A Florida highway trooper was late turning in crash reports. It’s landed him in jail

A Miami Florida Highway Patrol trooper is facing criminal charges after inspectors said he changed the dates on five traffic-accident reports to cover up that he waited too long to turn them in.

Manny Melendez, 26, surrendered Friday afternoon to face five felony counts of official misconduct.

By law, FHP troopers who respond to traffic crashes are supposed to electronically submit their reports to a state database within 10 days of finishing their investigation. The reports include the names of everyone involved, description of the cars involved and names of insurance companies, among other details.

But Melendez waited weeks or months to file his five reports, so he manually changed the dates of the crashes in the computer system, so as not to arouse suspicion that he was turning in reports so late. “The benefit to the defendant in altering the dates of the crashes would be to avoid discipline,” according to a warrant by FHP Inspector Michael Sheehan.

In one case, Melendez responded to a traffic crash on Northwest 160th Street and 27th Avenue on Aug. 30, 2018. That day, he issued three citations to the driver who caused the crash.

But he did not submit his official report until Oct. 9, 2018. So he changed the field in the computer system to report the crash happened on Oct. 2, the warrant said.

He remained in a Miami-Dade jail on Friday evening. It was unclear if he had a lawyer representing him.

This story was originally published June 28, 2019 at 6:07 PM.