An investigator with the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office stole the credit card information of a dead county resident and used it to dip into his account for $450.
Dozens of other accounts may have been compromised, according to an arrest warrant for Broward Medical Examiner’s Office investigator Darrell Reid. Reid, 38, was arrested Jan. 22 and charged with three counts of criminal use of a dead person’s identification and one count of fraudulent use of a credit card.
Reid’s job as a medical-legal investigator was to document scenes by taking photographs. He did not have contact with victims’ bodies. He was hired April 17 and resigned last Friday, four days after his arrest.
Each charge is a third-degree felony carrying a maximum prison term of five years.
According to the arrest warrant, Reid was among those called to a home in the 9700 block of Westview Drive last Oct. 21. The victim had been dead for more than two weeks.
Three days after the man’s body was discovered, his daughter told police that his account was accessed three times. An investigation tied those three payments, each in the amount of $150, to one CashApp account belonging to Reid and another to his girlfriend.
Reid’s CashApp account listed 25 debit and credit cards as payment sources, according to the arrest report. In addition to the Oct. 21 victim’s card, investigators found two others tied to people who had recently died in Broward County, one last Oct. 30 and the other on Nov. 6.
The November victim’s credit card information was added to Reid’s CashApp account just 90 minutes after Reid was at the dead man’s house, according to the warrant. Reid was not the investigator in the Oct. 30 death, but he did have access to scene photographs that included credit card information, police said.
Police also linked Reid’s CashApp account to the credit card of a man who died in New York City in December 2022, when Reid was an investigator for the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office.
A call to Reid’s defense lawyer was not returned Monday.
Reid’s next court date has not been scheduled. His girlfriend has not been charged.
Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457.