A Bartow police officer has been arrested for having an inappropriate relationship with four teenage girls and sharing explicit videos, according to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd. Markanthony Fernandez, 24, faces multiple felonies and misdemeanors for incidents that occurred during the weekend of February 3, 2024.
Detectives found that Fernandez recorded a video of naked teenage girls in his home and sent it to fellow officers at Bartow PD. The officers reported it to their supervisors, leading to Fernandez’s arrest. Sheriff Judd expressed relief at the arrest, calling Fernandez a “bad guy.”
News conference (May 29, 2024)
Sheriff Grady Judd and Deputy Chief Stephen Walker from Bartow Police Department are providing details of an arrest of a Bartow PD police officer.
Click here to read the news release: https://tinyurl.com/u9mmw7zx
Publicado por Polk County Sheriff’s Office en Miércoles, 29 de mayo de 2024
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The investigation revealed that Fernandez recorded several videos of the teenage girls, two of whom were 18 years old, and the other two were 17 and 16 years old. The videos, shared on Snapchat, showed the girls in various compromising situations. Fernandez also provided them with alcohol, THC vape pens, and gummies.
Fernandez is also accused of choking one of the girls to the point of unconsciousness and touching another inappropriately. These actions took place in his Lake Wales home.
He has been charged with promoting and using a juvenile in a sexual performance, battery by strangulation, illegal use of a communication device, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and providing alcohol to minors. Fernandez was booked at the Polk County Jail and placed under GPS monitoring following a judge’s order.
Fernandez worked for Bartow PD from September 2020 to October 2021, then for the Polk County Sheriff’s Office until December 2022, before returning to Bartow PD. He has been on administrative leave since February, with termination pending based on his arrest.
