{"id":54696,"date":"2025-03-24T17:06:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T21:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=54696"},"modified":"2025-03-24T17:06:51","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T21:06:51","slug":"polk-county-deputy-arrested-for-forging-victims-signature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/03\/24\/polk-county-deputy-arrested-for-forging-victims-signature\/","title":{"rendered":"Polk County Deputy Arrested For Forging Victim\u2019s Signature"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A former Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office (PCSO) deputy, just shy of his one-year anniversary with the agency, has been arrested for forging a victim\u2019s signature on an official report. Jake Germak, 21, was taken into custody on March 20, 2025, following an internal investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Jake Germak (PCSO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Germak faces multiple felony charges, including Forgery (F3), Uttering a False Instrument (F3), Use ID of another person without Consent (F3), and Public Servant Altering Official Document (F3). He resigned from his position at the time of his arrest; otherwise, he would have been terminated by the PCSO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPublic servants must be held to a higher standard, and dishonesty will not be tolerated. Germak\u2019s conduct was unethical and criminal, and we are making sure he will be held responsible,\u201d said Sheriff Grady Judd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The investigation began after Germak failed to obtain the required signature from a victim during a theft report on March 17th. Later that night, Germak texted the victim, initially requesting she complete a form for the report. In a subsequent text, he told her he had \u201cgot it handled.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following day, during a follow-up investigation, detectives spoke with the victim, who revealed the text messages and stated that Germak had falsely claimed she had signed the documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Detectives discovered that the signature on the document submitted by Germak did not match the victim\u2019s signature on other official documents. When confronted, Germak admitted to forging the signature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germak was hired by the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office on April 29, 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A former Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office (PCSO) deputy, just shy of his one-year anniversary with the agency, has been arrested for forging a victim\u2019s signature on an official report. Jake… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDNcL0pha2UtR2VybWFrLS53ZWJwP2ZpdD02MDAlMkM0NTUmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJQb2xrIENvdW50eSBEZXB1dHkgQXJyZXN0ZWQgRm9yIEZvcmdpbmcgVmljdGltXHUyMDE5cyBTaWduYXR1cmUiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.zPxHDFoQyD3d4Mv1mAiWgi4_FjTLvS1poDCiDsPXW9sMQ"},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[11149],"class_list":["post-54696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-polk-county-deputy-arrested-for-forging-victims-signature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54696"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54698,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54696\/revisions\/54698"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}