DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A Daytona Beach police officer was arrested by her department for fraud Friday. Police said she bought a car using her grandmother's credit.
Officer Claudia Wright has been in the news before. She made headlines when she used a taser to take down a customer at a Best Buy store in 2007. She was in trouble a year ago for interfering in a narcotics investigation. Now she's accused of stealing from her grandmother.
Officer Wright faces three felony charges for fraud and forgery. Charging documents show the crimes happened three years ago, when she went to a Daytona Beach car dealership to buy a Mazda CX-7. Reports show Wright didn't qualify for the $32,000 loan she needed, so investigators say she forged her grandmother's name to get the car.
Wright's grandmother didn't know about the loan until she tried to buy a car of her own this spring and was told her credit was no good.
In a strange twist, the woman that Wright took down with a taser in a Best Buy store nearly three years ago was suspected of credit card fraud. The video of the incident caused controversy because it appeared the shopper was backing away from the officer at the time.
Wright served a 10-day suspension a year ago, after the police chief said she nearly derailed a drug investigation by letting some information slip to the wrong people.
Wright turned herself in and bonded out of jail Friday. The police chief told WFTV he expects she will be fired by the end of the month.
WFTV
