Former police officer pawned department’s semi-automatic guns. Now, he’s going to jail.
A former Hallandale Beach police officer, who pawned department equipment including semi-automatic guns, will serve 90 days in jail and four years probation, Broward State Attorney Mike Satz announced Wednesday.
The sentence was negotiated as part of Yan Kleyman’s no-contest plea to the felony charge of dealing in stolen property.
Kleyman, 33, must also pay more than $3,000 in restitution and he will lose his law enforcement license. He is expected to surrender to the Broward County jail system on June 3.
“Today he took responsibility for his actions,” said Kleyman’s attorney, Richard Cooper. “This is one step in his road to personal recovery.”
Cooper said Kleyman, who was hired by Hallandale Beach in 2011 after being fired from Fort Lauderdale Police in 2009 following a gun-pointing incident involving a fellow officer, suffered from a severe gambling addiction and has been in counseling since August. Cooper said the department was aware of Kleyman’s addiction well before his arrest.
In February, Hallandale Beach police chief Sonia Quinones announced that Kleyman had been fired and would face a charge of dealing in stolen property.
Investigators at the time said Kleyman made 15 separate pawn transactions with department-issued equipment including a semiautomatic rifle, semiautomatic pistol and a red-dot laser aim attachment between March 2017 and August 2018.
“The firearms were recovered but two of the laser sights were sold on eBay after Kleyman failed to make payments on time,” the state attorney’s office said Wednesday in a news release.
Cooper called the sentence “a fair resolution.”
“It takes into account his illness,” he said. “It was important to me that he has an opportunity to have a future.”
This story was originally published May 22, 2019 at 8:01 PM.
