FL Fire Captain Accused in Vaccine Theft Turns Himself In
By Jack Evans
Source Tampa Bay Times
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A Polk County Fire Rescue captain accused of stealing doses of a coronavirus vaccine meant for first responders turned himself in to the county jail Wednesday afternoon, authorities said.
Anthony Brian Damiano, 55, faces charges of falsifying an official record as a public servant, a felony, and petit theft, a misdemeanor. Damiano, who has been a captain for 14 of his 17 years with the fire rescue department, was one of two employees implicated in the theft of three vaccine doses, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a press conference Tuesday. The other, decorated paramedic Joshua Colon, accused of covering up Damiano’s theft, was arrested Monday.
On Jan. 6, according to an arrest report, Damiano asked Colon, who had been tasked with vaccinating other first responders, to give him some vaccine doses that he could give to his mother. When Colon refused, Damiano threatened to tell his supervisors that Colon was selling vaccines outside of work, the report said.
Damiano ordered Colon to take a lunch break, according to the report, and when Colon returned, he found that vaccines left in a refrigerator had been tampered with. He feared it was Damiano so rather than report it, he falsified paperwork that suggested the vaccines had been given to first responders.
Discrepancies in the paperwork led fire rescue officials to call deputies, according to the report. They interviewed Colon, who confessed, and monitored a call between him and Damiano, in which Damiano admitted to the theft, deputies said.
Damiano had been called to the western U.S. as part of his role with Florida’s Disaster Medical Assistance Team, according to the report, and was still out of town when deputies began investigating. In his car, parked outside a friend’s house in St. Cloud, they found two doses of the vaccine which were no longer usable.
In a phone call deputies monitored between the friend and Damiano, the captain said he’d stolen vaccine doses for his mother and would be home Tuesday night. He turned himself in at about 2:15 p.m. Wednesday, according to the arrest report.
Deputies also interviewed Damiano’s mother. She said she’d been trying to get on Polk County’s vaccine waiting list, and that her son told her he’d help her get vaccinated. She assumed he’d do so legally.
Damiano’s mother was added to the waiting list on Jan. 12 through the county health department, she told deputies. As of Tuesday, that list was more than 66,000 people long, according to the Lakeland Ledger. If her son intended to give her the vaccine, she never got it.
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