, Detective Cassandra Gaida, who led the investigation, and the victim Marsha Soule, and other experts and witnesses.

The jury deliberated for seven hours before returning with a verdict.

Mr.

Bybey, the jury having rendered a verdict, the court at this time adjudicates you guilty of the crime of kidnapping, exploitation of an elderly person.

Count six, fraudulent use of personal identification information.

Count seven,

fraudulent use of personal identification information.

Count 10, fraudulent personal identification.

Frank Bybe had been convicted of 13 charges, including kidnapping.

He was not convicted of attempted murder.

Judge Donald Mason had strong words for Frank Bybe as he handed out his sentence: quote, Remembrance is the highest compliment you can give a law enforcement officer.

They say he or she is a good cop.

No one can say that about you.

You'll forever be known as a bad cop.

Even with those words, Frank Bybe seemed to get off a bit light.

He was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 10 years of probation.

The state was asking for at least a 70-year sentence.

This is Bybey's defense attorney, Ronald Kerpiers.

You know,

I'm pleased and we're blessed that obviously the jury found him not guilty of the attempted murder.

Certainly if that had been on the table, it would have been a whole different ball game.

But,

you know, 15 years better in life.

You know, not saying that 15 years is what this man wants to do, but he's gone through hell and he will have a very difficult time in custody just because of who he is and what he's done.

You know, when you think about the impact it has on his kids, his boys, and he is extremely close with those three boys.

I mean, they're 16, 12, and 3.

You know, if you just do the math, he's not going to get a chance to see them become young men, and that's devastating.

Although disappointed that Frank Bybey had not been convicted of attempted murder, Assistant State Attorney Karen Fravelig seemed satisfied with the results, and she pointed to the difficulty that Judge Mason, as a former law enforcement officer, must have faced when sentencing a fellow cop, as if it matters.

It was clear that Judge Mason struggled quite a bit in deciding the sentence in this case, and

because

he was former law enforcement himself, he served 30 years in Massachusetts as a cop.

This case was very close to his heart.

I think he gave a very, very just sentence based upon the fact that Bybey, as I said, dishonored his badge and he brought dishonor on all the men and women of our community, both Sarasota Police Department, Sarasota Sheriff's Office that worked so hard.

And the way he victimized this woman was

almost

Machiavellian.

What he did, sending fake emails to her doctor and taking her out of,

essentially taking her out of the community for

14 days,

in which, and he took that time, that 14 days, to steal her money, go into her accounts, essentially go through everything in her home, is

just

reprehensible that law enforcement could do such a thing.

And he will be punished for his acts.

Thank you.

Marshall Soul recovered fully from Frankie Bybey's financial and physical attacks.

Not only were authorities able to recover much of the money stolen from her, they were able to recover her beloved dog, JJ, as well.

The two of them are still in Sarasota, Florida, living out their golden years.

This is Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight.

Wearing a uniform and having a badge is cherished in that if you take it lightly and you could exploit it, you deserve to be Frankie Bybey and taken to state prison.

It's that there's not often that people get the opportunity to wear this badge and wear this uniform and go out and protect people and serve people.

That's what we're supposed to be doing.

It's a fundamental principle of what we do, what I've done for 31 years.

I'm glad he's not wearing the same uniform anymore that I wear and that nearly a thousand people in my sheriff's office wear.

We get a bad cop out of our uniform.

We protect the integrity of the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office on our own with our detectives.

But the losers here are just children, and that's what's really sad about this.

Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with music by Ethan Helfrich.

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Thanks for listening.

People like that you know are capable of doing anything.

And that's where the fear comes in.

A baby put a screwdriver through the skull, and nobody would kill anybody.

So I think everybody was scared to death.

A small little town.

I'm convinced that we were living with a serial killer.

When two people kill together, they form an unbreakable bond.

Instead of prove your loyalty and become a Lord of Death, you have to take a soul and make the ultimate sacrifice.

Lords of Death is the story of two serial killers, the people who let them get away, and the one person who never stopped pursuing the truth.

From Dayton, Ohio, I'm Thrasher Banks.

Lords of Death is available now on Apple Podcasts.

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